www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem steps down tomorrow

As pointed out repeatedly (Patriarch Maximos IV attempted to raise this matter on the floor of Vatican II) the very existence of a "Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem" is highly questionable. What is it going to require to resolve the situation?

I don't understand why this is even an issue for anyone. In the Western Church we have Patriarchs of Venice, Lisbon, and the East Indies. They are simply titles of honor for historically important archbishops.

However, since the same term "Patriarch" is NOT simply a "title of honor" in the East, I don't understand why the Western Church cannot simply use a different title for those positions.

Also, I think the situation is a bit different in Jerusalam. As part of the Pentarchy, saying a bishop is the "Patriarch of Jerusalem" has deep, and important, implications that are not applicable in Venice, Lisbon, etc.

Precisely. That is the Eastern understanding, not the Western. Tolerance is a two way street.

The West should realize that the Eastern Church used the term "Patriarch" to mean something specific for over 1,000 years before the Western Church used it in a different meaning. This is not a case of both sides using a term concurrently for centuries with different meanings.

Patriarch (Gr. patriarches; Latin patriarcha) means the father or chief of a race (patria, a clan or family). The word occurs in the Septuagint for the chiefs of the tribes (e.g. 1 Chronicles 24:31; 27:22, patriarchai ton phylon; cf. 2 Chronicles 23:20 etc.); in the New Testament (Hebrews 7:4) it is applied to Abraham as a version of his title "father of many nations" (Genesis 17:4), to David (Acts 2:29), and to the twelve sons of Jacob (Acts 7:8-9). This last became the special meaning of the word when used of Scriptural characters. The heads of the tribes were the "Twelve Patriarchs", though the word is used also in a more general sense for the fathers of the Old Law in general, e.g. the invocation in the litany, "All ye holy Patriarchs and Prophets".

Names of Christian dignitaries were in early days taken sometimes from civil life (episkopos, diakonos), sometimes borrowed from the Jews (presbyteros). The name patriarch is one of the latter class. Bishops of special dignity were called patriarchs just as deacons were called levites, because their place corresponded by analogy to those in the Old Law. All such titles became technical terms, official titles, only gradually. At first they were used loosely as names of honour without any strict connotation; but in all such cases the reality existed before any special name was used. There were ecclesiastical dignitaries with all the rights and prerogatives of patriarchs in the first three centuries; but the official title does not occur till later. As a Christian title of honour the word patriarch appears first as applied to Pope Leo I in a letter of Theodosius II (408-50; Mansi, VI, 68). The bishops of the Byzantine jurisdiction apply it to their chief, Acacius (471-89; Evagrius, "H.E.", III, 9). But it was still merely an honourable epithet that might be given to any venerable bishop. St. Gregory of Nazianzus says: "the elder bishops, or more rightly, the patriarchs" (Orat., xlii, 23). Socrates says that the Fathers of Constantinople I (381) "set up patriarchs", meaning apparently metropolitans of provinces (H. E., V, viii). As late as the fifth and sixth centuries Celidonius of Besan�on and Nicetius of Lyons are still called patriarchs (Acta SS., Feb., III, 742; Gregory of Tours, "Hist. Francorum", V, xx).

Gradually then -- certainly from the eighth and ninth centuries -- the word becomes an official title, used henceforth only as connoting a definite rank in the hierarchy, that of the chief bishops who ruled over metropolitans as metropolitans over their suffragan bishops, being themselves subject only to the first patriarch at Rome. During these earlier centuries the name appears generally in conjunction with "archbishop", "archbishop and patriarch", as in the Code of Justinian (Gelzer, "Der Streit �ber den Titel des �kumen. Patriarchen" in "Jahrbuch f�r protest. Theol.", 1887). The dispute about the title �cumenical Patriarch in the sixth century (see JOHN THE FASTER) shows that even then the name was receiving a technical sense. Later medieval and modern developments, schisms, and the creation of titular and so-called "minor" patriarchates have produced the result that a great number of persons now claim the title; but in all cases it connotes the idea of a special rank -- the highest, except among Catholics who admit the still higher papacy.

Judging by the postings, what it will take to resolve the situation is an acceptance that it is improper to give an "honorific title" to people in the Roman tradition when that same title is used only as a genuine rank in the Christian East.

Actual I think the necessity of a Latin Patriarch of Jeruslaem has to do with the Status Quo of the Churches of the Resurrection and the Nativity.

Everyone keeps saying that it is improper, but what no one seems to be saying is why. Should people who hold a degree from a university be offended when their university gives out honorary degrees?