TheNotitiae Episcopatuum (singular:Notitia Episcopatuum) were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of themetropolitan andsuffraganbishoprics of a church.
In theRoman Church (the mostlyLatin Rite 'Western Patriarchate' of Rome),archbishops andbishops were classed according to the seniority of their consecration, and in Africa according to their age. In the Eastern patriarchates, however, the hierarchical rank of each bishop was determined by the see he occupied.
Thus, in thePatriarchate of Constantinople, the first Metropolitan was not the longest ordained, but whoever happened to be the incumbent of the See ofCaesarea; the second was theArchbishop of Ephesus, and so on. In every ecclesiastical province, the rank of each Suffragan (see) was thus determined, and remained unchanged unless the list was subsequently modified.
The hierarchical order included first of all the Patriarch; then the 'greater Metropolitans', i.e., those who had archdioceses with suffragan sees; next 'Autocephalous Metropolitans', who had no suffragans, and were directly subject to the Patriarch; next other Archbishops, although not functionally differing from autocephalous metropolitans, whose sees occupied hierarchical rank inferior to theirs, and were also immediately dependent on the Patriarch; then 'simple', i.e. exempt bishops, neither Archbishop nor suffragan; and lastly suffragan bishops, who depended on a (Greater) Metropolitan Archbishopric.
It is not known by whom this very ancient order was established, but it is likely that, in the beginning, metropolitan sees and simple exempt bishoprics must have been classified according to the date of their respective foundations, this order being modified later on for political and religious considerations.
The principal documents (by church) are :
All these Notitiae are published in:
The later works are only more or less modified copies of the Notitia of Leo VI, and therefore do not present the true situation, which was profoundly changed by theIslamic invasions of the region. After the capture of Constantinople by theTurks in 1453, another Notitia was written, portraying the real situation (Gelzer,Ungedruckte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum 613–37), and on it are based nearly all those that have been written since. The termSyntagmation is now used by theGreeks for these documents.
The only knownNotitia episcopatuum for theChurch of Antioch is that drawn up in the sixth century byPatriarch Anastasius (see Vailhe inÉchos d'Orient, X, pp. 90–101, 139–145, 363–8).
ThePatriarchate of Jerusalem has no such document, nor has that ofAlexandria, although for the latter Gelzer has collected documents that may help remedy the deficiency (Byzantische Zeitschrift, II, 23–40). De Rougé (Géographie ancienne de la Basse-Egypte, Paris, 1891, 151–61) has published aCoptic document that has not yet been studied. For theBulgarian Church of Achrida, see Gelzer,Byzantische Zeitschrift, II, 40–66, andDer Patriarchat von Achrida (Leipzig, 1902). Other churches having Notitiae areCypriot Orthodox Church,Serbian Orthodox Church,Russian Orthodox Church andGeorgian Orthodox Church.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Vailhé, Siméon (1911). "Notitiae Episcopatuum". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.