Autocephali (Catholic Encyclopedia article)
Thomas Shahan · 1913
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Description
Autocephali, from a Greek word for independent, was a name in early Christian times for certain bishops who answered to no patriarch or metropolitan. They answered directly to the triennial provincial synod or to the Apostolic See. Only those tribunals could judge them for heresy or grave offenses. Such were the bishops of Cyprus, of Iberia and Armenia into the age of Photius, of Britain before St Augustine came, and for a while of Ravenna.
The spread of patriarchal authority shrank their number over time. Similar bishops in the patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch answered directly to the patriarch of their civil diocese, owing nothing to their local metropolitans. They resembled the modern exempt bishops under Rome. The oldest list of them stands in the ninth-century Notitia of Leo the Wise, where they rank as archbishops and metropolitans without suffragans.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Thomas Shahan |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 1913 |
| COLLECTION | REFERENCE |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 1 KB |
| LICENSE | PUBLIC_DOMAIN |
| RIGHTS | PUBLIC DOMAIN |
| SOURCE | New Advent — Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) |