metropolitan, in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches, the head of an ecclesiastical province. Originally, a metropolitan was a bishop of the Christian Church who resided in the chief city, or metropolis, of a civil province of the Roman Empire and, for ecclesiastical purposes, administered a territorial area coextensive with a civil province. The first known use of the title in church conciliar documents was at the Council of Nicaea in 325, which definitely established the metropolitan in the organization of the church.
Following the general pattern of civil government, the expanding church created ecclesiastical provinces, each headed by a metropolitan, who was assisted by his suffragan bishops, each of whom headed a diocese within the province. This system has continued substantially unchanged. The metropolitan convokes and presides at provincial synods, and he takes the chief part, assisted by his suffragans, in the consecration of bishops.
In Slavic-speaking Orthodox churches the title metropolitan is used to designate heads of autocephalous churches and a few important episcopal sees; in Greek-speaking Orthodox churches it is given to all diocesan bishops, as distinct from their auxiliaries. In Western medieval Roman Catholicism, especially since the 9th century, the rights of the metropolitans gradually disappeared in the framework of papal centralization. The title archbishop, conferred by popes on metropolitans of particular note, took on connotations of spiritual authority, and the title metropolitan came to be regarded as being particularly associated with temporal authority. The distinction still remains in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of England the titles are synonymous. See also archbishop.