patriarch, Latin Patriarcha, Greek Patriarchēs, title used for some Old Testament leaders (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s 12 sons) and, in some Christian churches, a title given to bishops of important sees.
The biblical appellation patriarch appeared occasionally in the 4th century to designate prominent Christian bishops. By the end of the 5th century, however, in the course of growing ecclesiastical centralization, it acquired a specific sense. After the Council of Nicaea in 325, the church structure was patterned on the administrative divisions of the Roman Empire; thus, each civil province was headed by a metropolitan, or bishop of the metropolis (the civil capital of the province), while larger administrative units, called dioceses, were presided over by an exarch of the diocese, a title gradually replaced by patriarch. Some patriarchs exercised authority over several dioceses: the bishop of Rome over the entire West; the bishop of Alexandria over the dioceses of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis; and, after the Council of Chalcedon (451), the bishop of Constantinople over the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace.
Controversy over the growth of major ecclesiastical centres contributed to the schism between East and West. Rome maintained that only apostolic sees, those originally established by apostles, had the right to become patriarchates. The East, however, always took for granted that primacies were based on such empirical factors as the economic and political importance of cities and countries. Constantinople, the new imperial capital and the ecclesiastical centre of the East, had no claims to apostolicity, but new jurisdictional rights were bestowed upon it at Chalcedon (451) for the explicit reason that it was “the residence of the emperor and the Senate.”
Five patriarchates, collectively called the pentarchy, were the first to be recognized by the legislation of the emperor Justinian (reigned 527–565), later confirmed by the Council in Trullo (692); these five were Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, though, after the Muslim invasions of Egypt and Syria in 638–640, the bishops of Rome and Constantinople were alone in possessing any real power. Despite Constantinople’s efforts to resist any proliferation of patriarchates, new centres emerged in the Slavic centres of Preslav (now Veliki Preslav; 932), Trnovo (1234), Peć (1346), and Moscow (1589). At present there are nine Orthodox patriarchates: Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria. Except in the title, there is no difference between a patriarch and any other head of an autocephalous (independent) church.
In Roman Catholicism, especially since the second Vatican Council, some effort has been made to restore the dignity of the Eastern-rite patriarchs as effective signs of collegiality, balancing Roman centralization.