patriarch

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patriarch Head of a family or tribe, invested in certain circumstances with the status or authority of a religious leader. In the Old Testament, the term referred either to the ancestors of the human race who lived on Earth before the Flood (as recorded in Genesis 1–11) or more commonly to the ancestors of the ancient Israelites, namely: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob's 12 sons (Genesis 12–50). Since about the 4th century ad, the word has also been used as an ecclesiastic title for a few exalted bishops in the Eastern Christian Church, who rule over large dioceses known as patriarchates.

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