Talk:Patriarch

Catholic section

First, someone keeps reverting my edits. Please stop - without discussion, you are just being a vandal.

The title "patriarch of the west" was ever an honorific, not a description of the popes actual patriarchal role. The former has gone away, the later has not. Do not confuse the two. This is explained more clearly in revisions i propose.

In the Catholic church, the heads of sui iuris churches are ordinarily patriarchs. There are also titular Latin patriarchs who have no patriarchal jurisdiction. These are very different offices, and the former, including the pope, have precedence over the later. They are the ordinary form of the office of patriarch as in Orthodoxy.

The correct order (see also the page on order of precedence in the Catholic Church) is Patriarchs, then Major Archbishops, then Titular Patriarchs. THe section should deal with the topics in that order. Protoclete (talk) 19:07, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

(1) You need to check yourself. You're the one who made massive changes to the article without explaining your edits and without providing sources for any of your claims. All I have done is restore the status quo ante. I am not "vandalizing" the page. If you want your edits to stand, all you have to do is source them properly. (2) The claim that "the heads of sui iuris churches are ordinarily patriarchs" is false. It is neither true descriptively (at most 7 out of 24 sui iuris churches are headed by Patriarchs) nor prescriptively (Canon Law does not assume that particular churches sui iuris are headed by Patriarchs and then consider the rest of them defective; the CCEO explicitly allows for four different kinds of particular churches sui iuris: Patriarchal, Major Archiepiscopal, Metropolitan, and "Other"). Patriarchal organization is not normative. (3) Your opinion on the "correct" order is just an opinion. There are other possible orders which can be logically used besides order of precedence, and nothing about the previous organization of the page implied that it was in order of precedence, so the problem you're trying to solve doesn't exist. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:28, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

I see you have added some citations for some of your work since I started replying to you. I will look over the citations before making further changes. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:30, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

[section moved below]

I am happy to discuss what you are trying to do with you, but you came in and made a lot of changes without providing sources and without any discussion and then yelled at me for attempting to restore the page to its previous state. I don't think I'm the one that needs to justify myself here. Perhaps you should review Wikipedia's definition of vandalism before you throw it around. I am willing to assume that you are editing in good faith, but that doesn't mean your edits get a free pass on verifiability. LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

1) Check yourself? You may be a very zealous editor, but you are impertinent and zealously guarding easily corrected mistakes; If you had not been so trigger-happy with your reversions, you would have seen both citations and the rationale given for the changes. As it was, reversions were made while i was still editing. Had you read the corrections, instead of blasting away, you would have seen the answers to your own questions to begin with. It created a mess in the table, and some other problems which had to be cleared up before following up on further citations and corrections.

2) Patriarchal organization is normative - that does not imply the rest are defective, nor that it is the only option, but it is, the fullest and most ancient sense of an autonomous church. That is hardly an opinion. The article itself deals in brief on the history of the development of the office, there's no need to repeat it here.

3) My opinion on order is, yes, an opinion, informed by convention and Catholic canon law. There is, in fact, and order of precedence to these things that should be honored - and that order is not a matter of opinion (even if the idea that we should respect it is).

The problems that my edits corrected included the following:

A) Latinization and a prejudicial POV approach to the Eastern Churches.

B) Confusion between patriarchs properly speaking and titular patriarchs.

C) Confusion between the formulation/title "Patriarch of the West" and the pope's ongoing role/office as patriarch of the Latin Church.

D) Poor organization: First, to the table - given the nature of which, the standard to present in order of precedence is not an opinion, it is universal practice. I have yet to find a single source that does otherwise. Yet, even if we were to try something different there are several acceptable standard methods to organize a list: historical, alphabetical, demographic - none of which were employed. Second, to the overall section, reflective of the problems noted above, and also inconsistent in its layering of subjects.

In the end, it took far more time to deal with your "edits" and to write all this out that it would have to just finish the original organization and corrections and provide at least some citation where it was not already present. Next time, leave well enough alone at least for a day to see if there isn't something to be gained. Protoclete (talk) 19:57, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

As to the content, lets address the issues separately:

Patriarch as head of autonomous church

Okay. So let's talk about this claim:

In the Catholic Church, the bishop who is head of a particular autonomous Church, known in canon law as a Church sui iuris, is ordinarily a patriarch.

This claim is false, as I have already pointed out above, and the citation that you provide does not in any way justify it. CCEO 58-59 does not say that the heads of particular autonomous churches are "ordinarily" patriarchs; those canons don't talk in general about particular autonomous churches at all.

LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

First, let us be clear: The Catholic Church is a communion of 24 churches. Sometimes they are called "autonomous", "sui iuris", or "particular". There are pros and cons to each, and each can be sourced to various church documents. I prefer autonomous as it is both the most self-explanatory term in general, and more consistent with the Orthodox ("autocephalous" aside).

By definition of "patriarch" in a Christian sense is meant the bishop who is head of an autonomous church. You do agree on that, yes? It is also the oldest term for this office, going back to the very first ecumenical council, when three were so designated: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. It was later expanded into the "Pentarchy". There are whole pages on that, i assume it need not be re-hashed. All the others (Major Archbishop, Metropolitan-lead churches, churches without hierarchy) are modern developments to accommodate churches lacking in some way for some reason a patriarch. Not as defective churches, but perhaps incomplete, or small, or impeded. But lacking what is historically and ecclesiologically normative. In describing "Major Archbishops" for example, CCEO 151 describes "the metropolitan of a see determined or recognized by the Supreme Authority of the Church, who presides over an entire Eastern Church sui iuris not endowed with the patriarchal title." Following canons specifically say that they take precedence after patriarchs. This at least implies that a full patriarchal title is better, or higher, or normative, but more convincing would be the testimony of Ukrainian Catholics who desire the title for their Major Archbishop (and effectively use it for him anyway). As wikipedia is not the place for original research, the default position is the Catholic Church's own order of precedence to determine what is the fullest form of the leader of an autonomous church: a patriarch. A more thorough explanation requires a theological excursus, which, while probably out there, will take time to find. Yet the burden of proof would be against the claim that all of these offices are equal when the Code itself says they are not, not the other way around.Protoclete (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Pope as patriarch of the Latin Church

Those canons only refer to Patriarchal churches, but even if they did make a more general claim, they still would have absolutely nothing at all to say about the Western Church or the Pope's role as head of the Latin Church because this is the Code of Canons for Eastern Churches. Some of your other edits by which you attempt to bolster your points about the Pope being a Patriarch seem to exhibit confirmation bias. The fact that Benedict XVI appeared in a group with a bunch of Eastern Patriarchs (and Major Archbishops) does not prove that the Pope is a Patriarch. (Consider: at ad limina visits, the Pope often appears and poses for photos with all of the bishops of a particular episcopal conference, so would that prove that the Pope is a member of that episcopal conference?)

LacrimosaDiesIlla (talk) 19:54, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

You are correct, the "pope with other patriarchs" picture and article by itself is not a sufficient proof, but in the face of an overzealous reverter, i had to throw something out there before the page got reverted half-way through editing again. However, the citations of ecumenical councils going back to AD 325 should be sufficient: The bishop of Rome is patriarch of the Latin Church, whether the title "patriarch of the west" exists or not. First, try finding any list of Catholic patriarchs that excludes the pope, unless it specifically deals only with the Eastern patriarchs. Second, as this is the 1700-year old position of the Church, again, the burden of proof is on the idea that this is no longer the case. Third, even if the CCEO is for the Eastern Catholics, as the CIC is for the Latin Catholics, the CCEO also specifically refers to those areas where it affects also the Latin Church, CCEO 58 being one such example: "Canon 58: Patriarchs of Eastern Churches precede all bishops of any degree, everywhere in the world, with due regard for special norms of precedence established by the Roman Pontiff." This does not only apply to Eastern bishops, but to "all bishops of any degree" and with specific reference to the overlap with Latin regulations. Still, it does not spell out that the bishop of Rome is a patriarch, but then, why would it? It is, as you say, the Eastern code... that role of the pope is assumed. Elsewhere i quoted the Catholic encyclopedia, both the current one (2002) and the old one that is so popular on wikipedia (1911) both of which affirm the pope's role as patriarch. There are many more, i can continue to add when i'm not doing this instead. Protoclete (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

References

About schismatic note on Rome

Quote: Ghirlandajo (why one schismatic patriarch of Rome should be listed before the Ecumenical patriarch and three other original patriarchates??)

First of all your note is offensive in the history section and please note that the Council of Chalcedon gives the Pope the first place in the order of precedence in Canon 28.

Also I would like to point out that the mutual excommunication made in 1054 was lifted in the 1960's by the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church of Constantinople so in a way one of the original reasons for schism has been solved.

Whom "Orthodox Church of Constantinople" recognizes as patriarch is the private affair of that church. This church cannot speak for the Eastern Orthodoxy in general. I revert the schysmatic bishop to the end of the list. --Ghirlandajo 17:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right about that (also, i may point that full communion between constantinople and rome has also never been really established, not even in 1960), and that's why, if this was a paragraph listing the patriarchs in the orthodox church now, rome not even would not be at the first ranking, but it would not even be in the list not even at the last place. But this is a list of "ancient pentarchy", BEFORE the schism, and, when we speak about that, history says us that rome HAD the first ranking at that moment (it has rightly been spoken about the council of chalcedon), and the ecumenical patriarch, that was already named ecumenical before the schism, still was in the second place after rome until 1054. And also some of the roman pontiffs of the period are still venerated as saints by orthodoxy, like, for example, saint clemens, pope of rome. User:PravoSlav.

Rearranging

I'm leaning towards turning patriarch into a disambiguation page, and moving the material from this page to patriarch (Christianity) or something like that. The dab page would link to the main senses of the word such as the Christian title, Biblical patriarchs, and patriarchy, as well as less common uses like presiding patriarch and Sangharaja. Opinions?

Object. Start patriarch (disambiguation) if you have nothing better to do. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 19:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Duly noted, but one must also note that you have not mentioned any particular reason. In the interest of even-handedness, I didn't really explain my reasoning either. My reasoning is that "patriarch" has several meanings, and the Christian church title is not outstandingly more common, although it's an interesting subject that deserves it's own article. The introduction to this article is presently a bit awkward as it tries to cover several subjects, while the body of the article is just a list of Christian church patriarchs. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 21:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

It might also be interesting to try to incorporate large or small portions of the lengthy and interesting Catholic Encyclopedia article on "patriarch".

Object. We don't need more Papist propaganda. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 19:08, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, obviously it would have to be well de-propagandised before we could use it. - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 21:04, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, what's up with this "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", etc., business? That links to an article which begins "In Christian theology, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is a phrase describing ..." and contains a section called "conflicting boundaries and definitions". It doesn't seem quite fair to attribute these patriarchs to Christendom in general: for one thing, I suspect that the ancestors of today's Oriental Orthodox churches never recognised a patriarch of Constantinople or of Jerusalem. And then, patriarch goes on to use constructions like "Holy Catholic and Orthodox Church" and "One Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church" which apparently means Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism respectively? If that's what we mean, why don't we just go ahead and say it in terms that normal laymen will be able to understand? - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 17:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

• Without commenting on this discussion of where they should go, I have consolidated the other uses into Patriarch (disambiguation), based on the contents of the German page de:Patriarch (Begriffsklärung). Rigadoun 20:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Links between Popes

I have started the above page: links with and between patriarchs would be welcome (in which case the article title would have to be changed - Links between Christian religious heads probably.)

Jackiespeel 16:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Kiev etc.?

What about some of the smaller churches with patriarchs, such as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kiev Patriarchate? I'm sure there are others as well. Do they deserve a mention in this article? Gentgeen 21:12, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• They certainly do -it would be most un-encyclopedic to censorise less 'notable' churches; it's one of the few ways they can express how distinct they consider themselves- with this obvious proviso: please make sure they are properly identified and classified, especially as some are 'cohabiting' at nominal and real 'addresses' (episcopal sees, that is), which can easily lead to desparate confusion Fastifex 13:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Buddhist Patriarchs

The wiki on patriarchs focused only on the patriarchs of Judaic religions (Judaism and Christianity.)

In Mahayana Buddhism, patriarchs played an important historical role. While Theravada (The Way of the Elders) records that the Buddha explicitly did not leave a successor, Mahayana Buddhism believes that the Buddha did select a monk to be a successor, and that there was a series of at least 28 Buddhist patriarchs. The Chan/Zen branch of the Mahayana adds another 10, and the Chogye and Kwan Um (both Korean) subbranches of Zen believe that the patriarchy contains unbroken to this day, though they have different people in mind. For the Chogye, the 85th is now alive. The Pure Land branch of the Mahayana also believes that they have the living Buddhist patriarch.

Tharpa —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.66.106.50 (talk) 18:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC).

Patriarchs in the OT

The newly-added section on OT patriarchs is a mess. Should it be cleaned up or spun off into another article? Majoreditor 04:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Silly me. I see that there is already an article named Patriarchs (Bible) which covers this material. Majoreditor 04:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Reunification

in the sub-section on Catholicism it says: "Disputes about papal authority were not initially a major factor in the split between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but are now one of the few remaining issues holding back re-unification." I am quite interested in this idea and I'd like to know if there is a WP article that goes into greater detail about these "few remaining issues" and the process/idea of reunification in general. Witty Lama 01:27, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

England (Church of)

The Church of England has two primates; the Primate of England (Archbishop of York) and Primate of All England (Archbishop of Canturbury). I know these are established by law; but don't know enough to add them to the article accurately. Can anyone help with this? It's clearly a failing not to include these as they are both long-established and directly successive to the latin patriachy. 118.107.229.34 (talk) 14:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

No failing here as this is the Patriarch page. That bit is discussed on it's own page: Primate Caisson 06 (talk) 15:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

There are lots of Primates in the Anglican Communion. It would seem that if Major Archbishops can be included in this article, why not Primates? Is there a difference between a Major Archbishop and an Anglican Primate more significant than the difference between a Major Archbishop and a Patriarch?

POV

Hello. This appears to be another article devoted to Christianity. I will mark it POV until it is fixed, just like the article for abbot. Keizan is known, for example, as the Greatest Patriarch, but isn't mentioned. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:10, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The article is about a meaning of "patriarch" better known than its application to Keizan, which is covered in another page. It is like the article on, e.g., Trinity.

names of eastern Patriarchs

Why not give the names here simply as they are correctly known? Patriarch of Antioch and the Whole Levant, not The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East. It might be helpful in one way, but by introducing varieties that leave the reader confused. Likewise Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans. And "the Metropolitan and Gate of all India." The linked Wiki article says that he is locally called as (sic) Head & Father of Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and The Gate of All India." His real title is "Major Archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church" and there is no support at all for including him in the list of Eastern Patriarchs rather than Major Archbishops. Etc. If no one objects, I will rewrite this section, and move Mar George. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 12:17, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

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