Stories of the Early Church. Level of governance: metropolitan
The development of the Early Church’s administrative system gave rise to the institution of metropolitanates. How was the balance maintained between conciliar freedom and the authority of the presiding bishop?
The previous article discussed how a small Christian community headed by a bishop gradually developed into an eparchy encompassing numerous urban and rural parishes. The next stage was the emergence of the metropolitanate, which united several eparchies.
Administratively, the Church developed toward greater centralization. Yet paradoxically, the rise of metropolitans, and later patriarchs, grew out of something seemingly opposite – conciliarity.
The need for a conciliar center
In the second and third centuries, the Christian world consisted of numerous administratively independent communities, and later eparchies, each governed by a bishop. The clergy and people usually participated in his election, while bishops of neighboring Churches performed his consecration. At the same time, however, questions began to arise that went beyond the boundaries of any single eparchy.
Who should consecrate a new bishop? Who should judge a hierarch accused of wrongdoing? How should disputes between neighboring bishops be resolved? How should heresies spreading beyond the boundaries of individual eparchies be confronted?
The logical solution was to gather the bishops of a particular region and resolve such matters together. This was entirely consistent with apostolic tradition. But a whole range of practical and organizational questions immediately arose. Who would announce the gathering and summon its participants? Where would they stay? Who would pay the expenses? Who would preside over the discussions at the council? And, finally, who would ensure that the decisions adopted there were actually implemented?
All these responsibilities naturally fell to the bishop of the region’s most important city. This is how the concept of the metropolitanate and its chief bishop – the metropolitan – emerged.
Church historian Professor A. Lebedev gives the following example. At the end of the second century, a dispute arose over the celebration of Pascha. During the controversy, Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus convened the bishops of Asia Minor and, expressing their common position, wrote a letter to Bishop Victor of Rome. This was not yet the definitive establishment of the metropolitanate as an administrative unit of the Church, but it marked an important step toward establishing the primacy of the Bishop of Ephesus.
It is impossible to give an exact date for the emergence of metropolitanates. The word “metropolitan” itself does not occur in sources from the second and third centuries and first appears in Canon 4 of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325). Yet the Council of Nicaea did not establish a new office – it referred to it as something already familiar.
The authority of the empire’s principal cities
The title “metropolitan” comes from the word “metropolis” – the principal city of a Roman province. Such cities were home to the civil administration, served as major crossroads and had postal connections. As a rule, the Christian community in a Roman metropolis was larger than those of neighboring cities, as well as wealthier and better educated. It possessed the personnel, material, financial and other resources needed to organize and hold councils. And most often, it was the bishop of the principal city who presided over them.
Initially, the influence of the community in the metropolis rested on its missionary and moral authority. Younger communities received books, clergy, advice and assistance from it in the consecration of bishops. Gradually, however, this authority began to assume administrative forms as well.
Canon 9 of the Council of Antioch of 341 states: “The bishops of every metropolitan province must know the bishop who presides in the metropolis, and he must undertake the care of the whole province, because all who have business come from all quarters to the metropolis...”
This does not mean that an ecclesiastical metropolitanate necessarily arose in parallel with a civil metropolis. Other factors also played a role, including the antiquity and origins of a particular community, the authority of individual bishops and so forth. In some cases, the bishop who had been consecrated earliest became the presiding bishop of the region. In such cases, the administrative center would continually shift, but eventually it would still become established in the principal city of the region.
The limits of the chief bishop’s authority
By the fourth century, the metropolitan’s powers had been given canonical form.
Canon 4 of the First Ecumenical Council (325) states: “It is by all means proper that a bishop should be appointed by all the bishops in the metropolitan province. <...> But the confirmation of what is done in each province should be left to the metropolitan.” Canon 6 of the same Council clarified that a bishop consecrated without the metropolitan’s consent was not to be regarded as a legitimate bishop.
The metropolitan convened regional councils and presided over them. He participated in the trial of bishops, represented the region in relations with other Churches and oversaw the implementation of conciliar decisions.
At the same time, the metropolitan could not independently govern other bishops’ eparchies, appoint clergy there or depose a bishop single-handedly. His authority was exercised within the council.
Apostolic Canon 34 states: “The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head... But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all.” Here we see a system of mutual restraint: the bishops were not to decide matters of common concern without the first, while the first was not to take the place of the bishops.
The metropolitan was not a bishop over bishops. His primacy was not a personal privilege; it was exercised in matters concerning the region as a whole and was inseparably connected with the council of bishops.
The struggle for canonical territories
The boundaries of metropolitanates often coincided with those of civil provinces, but changes to the political map did not always automatically alter the ecclesiastical one. Moreover, successful Christian missionary activity originating in a particular city did not stop at provincial borders but continued beyond them. This created fertile ground for later conflicts as the concept of canonical territory began to take shape.
The best-known early example of such a conflict is the dispute between Basil the Great and Bishop Anthimus of Tyana. After Cappadocia was divided administratively, Tyana became the capital of a new province, and Anthimus demanded the corresponding metropolitan rights. Seeking to preserve the former boundaries of the Metropolitanate of Caesarea, Basil began establishing episcopal sees in the disputed territory and, among other things, appointed his friend Gregory the Theologian as bishop of the tiny town of Sasima – something Gregory strongly resisted.
Gregory believed he had been turned into a pawn in an administrative struggle. He wrote to Basil that he did not want to be “a bone thrown among dogs” and lamented that faith was becoming a weapon in private quarrels.
Each was right in his own way: Basil was defending the historic rights of his see, while Anthimus relied on the new civil administrative structure. In the end, two Christian bishops fought – even to the point of physical clashes – over property, power, territory and revenues from Christian communities.
Metropolitans of neighboring regions were originally not subordinate to one another. The Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (381) prohibited hierarchs from intruding into other ecclesiastical regions and ruled that the affairs of each metropolitanate should be governed by its own council.
Protection against spiritual arbitrary rule
The Early Church did not oppose metropolitanates as such. Yet a whole series of canonical texts reveals an effort to prevent administrative primacy from being transformed into a distinct degree of priesthood or into unconditional authority of metropolitans over bishops. And the very existence of such rules indicates that the danger was real.
As early as the third century, Cyprian of Carthage, who himself presided over African councils, declared that no one should set himself up as a “bishop of bishops” or compel his fellow bishops to obedience through fear.
The African Code, approved by the Council of Carthage in 419, prohibited the bishop of the first see from being called “Exarch of Priests” or “Supreme Priest.” He remained first in the order of administration but received no “additional” episcopal grace.
The Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus (431) defended Cyprus against the claims of the See of Antioch and ruled that a bishop must not seize a territory that had not previously been under the authority of his predecessors. The Council warned that, under the guise of sacred ministry, the arrogance of secular power could creep into the Church.
The Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon (451) prohibited bishops from seeking the emperor’s intervention to divide an ecclesiastical region in order to obtain the title of metropolitan. A city’s designation by the state as a metropolis did not in itself give its bishop authority over neighboring sees.
The beginning of a new level of centralization
The metropolitan system of governance arose from the natural need to coordinate the actions of several bishops and resolve issues extending beyond the boundaries of their individual eparchies. The metropolitan’s primacy emerged as a necessary condition for putting the principle of conciliarity into practice. His powers derived from the council and were exercised within the context of the council of bishops, although they extended beyond the actual duration of its sessions.
Over time, however, the conciliar principle began to recede into the background, while centralized administrative authority grew stronger. This often led to various abuses.
Meanwhile, the Church continued to grow, and before long some metropolitans began to rise above other metropolitans. By the fourth and fifth centuries, certain ancient and politically significant sees had acquired influence over several metropolitanates at once. Above the regional primates, a new level of ecclesiastical authority began to emerge – the patriarchal level. That will be the subject of the next installment of Stories of the Early Church.
