During the recent Georgia-Russia crisis, I was reading through the various news articles and I found this intriguing passage in a Reuters report.


Quote:
Abkhazia's monks argue that they are just doing what Georgia itself did, since it took advantage of the 1917 revolution to re-establish its independence from the Russian Patriarchate.

Abkhazian clerics have been independent in the past, and had a patriarch until the early 19th century.


Did the Abkhazians really have their own Patriarch then?

Anyway, this got me thinking: are there vanished / disappeared / lost Patriarchates in the Eastern Church? I can think only of the old Patriarchate of Karlovci, and in a sense, the Serbian Patriarchate is its successor. The Patriarchates of Moscow, Bulgaria and Georgia all disappeared at one time or another, only to be revived once more.

In the West, there are the lost Patriarchates of Aquileia-in-Grado (or simply, Grado), Aquileia (or Old Aquileia) and Sirmium. (The Patriarchate of Grado is an ancestor of the current Archbishopric of Venice, resulting in the Patriarchate of Venice)

Among the titular Latin Patriarchates that date to the 2nd Millennium, only Lisbon, Venice, Jerusalem and East Indies (Goa, India) remain. The Latin Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria have been abolished, while the Patriarchate of the West Indies (a Spanish ecclesiastical title) still exists, but has been vacant since 1963.

I've read in various places that Milan, Toledo, Ravenna, Canterbury, Lyons, etc. once held the Patriarchal title: is this claim true?


Edited by asianpilgrim (08/28/08 10:31 AM)