Metropolitan
METROPOLITAN
A bishop of a mother church, or of the chief church in the chief city. An archbishop.
See articles BISHOP, EPISCOPACY.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
metropolitan
(Greek: metropolis, city)
An archbishop who is placed over a certain section of a country, comprising a certain number of suffragan dioceses . Every metropolitan is an archbishop , but not every archbishop is a metropolitan, because there are titular bishops beside resident archbishops . The metropolitan has all the rights of a bishop in his diocese . He may call a provincial council, and preside over it; pontificate in all the churches in his district and grant an indulgence of 100 days; exercise the right of devolution; and he enjoys the following honorary rights: precedence over bishops, to have carried before him the archiepiscopal cross through his province, and also of using the pallium in his province.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Metropolitan
Metropolitan, in ecclesiastical language, refers to whatever relates to the metropolis, the principal city, or see, of an ecclesiastical province; thus we speak of a metropolitan church, a metropolitan chapter, a metropolitan official, etc. The word metropolitan, used without any qualificative, means the bishop of the metropolitan see, now usually styled archbishop. The term metropolite (Metropolites, Metropolita) is also employed, especially in the Eastern Churches (see ARCHBISHOP). The entire body of rights and duties which canon law attributes to the metropolitan, or archbishop as such, i.e., not for his own diocese, but for those suffragan to him and forming his ecclesiastical province, is called the metropoliticum.
The effective authority of metropolitans over their provinces has gradually diminished in the course of centuries, and they do not now exercise even so much as was accorded them by the Council of Trent; every bishop being more strongly and more directly bound to Rome is so much the less bound to his province and its metropolitan. The jurisdiction of the latter over his suffragan dioceses is in a sense ordinary, being established by law; but it is mediate and restricted to the objects provided for by the canons. Since the Council of Trent the rights of the metropolitan have been reduced to the following:
He convokes and presides at the provincial council, at which all his suffragans must appear, saving legitimate excuse, and which must be held every three years (Conc. Trid., Sess. XXIV, c. ii, De ref.). The same holds for other provincial meetings of bishops. He retains, in theory, the right of canonical visitation of his suffragan dioceses, but on two conditions which make the right practically inoperative: he must first finish the visitation of his own diocese, and the visitation must be authorized by the provincial council. In the course of this visitation, the metropolitan, like the bishop, has the right of “procuration “, i.e., he and his retinue must be received and entertained at the expense of the churches visited. Moreover, he can absolve “in foro conscientiae” (ibid., iii). He is charged with special vigilance over his suffragans in the matter of residence; he must denounce to the pope those who have been twice absent for six months each time, without due cause or permission (Conc. Trid. Sess., vi, c. i). And similarly for the prescriptions relating to seminaries (Sess. XXIII, c. xviii). The metropolitan has no judicial authority over his suffragans, major criminal causes of bishops being reserved to the Holy See, and minor ones to the provincial council (Sess. XXIV, c. v.); but he is still the judge of second instance for causes, civil or criminal, adjudicated in the first instance by the officials of his suffragans and appealed to his tribunal. Hence results a certain inequality for matters adjudicated in the first instance in the archdiocese, and to remedy this various concessions have now been provided. But the nomination of two officials by the archbishop, one diocesan, the other metropolitan, with appeal from the one to the other, is not admissible. This practice was used in France under the old regime, but was not general, and even the Gallicans held it to be at variance with canon law (Héricourt, “Les Lois ecclésiastiques de France”, E.V, 13). On this principle the nullity of Napoleon’s marriage was decided by the diocesan and the metropolitan officials of Paris, 1810 (Schnitzer, “Kathol. Eherecht”, Freiburg, 1898, 660). The metropolitan tribunal may also try as at first instance causes not terminated within two years by a bishop’s tribunal (Sess. XXIV, c. xx). In regard to devolution, the metropolitan may nominate the vicar capitular of a vacant diocese, if the chapter has failed to nominate within eight days (Sess. xxiv, c. xvi). In like manner he has the right to fill open benefices (i.e., those of free collation) which his suffragans have left unfilled after six months; also to canonically institute candidates presented by patrons if the bishop allows two months to pass without instituting. Lastly, in the matter of honorific rights and privileges the metropolitan has the pallium as the ensign of his jurisdiction; he takes precedence of all bishops; he may have the archiepiscopal cross (crux gestatoria) borne before him anywhere within his province, except in the presence of a papal legate; he may celebrate pontifically (saving such acts as constitute an exercise of jurisdiction, e.g., ordination), may wear his rochet and mozetta uncovered (not hidden under the mantelletta, like a bishop of another diocese); may bless publicly, and may grant an indulgence of 100 days (S.C. Indulg., 8. Aug., 1903). He ensigns his arms with the double archiepiscopal cross and the hat with ten tassels on either side.
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FERRARIS, Prompta Bibliotheca, s. v. Archiepiscopus; SAGMULLER Lehrbuck des kathol. Kirchenrechts (Freiburg, 1909), 391; BOUIX, De Episcopo, I (Paris, 1859), 441.
A. BOUDINHON Transcribed by Kenneth M. Caldwell Dedicated to the memory of Don McGonigle
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Metropolitan
() is the name of an ecclesiastical dignitary an episcopal officer who, by virtue of his residence in the capital of a country or province, exercises not only the authority of a presiding officer in his own diocese, but exerts, in some sense, jurisdiction over the other bishops of the same country or province; and in this respect differs from the archbishop (q.v.), who simply enjoys some additional privileges of honors and respect not common to the plain bishop (comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 1:270).
The office originated in the Roman countries, when the chief city of a province was called . The date of its origin cannot be exactly fixed, but the third century, says Coleman (Manual of Prelacy and Ritualism, page 235), may be regarded as the period in which it was chiefly consolidated and established. Romanists hold that it can be traced, at least in germ, to the days of the apostles, and that mention is made of the office in the letters of Paul to Timothy and to Titus (comp. Pierre de Marca, Concord. lib. 6, Giorgi, De Antiquo Ital. Metropol.). Several of the Church fathers also mention the fact that the metropolitan office existed in apostolic days (e.g. Chrysostom, 15 Hom. in V. Tim., and Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiastes 3, c. 4); but it is clear that the name of metropolitan does not occur until the 4th century (Coleman, Anc. Christianity Exemplified, page 143). The title was first publicly adopted by the Church at the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, and there seems good ground for the belief that, like all other episcopal offices, the metropolitan government was not the production of a day, but the result of a gradual modification of the diocesan government, by a further concentration of episcopal power, and the extension of its influence over a wider range of territory (Coleman, Prel. and Rit. page 242; comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 2:270).
The following maybe considered as the rights and privileges of the office. The metropolitan had precedence of all other bishops of his province, a decisive voice in their election, and the power of confirming and ordaining them. He summoned provincial councils, presided in them, and drew up the decrees. He had the oversight of the provincial bishops, and the ecclesiastical superintendence of the whole province. He had the privilege of determining all causes of special importance in provincial council, but in concurrence with the other bishops of the province. In extreme cases, appeal was made to him, when he had the power of controlling a provincial bishop, without the assistance of other bishops. He could give and receive letters of communion, and publish and carry into effect laws enacted either by emperors or by councils relating to the Church. The bishops of a province elected and ordained their metropolitan. without the concurrence of the metropolitan of any other province.
The ninth canon of the Council of Antioch (341) thus defines the office of the metropolitan: The bishops of each eparchy (province) should know that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who have business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good that he should also have a precedence in honor, and that the other bishops should do nothing without him-according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers except that which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i.e., dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. Otherwise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops. In the nineteenth canon, this council forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropolitan, and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province. The writers of the Latin Church use promiscuously the words archbishop and metropolitan, making either name denote a bishop, who, by virtue of his see, presides over or governs several other bishops. Thus in the newly- constituted hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in England the archbishop of Westminster has the rank of metropolitan. In the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, the archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, all possess the same rank. In the Church of England, also, the real meaning of the term metropolitan seems to have been lost sight of, and the archbishops of Canterbury and York, in England, and in Ireland those of Armagh and Dublin, are called metropolitans. The Greeks, however, use the name only to denote him whose see is really a civil metropolis. See Farrar, Eccles. Dict. s.v.; Hook, Church Dict. s.v.; Walcott, Sacred Archaeology, s.v.; Siegel, Handbuch d. christl.-kirchl. Alterthumer, 3:264 sq.; Planck, Gesch. d. christl.-kirchl. Gesellschaftsverfassung, 1:572 sq.; Ziegler, Versuch d. kirchl. Verfassungsformen, page 61 sq.