www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall map of pentrarchy as it originally appeared under justinian

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._of_the_4_Eastern_Churches_rectified.jpg

most interesting is how modern greece is under rome, wasnt apparently until the 8th century that Byzantine laws placed it under the ecumenical patriarch

Thanks; quite interesting. I'm reading the map differently, though, as showing the color-coded 4 Eastern Patriarchates. They are each named explicitly while there is no mention of Rome. It is Jerusalem, then, that also has a small portion of north Africa, "Greece", and southern Italy.

pink if confusingly used for both rome and jerusalem - but jerusalem was limited roughly to judea which is modern southern israel, so everything pink outside of that area is rome's territory

Libya and the rest of north africa has always been part of the latin church and after researching after i found this map it was Emporer Leo III who transfered modern Greece (and Sicilly) to the Ecumenical Patriachate because of Rome's opposition to his iconoclasm http://www.pantanassa.co.za/theological-matters/orthodoxy_timeline_in_greece

That Rome was considered a patriarchate in Rome itself is seen by the letters written by Pope Gregory the Great (the same in which he rejects the title of "Ecumenical Pontiff") to the other four, in which he refers to them as "in dignity, my brothers, in faith my fathers".

All bishops are equal in the episcopal dignity. All are direct heirs to the Holy Apostles.

Alexis

But, as they say in Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others. In an honor-based society, such as the Roman and Byzantine Empires, one's auctoritas was not juridical, but based upon one's prestige and reputation. The prestige and reputation of the Church in certain great cities--Rome, Alexandria, Antioch--was greater than that of the others, because of their wealth, their missionary activities, their theological and moral leadership. Other Churches looked to them, and considered them to be their Mother Churches, their bishops to be spiritual fathers or Patriarchs. Later, Constantinople was added to the list because of the widely held belief that civil and ecclesiastical organization should parallel each other. As Constantinople was New Rome and capital of the Empire (along with Old Rome), so the Church of Constantinople should be equal in precedence with Old Rome, just as it says in Canon 20 of Chalcedon.

Libya and the rest of north africa has always been part of the latin church

True to the extent that the Church of Africa (centered around Carthage) was one of the Latin-speaking Churches, along with the Church of Rome, the Church of Spain, and the Church of Gaul. But Africa, Spain, Gaul and even the Church of Milan, did not consider themselves to be suffragans of the Church of Rome, and strongly resisted attempts to impose on their independence. This is particularly true of the Church of Africa--a real theological powerhouse that produced Tertullian, Cyprian and Augustine--in comparison with which Rome was very much an intellectual and theological backwater. Who knows what would have happened had the Vandals not overrun Africa in the mid-5th century, and if imperial control over Gaul, Spain and Northern Italy had not collapsed shortly thereafter. We might very well have found the West divided into two or three Patriarchal Churches, instead of just one, which certainly would have gone far to relativize the position of the Church of Rome, and placed a limit over the claims it made on its own behalf. The rise in papal perquisites parallels the decline of the Western Empire and the other great Churches of the West. Nature abhors a vacuum; so, too, does politics. Into the vacuum created by the demise of the Western Empire the Church of Rome was the only institution remaining with the prestige needed to fill the void. Some might say it went to Rome's head.