Primate
PRIMATE
An archbishop who is invested with a jurisdiction over other bishops.
See ARCHBISHOP.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
primate
(Latin: primus, first)
A bishop exercising authority not only in his own province but over several provinces, as a rule over a national territory. Their authority extended to convoking and presiding over national councils, hearing appeals from the decisions of metropolitans, crowning the sovereign. Their authority was never established by canon law. The title today is one of honor only. The Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin are the only prelates who have this title in English-speaking countries.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Primate
(Lat. primas, from primus, “first”).
In the Western Church a primate is a bishop possessing superior authority, not only over the bishops of his own province, like the metropolitan, but over several provinces and metropolitans. This does not refer to episcopal powers, which each bishop possesses fully, but to ecclesiastical jurisdiction and organization, especially in national churches.
Primates exist only in the West, and correspond not to the patriarchs but to the exarchs of the East. There is no uniformity in the institution, it has no place in common law; primatial rights are privileges. In their widest acceptation these rights would be: to convoke and preside over national councils, to crown the sovereign, to hear appeals from the metropolitan and even episcopal courts, and finally the honorary right of precedence.
This organization formerly useful, as it favoured and maintained unity in national churches, has lost its importance and disappeared; first, because national Churches as such no longer exist, and secondly on account of the gradual disciplinary centralization of the Western Churches around the Roman See. Except in the case of Gran in Hungary, the primatial title is merely honorific. At the solemnities accompanying the canonization of the Japanese martyrs in 1867, no special place was reserved for primates; and in the Vatican Council the precedence of primates was recognized only at the insistance of the Prince-Primate of Hungary (Vering, “Kirchenrecht”, § 133), as something exceptional and not to be considered a precedent. The Brief “Inter multiplices”, 27 November, 1869 (Acta S. Sedis, V, 235), ranks the primates according to their date of promotion after the patriarchs, but adds: Ex special indulgentia, i.e. by special favour, for that occasion only, nor must it be interpreted as conferring any right on them or diminishing the right of others.
The history of the primacies in the Middle Ages is largely concerned with interminable disputes concerning special rights, privileges, etc. The real primacies were at first those that did not bear the name. The Bishop of Carthage exercised a true primatial jurisdiction over the provinces of Roman Africa, without being called a primate; on the other hand, in the provinces, other than the Proconsular, the oldest bishop, who resembled a metropolitan, was called the primate. The title Primate of Africa was restored again in 1893 by Leo XIII in favour of the Archbishop of Carthage. The Bishop of Toledo was also a primate for the Visigothic kingdom. On the other hand, the Bishops of Thessalonica and Arles, invested with the vicariate of the pope, had authority over several provinces. We meet later with claims to primatial authority in every country, and refusals to recognize these claims; the primates who have exercised a real authority being especially those of Mayenne, the successors of St. Boniface, and of Lyons, made by Gregory VII, Primate of the Gauls, in reality of the provinces called formerly “Laughmenses”. All kinds of reasons were invoked: the evangelization of the country, the importance of the see, pontifical concessions, etc.
It is impossible to give more than the mere names of primacies: in Spain, Toledo, Compostella, Braga; in France, Lyons, Reims, Bourges, Vienne, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Rouen; in Germany, Mayenne, Trier, Magdeburg; in England, Canterbury, York; in Scotland, St. Andrews; in Ireland, Armagh; in the Scandinavian countries, Lund. But of all these nothing but a title has remained; and at the Vatican Council the only bishops figuring as primates, in virtue of recent concessions, were those of Salzburg, Antivari, Salerno, Bahia, Gnesen, Tarragona, Gran, Mechlin, and Armagh (Coll. Lacens., VII, pp. 34, 488, 726).
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THOMASSIN, Vetus et nova discipl., pt. I, bk. I, xxvi sq.; PHILLIPS, Kirchenrecht, § 62.
A. BOUDINHON Transcribed by WGKofron With thanks to St. Mary’s Church, Akron, Ohio
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Primate
(Lat. primus; Fr. primat, first) is the title of a grade in the hierarchy immediately below the rank of patriarch (q.v.). In point of jurisdiction the primacy was, historically, developed out of the episcopate by papal communication of primatial rights. The primates, in this sense of the word, are more particularly an institution of the West; for although the Greek denomination is generally translated by primuus, there are unmistakable differences. The exarchs of the East were subordinated to no patriarch, and were, so far as rights are concerned, their equals in their dioceses and only in rank were they their inferiors. Such relations were out of the question in the Western Church, where the patriarchate was held by the papal primate in the person of the bishop of Rome, who was recognized as possessing universal supreme jurisdiction. The primates, as such, were metropolitans who enjoyed a preeminence of jurisdiction over the other bishops of a country. This pre-eminence was founded on their right of consecrating the other metropolitans and bishops, of convoking national councils, of receiving appeals, etc. Originally this dignity was connected with the nomination to a pontifical vicariate, as was the case with the bishop of Arles, and it rested, in general, on an explicit appointment by the pope. There was one exception to that in the person of the bishop of Carthage, who, though not assuming the primatial title, exerted all the rights implied by it in Africa. The relation in which the primacy almost everywhere stood to the national interests, which obliged its bearers, as the first bishops of the State, to take some share in the political concerns, exercised a detrimental influence, and led some of them to assert overbearing pretensions contrary to the authority of the head of the Church. The importance of the primacy has melted away in the course of time, and in most cases nothing remains of it but some exterior distinctions. The chief primatial sees of the West were: in Spain Seville and Tarragona (afterwards united in Toledo); in France-Arles. Rheims, Lyons, and Rouen (among whom the archbishop of Lyons claims the title of primat des primats, primate of the primates); in England-Canterbury; in Germany Mainz, Salzburg, and Trier; in Ireland Armagh, and for the Pale, Dublin; in Scotland St. Andrews; in Hungar Gran; in Poland-Gnesen; and in the Northern kingdoms-Lund. In the Church of England the archbishop of Canterbury is styled primate of all England; the archbishop of York, primate of England. In Ireland, the archbishop of Armagh is primate of all Ireland, and the archbishop of Dublin, primate of Ireland. The title of primate in England and Ireland confers no jurisdiction beyond that of archbishop. The name prinus is applied in the Scottish Episcopal Church to the presiding bishop. He is chosen by the bishops out of their own number, without their being bound to give effect to seniority of consecration or precedency of diocese.