Ametropolis,metropolitanate ormetropolitan diocese is anepiscopal see whosebishop is themetropolitan bishop orarchbishop of anecclesiastical province. Metropolises, historically, have been important cities in their provinces.
In theEastern Orthodox Churches, a metropolis (also calledmetropolia[1] ormetropolitanate) is a type ofdiocese, along witheparchies,exarchates andarchdioceses.
In the churches ofGreek Orthodoxy, every diocese is a metropolis, headed by a metropolitan whileauxiliary bishops are the only non-metropolitan bishops.
In non-Greek Orthodox churches, mainly Slavic Orthodox, the title of Metropolitan is given to the heads ofautocephalous churches or of a few importantepiscopal sees.[2]
In theLatin Church, or Western Church, of theCatholic Church, a metropolitan see is the chiefepiscopal see of anecclesiastical province. Itsordinary is ametropolitan archbishop and the see itself is anarchdiocese. It has at least onesuffragan diocese.
There are very few suffragan sees that have the rank of archdiocese, such as theArchdiocese of Avignon that is a suffragan of theArchdiocese of Marseille.[3] Other non-metropolitan archdioceses are directly subject to theHoly See and are merely "aggregated" to an ecclesiastical province, without being part of it.
In theEastern Catholic Churches, ametropolitanate is an autonomous church of a lower category than thepatriarchal and themajor archiepiscopal churches and is headed by a single metropolitan of a fixedepiscopal see.[4][5]
The Romanian Orthodox Church in the Americas is organized as aMetropolia having as its name: "TheRomanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas" (hereinafter "Metropolia") with its See in Chicago, IL, USA.