Eastern Rite - Patriarch

Today is Meat-fare Sunday, the After Feast of the Meeting of our Lord in the Temple, and the Feast of the 1,003 Martyrs of Nicomedia.

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The highest-ranking bishops, after the the Pope of Rome, in the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate) are termed patriarchs (and in certain cases also popes - such as the Pope of Rome, and catholicoi - such as Gregory Peter XX Gabroyan, Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia ).

The word is derived from Greek πατριάρχης (patriarchēs), meaning "chief or father of a family", a compound of πατριά (patria), meaning "family", and ἄρχειν (archein), meaning "to rule".

Originally, a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is termed patriarchy. Historically, a patriarch has often been the logical choice to act as ethnarch of the community identified with his religious confession within a state or empire of a different creed (such as Christians within the Ottoman Empire). The term developed an ecclesiastical meaning, within the Christian Church. The office and the ecclesiastical circumscription of a Christian patriarch is termed a patriarchate.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are referred to as the three patriarchs of the people of Israel, and the period during which they lived is termed the Patriarchal Age. The word patriarch originally acquired its religious meaning in the Septuagint version of the Bible.

Today, the patriarchal heads of Catholic autonomous churches are:

• The Bishop of Rome (Pope), as head of the Latin Catholic Church
• The Armenian Catholic Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia and head of the Armenian Catholic Church 
• The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon and head of the Chaldean Catholic Church
• The Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria and head of the Coptic Catholic Church, established 1824
• The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East and head of the Maronite Catholic Church
• The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, of Alexandria and of Jerusalem, head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church; in his case, Antioch is the actual and sole patriarchate, Alexandria and Jerusalem are just titular (once residential) patriarchates vested in his see
• The Syrian Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and all the East and head of the Syriac Catholic Church