- published: 28 Feb 2013
- views: 709
In Christianity, an apostolic see is any episcopal see whose foundation is attributed to one or more of the apostles of Jesus.
Out of the many such sees, five acquired special importance in Chalcedonian Christianity (beginning with the council held in 451) and became classified as the Pentarchy in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. But before then, the First Council of Nicaea of 325 recognized in its sixth canon the special position of Rome and Alexandria, and perhaps of Antioch and the chief sees in other provinces: "The ancient customs of Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis shall be maintained, according to which the bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these places since a similar custom exists with reference to the bishop of Rome. Similarly in Antioch and the other provinces the prerogatives of the churches are to be preserved." And Jerusalem received special recognition in the seventh canon. The Council, which was held in 325, of course made no mention of Constantinople, a city which was founded and became the capital of the empire only in 330. Officially, Constantinople was founded on 11 May 330.Constantine the Great (who died on 22 May 337) divided the expanded city (previously known as Byzantium), like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis. The First Council of Constantinople (381) decreed in a canon of disputed validity: "The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome." A century after the Council of Chalcedon (451) and the ensuing schism between those who accepted it and those who rejected it, the theory of the Pentarchy was given expression: "formulated in the legislation of the emperor Justinian I (527–565), especially in his Novella 131, the theory received formal ecclesiastical sanction at the Council in Trullo (692), which ranked the five sees as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem."