METROPOLITAN

A metropolitan is the chief prelate in an ecclesiastical territory that usually coincided with a civil province.

The metropolitan ranks just below a patriarch and just above an archbishop, except in the contemporary Greek Orthodox Church, where since the 1850s the archbishop ranks above the metropolitan. The term derives from the Greek word for the capital of a province where the head of the episcopate resides. The first evidence of its use to designate a Churchman's rank was in the Council of Nicaea (325 c.e.) decision, which declared (canon 4; cf. canon 6) the right of the metropolitan to confirm episcopal appointments within his jurisdiction.

A metropolitan was first appointed to head the Rus Church in 992. Subsequent metropolitans of Kiev and All Rus resided in Kiev until 1299 when Metropolitan Maxim (1283–1305) moved his residence to Vladimir-on-the-Klyazma. His successor, Peter (1308–1326), began residing unofficially in Moscow. The next metropolitan, Feognost (1328–1353), made the move to Moscow official. A rival metropolitan was proposed by the grand duke of Lithuania, Olgerd, in 1354, and from then until the 1680s there was a metropolitan residing in western Rus with a rival claim to heading the metropoly of Kiev and all Rus.

Until 1441, the metropolitans of Rus were appointed in Constantinople. From 1448 until 1589, the grand prince or tsar appointed the metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus following nomination by the council of bishops. When the metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus was raised to the status of patriarch in 1589, the existing archbishops—those of Novgorod, Rostov, Kazan, and Sarai—were elevated to metropolitans. The Council of 1667 elevated four other archbishops—those of Astrakhan, Ryazan, Tobolsk, and Belgorod—to metropolitan status. After the abolition of the patriarchate in 1721 by Peter I, no metropolitans were appointed until the reign of Elizabeth, when metropolitans were appointed for Kiev (1747) and Moscow (1757). Under Catherine II, a third metropolitan—for St. Petersburg—was appointed (1783). In 1917, the patriarchate of Moscow was reestablished and various new metropolitanates created so that by the 1980s there were twelve metropolitans in the area encompassed by the Soviet Union.

See also: patriarchate; russian orthodox church

bibliography

Ellis, Jane. (1986). The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History. London: Croom Helm.

Fennell, John. (1995). History of the Russian Church to 1448. London: Longman.

Preobrazhensky, Alexander, ed. (1998). The Russian Orthodox Church: Tenth to Twentieth Centuries. Moscow: Progress.

Donald Ostrowski