What is "patriarchate"

Patriarchate \Pa`tri*ar"chate\ (p[=a]`tr[i^]*[aum]r"k[asl]t), n.

1. The office, dignity, or jurisdiction of a patriarch.
   --Jer. Taylor.

2. The residence of an ecclesiastic patriarch.

3. (Ethnol.) A patriarchal form of government or society. See Patriarchal, a., 3.

n. 1 (context Christianity English) The term of office of a Christian patriarch. 2 The office or ecclesial jurisdiction of such a patriarch. 3 The office-space occupied by a patriarch and his staff.

1. n. the jurisdiction of a patriarch

2. a form of social organization in which a male is the family head and title is traced through the male line [syn: patriarchy]

A patriarchate is the office or jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical patriarch. A patriarch, as the term is used here, is either,

• One of the five leaders of the Pentarchy, the highest-ranking bishops in the Christian Church prior to the Great Schism, who were the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem; or
• One of the nine leading bishops of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the present day, including the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem mentioned above, and also the five more recently established patriarchs of (in chronological order of establishment) Bulgaria, Georgia, Serbia, Moscow and Romania; or
• One of ten high-ranking bishops of the Roman Catholic Church: seven " patriarchs of the east" (six who are heads of Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem), plus the patriarchs of Lisbon, Venice and the East Indies; or
• One of the several leading bishops holding the title of patriarch in Oriental Orthodoxy and the Church of the East.

The five patriarchs of the Pentarchy sat in Rome, Constantinople (now Istanbul), Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The East-West Schism of 1054 split the Latin-speaking see of Rome from the four Greek-speaking patriarchates, forming distinct Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch moved to Damascus in the 13th century, during the reign of the Egyptian Mamelukes, conquerors of Syria. In Damascus a Christian community had flourished since apostolic times ( Acts 9). However, the patriarchate is still called the Patriarchate of Antioch. Damascus is the seat also of the Syrian Catholic and the Melkite Catholic Patriarchs of Antioch, while the Maronite Catholic of Antioch lives in Bkerké, Lebanon.

The four early Orthodox (Greek) patriarchates of the East, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, along with their Latin Catholic counterpart in the West, Rome, are distinguished as "senior" ( Greek: πρεσβυγενή, presbygenē, "senior-born") or "ancient" (παλαίφατα, palaíphata, "of ancient fame") and are among the apostolic sees, having had one of the Apostles or Evangelists as their first bishop: Andrew, Mark, Peter, James, and Peter again, respectively.

In the Roman Catholic Church, some patriarchal titles are purely honorary, without an actual residential see, and hence termed Titular Patriarch(ate)s, either vested in another (residential) patriarchal see or in the Pope's gift.

A patriarchate has "legal personality" in some legal jurisdictions, that means it is treated as a corporation. For example, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem filed a lawsuit in New York, decided in 1999, against Christie's Auction House, disputing the ownership of the Archimedes Palimpsest.

The head of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church is also called a Patriarch.