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Pentarchy (from the Greek Πενταρχία, Pentarchía, from πέντε pénte, "five", and ἄρχειν archein, "to rule") was a model of Church organization formulated in the laws of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565) of the Roman Empire. In this model, the Christian Church is governed by the heads (patriarchs) of the five major episcopal sees of the Roman Empire: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.[3]
The idea came about because of the political and ecclesiastical prominence of these five sees, but the concept of their universal and exclusive authority was attached to earlier Hellenistic-Christian ideas of administration.[4] The pentarchy was first legally expressed in the legislation of Emperor Justinian I, particularly in Novella 131.[5] The Quinisext Council of 692 gave it formal recognition and ranked the sees in order of preeminence, but its organization remained dependent on the emperor, as when Leo the Isaurian altered the boundary of patriarchal jurisdiction between Rome and Constantinople.[6][7] Especially following Quinisext, the pentarchy was at least philosophically accepted in Eastern Orthodoxy, but generally not in the West, which rejected the Council, and the concept of the pentarchy.[8]
The greater authority of these sees in relation to others was tied to their political and ecclesiastical prominence; all were located in important cities and regions of the Roman Empire and were important centers of the Christian Church. Rome, Alexandria and Antioch were prominent from the time of early Christianity, while Constantinople came to the fore upon becoming the imperial residence in the 4th century. Thereafter it was consistently ranked just after Rome. Jerusalem received a ceremonial place due to the city's importance in the early days of Christianity. Justinian and the Quinisext Council excluded from their pentarchical arrangement churches outside the empire, such as the then-flourishing Church of the East in Sassanid Persia, which they saw as heretical. Within the empire they recognized only the Chalcedonian (or Melkite) incumbents, regarding as illegitimate the non-Chalcedonian claimants of Alexandria and Antioch.
Infighting among the sees, and particularly the rivalry between Rome (which considered itself preeminent over all the church) and Constantinople (which came to hold sway over the other Eastern sees and which saw itself as equal to Rome, with Rome "first among equals"), prevented the pentarchy from ever becoming a functioning administrative reality. The Islamic conquests of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch in the 7th century left Constantinople the only practical authority in the East, and afterward the concept of a "pentarchy" retained little more than symbolic significance.
Tensions between East and West, which culminated in the East–West Schism, and the rise of powerful, largely independent metropolitan sees and patriarchates outside the Byzantine Empire in Bulgaria, and later in Serbia, also Russia, eroded the importance of the old imperial sees. Today, only the sees of Rome and of Constantinople still hold authority over an entire major Christian Church, the first being the head of the Catholic Church and the second having symbolic hegemony over the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- ^ Geanakoplos, Deno John (1984). Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes. University of Chicago Press. p. 203. ISBN 9780226284613.
- ^ A. P. Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 308
- ^ "Pentarchy". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
The proposed government of universal Christendom by five patriarchal sees under the auspices of a single universal empire. Formulated in the legislation of the emperor Justinian I (527–65), especially in his Novella 131 (De regulis ecclesiasticis etc., caput III), the theory received formal ecclesiastical sanction at the Council in Trullo (692), which ranked the five sees as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
- ^ "How". 2006-05-25. Archived from the original on 2006-05-25. Retrieved 2021-08-11.
- ^ https://droitromain.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/Corpus/Nov131.htm ; "sancimus secundum earum [scil. a sanctis quattuor conciliis] definitiones sanctissimum senioris Romae papam primum esse omnium sacerdotum, beatissimum autem archiepiscopum Constantinopoleos Novae Romae secundum habere locum post sanctam apostolicam sedem senioris Romae, aliis autem omnibus sedibus praeponatur."; "we order that, according what decided by them [the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon] the pope of Rome shall be the first of all priests, then the very blessed archbishop of Constantinople New Rome shall have the second place after the holy, senior apostolic seat of Rome, by them all other seats shall be outranked."
- ^ Chamber's Encyclopaedia (Lippincott 1877), p. 92
- ^ The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV, p. 246
- ^ "Quinisext Council". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 14 February 2010. "The Western Church and the Pope were not represented at the council. Justinian, however, wanted the Pope as well as the Eastern bishops to sign the canons. Pope Sergius I (687–701) refused to sign, and the canons were never fully accepted by the Western Church".