The Orthodox communion is made up of local Churches, each gathered around her bishop, which are organized into larger regional bodies. Some of these bodies are called patriarchates, and their presiding bishop bears the title of patriarch (in Alexandria, „pope and patriarch”; in Georgia, „catholicos-patriarch”). The title is a matter of history and rank, not of a different priesthood: every patriarch is a bishop among bishops, the bishop of his own city, and the first in the synod of his region. In the words of the Catechism, „the primate is thus first in the synod, not over it.”1
This article presents the four ancient patriarchates and the patriarchates of later centuries, in the traditional order of the diptychs. A general explanation of how the Orthodox Churches are organized is given in the article The Orthodox Church Worldwide.
The ancient patriarchates
The early councils recognized the „ancient customs” by which certain great sees presided over the Churches of their regions. The First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325) confirmed the privileges of Alexandria, Antioch and Rome; the Second (Constantinople, 381) gave the bishop of Constantinople the second place after Rome; and the Fourth (Chalcedon, 451) confirmed the prerogatives of Constantinople and recognized the see of Jerusalem as a patriarchate. Together with Rome, these sees formed what later centuries called the „pentarchy.”2
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
The church of Byzantium traces its origin to the preaching of the Apostle Andrew. After Constantine made the city the capital of the empire in 330, its bishop rose in rank until the councils of 381 and 451 placed him immediately after the bishop of Rome. Since the schism of 1054, the Ecumenical Patriarch has held the first place in the Orthodox communion: he is first named in the diptychs, presides in honor, and convenes and coordinates common Orthodox action. As the Catechism states, he „is not an ‘Eastern pope'”; he possesses no universal jurisdiction and cannot intervene in the internal life of the other autocephalous Churches.3
The Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa
The church of Alexandria traces her foundation to the Evangelist Mark. Her bishop was called „pope” (papas, father) from the third century, long before the title was reserved in the West to the bishop of Rome, and the Council of Nicaea confirmed his authority over Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis.4 Alexandria gave the Church St Athanasius the Great and St Cyril, the defenders of the faith at Nicaea and Ephesus. After the schism that followed Chalcedon, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria remained a small community for many centuries; in modern times, its missions have spread across the whole African continent, which its title now embraces.
The Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East
It was at Antioch that „the disciples were first called Christians” (Act 11:26), and the church there received the preaching of the Apostles Peter and Paul. St Ignatius, one of her first bishops, gave the Church the earliest witness to the ministry of the bishop in each church. Antioch was the mother church of a vast region and of a great liturgical tradition; St John Chrysostom was one of her presbyters before he became archbishop of Constantinople. Since the fourteenth century, the patriarch has resided in Damascus, and the Patriarchate today embraces Syria, Lebanon and neighboring lands, with dioceses throughout the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
The Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Jerusalem is the mother of all the Churches, the place of the Lord’s death and resurrection and of the descent of the Holy Spirit. Her first bishop was James, the brother of the Lord (Act 15; Gal 1:19). For several centuries, Jerusalem depended on the metropolitan of Caesarea; her patriarchal rank was recognized at the Council of Chalcedon. The Patriarchate today has jurisdiction in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, and is the guardian of the holy places, with the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher. The ancient monastery of St Catherine at Sinai forms an autonomous Church under her care.
The later patriarchates
The Patriarchate of Moscow and All Russia
The Russian Church was born of the baptism of the people of Kiev under St Vladimir in 988, as a metropolia of the Church of Constantinople. After the Council of Florence, the bishops of Moscow elected their own metropolitan in 1448 without seeking confirmation from Constantinople, and in 1589 Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople consecrated Job as the first patriarch of Moscow, a status confirmed by the Eastern patriarchs in the following years. Peter the Great abolished the patriarchate in 1721 and replaced it with a Holy Synod; it was restored by the Council of Moscow in 1917. The Patriarchate of Moscow is today the largest of the Orthodox Churches in number of faithful.
The Patriarchate of Serbia
St Sava obtained the autocephaly of the Serbian Church in 1219 and became her first archbishop. The Serbian archbishopric was raised to a patriarchate, with its see at Peć, in 1346. Abolished under Ottoman rule in 1766, the patriarchate was restored in 1920, when the Serbian dioceses were reunited after the First World War. Its see is now in Belgrade.
The Patriarchate of Romania
Orthodox Christianity in the Romanian lands goes back to the first centuries, and the Churches of Wallachia and Moldavia flourished for centuries under their own metropolitans. After the union of the two principalities, the Romanian Church declared her autocephaly, which Constantinople recognized in 1885. She was raised to the rank of patriarchate in 1925, with her see in Bucharest.
The Patriarchate of Bulgaria
The Bulgarian people received baptism under Prince Boris I in the ninth century, and the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius gave them the liturgy in the Slavonic language. Constantinople recognized a Bulgarian patriarchate in 927, and the patriarchate was restored at Tarnovo in 1235, before being suppressed under Ottoman rule. In 1870, the Bulgarian Exarchate was established by the Ottoman government; Constantinople declared it schismatic in 1872, and the schism was healed only in 1945. The patriarchate was restored in 1953 and recognized by Constantinople in 1961. Its see is in Sofia.
The Patriarchate of Georgia
Georgia received the faith through the preaching of St Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles, in the fourth century, and the Georgian Church became self-governing within the Patriarchate of Antioch in the fifth century. Her primate bears the ancient title of catholicos-patriarch. Her autocephaly was suppressed by the Russian Empire in 1811 and restored in 1917; Constantinople recognized it, together with the patriarchal title, in 1990.
Other autocephalous Churches
The other autocephalous Churches are not patriarchates, but they are fully equal members of the communion: the Church of Cyprus, whose independence was confirmed by the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431); the Church of Greece; the Churches of Poland, Albania, and the Czech Lands and Slovakia; and the autocephalies of recent times, the Orthodox Church in America and the Macedonian Orthodox Church (Archbishopric of Ohrid), together with the disputed situation in Ukraine.5 Their primates bear the title of archbishop or metropolitan.
Many patriarchs, one episcopate
Whatever their titles, the patriarchs, archbishops and metropolitans of the Orthodox Churches share „the one episcopate, which is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”6 Their titles express an order of honor and service that belongs to the good order of the Church, not to her being; the being of the Church is found in each local church, gathered around her bishop at the one Eucharist.7 When the primates commemorate one another in the Divine Liturgy, we hear the confession of this unity: many churches, one Church.
Notes
- Laurent Cleenewerck de Kiev, The Catechism of the Orthodox Christian Faith: A Revised and Expanded Catechism of the Orthodox Faith, pre-release ed. (2026), Study: The Structure of the Orthodox Communion.
- Nicaea I, canon 6; Constantinople I, canon 3; Chalcedon, canon 28.
- Cleenewerck de Kiev, Catechism, Study: The Structure of the Orthodox Communion; Laurent Cleenewerck, His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC: Euclid University Press, 2026).
- Nicaea I, canon 6; Cleenewerck de Kiev, Catechism, Study: The Universal Primacy.
- Cleenewerck de Kiev, Catechism, Study: The Structure of the Orthodox Communion.
- Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Catholic Church 5, cited in Cleenewerck de Kiev, Catechism, Q279.
- Cleenewerck de Kiev, Catechism, Study: The Universal Primacy.
