Church-Administrative Connotation of the Term “Exarch of a Diocese” in the Ninth and Seventeenth Canons of the Council of Chalcedon and the Issue of Jurisdiction in Cases against a Metropolitan

Abstract

The paper addresses the term “exarch of a diocese” (ἔξαρχος τῆς διοικήσεως), for the first time attested in the acts of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon (451 AD), in the ninth and seventeenth canons of this Council, which documented the prerogatives of the “exarchs of dioceses” and of the patriarch of Constantinople’s see as the courts of appeal for the cases against metropolitans. In order to clarify the meaning of this term, the author has undertaken a study of the use of the term “exarch” as an indication of an archpriest. It turns out that already in the Byzantine period there was no exact understanding of what it meant, as it appeared from the contradictory opinions of the twelfth century canonists in regard to this subject. Another objective of this paper is to clarify the term “diocese” as applied to the church-administrative sphere. Further, the author makes an attempt to trace the reception of these Chalcedonian canons in the Byzantine church legislation. The conclusion is that the term “exarch of the diocese” should be understood in the context of the revision of a number of cases concerning the disputes of the metropolitans, in which the patriarch of Constantinople was involved, at the Council of Chalcedon. The analysis of these cases and of a number of canons of the first ecumenical councils is intended to illustrate the concept of the ecclesiastical head of the diocese, with the “diocese” turning out to be a state-administrative term. Subsequently, the term “exarch” was used in different church-administrative contexts in the period when the dioceses as state-administrative units had already ceased to exist. The term “patriarch of the diocese” repeatedly occurred in Justinian’s legislation, where it should be considered a parallel to the “exarch of a diocese” of the Chalcedonian canons. This legislation also provides the solution to the problem of the double jurisdiction of the cases against metropolitans.