Exarch

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(GreekExarchos).

A title used in various senses both civilly and ecclesiastically.

In the civil administration of the Roman Empire the exarch was the governor or viceroy of any large and important province. The best-known case is that of the Exarch ofItaly, who, after the defeat of theGoths, ruled fromRavenna (552-751) in the name of the emperor at Constantinople. Inecclesiastical language an exarch was at first, ametropolitan whosejurisdiction extended beyond his own (metropolitical) province, over othermetropolitans. Thus, as late as the time of theCouncil of Chalcedon (451), thepatriarchs are still called exarchs (can. ix). When the name "patriarch" became the official one for the Bishops ofRome, Alexandria, Antioch (and later of Constantinople andJerusalem), the other title was left as the proper style of themetropolitans who ruled over the three remaining (political)dioceses ofDiocletian's division of the Eastern Prefecture namely the Exarchs ofAsia (at Ephesus) of Cappadocia andPontus (at Caesarea), and of Thrace (atHeraclea). The advance of Constantinople put an end to these exarchates, which fell back to the state of ordinarymetropolitan sees (Fortescue, Orth.Eastern Church, 21-25). But the title of exarch was still occasionally used for anymetropolitan (so atSardica in 343, can. vi). Since the use of all these titles became gradually fixed with definite technical meanings, that of exarch has disappeared in the West, being replaced by the names "Apostolic vicar" and then "primate". A few cases, such as that of theArchbishop ofLyons, whom theEmperor Frederick I named Exarch ofBurgundy in 1157, are rare exceptions.

InEastern Christendom an exarch is abishop who holds a place between that of patriarch and that of ordinarymetropolitan. The principle is that, since no addition may be made to the sacred number of fivepatriarchs, anybishop who is independent of any one of these five should be called an exarch. Thus, since theChurch ofCyprus was declared autocephalous (at Ephesus in 431), itsprimate receives the title of Exarch ofCyprus. The short-livedmedieval Churches of Ipek (for Servia), Achrida (forBulgaria) Tirnova (for Rumania), were governed by exarchs though theseprelates occasionally usurped the title of patriarch (Forteseue, Orth.Eastern Church, 305 sq. 317 sq., 328 sq.). On the same principle theArchbishop ofMount Sinai is an exarchy though in this case as in that ofCyprus modern Orthodox usage generally prefers the (to them) unusual title,"archbishop" (Archiepiskopos). When theBulgarians constituted their national Church (1870), not quite daring to call its head a patriarch, they made him an exarch. TheBulgarian exarch, who resides at Constantinople, is the most famous of allpersons who bear the title now. Because of it his adherents throughoutMacedonia are called exarchists (as opposed to the Greek patriarchists). It was an inaccurate use of this title when Peter the Great, after abolishing the Patriarchate ofMoscow (1702), for twenty years before he founded the Russian Holy Directing Synod, appointed a vice-gerent with the title of exarch as president of a temporary governing commission. SinceRussia destroyed the old independent Georgian Church (1802) thePrimate of Georgia (always a Russian) sits in the Holy Synod at St. Petersburg with the title of Exarch of Georgia (Fortescue, Orth.Eastern Church, 304-305). Lastly, the third officer of the court of thePatriarch of Constantinople, who examines marriage cases (ourdefensor matrimonii), is called the exarch (ibid., 349).

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