Notitiae Episcopatuum
The Notitiae Episcopatuum were official documents that furnished for Eastern countries the list and hierarchical rank of the metropolitan and suffragan bishoprics of a church.
In the Roman Church, archbishops and bishops were classed according to the seniority of their consecration, and in Africa according to their age. In the Eastern patriarchates, however, the hierarchical rank of each bishop was determined by the see he occupied.
Thus, in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the first Metropolitan was not the longest ordained, but whoever happened to be the incumbent of the See of Caesarea; the second was the Archbishop of Ephesus, and so on. In every ecclesiastical province, the rank of each Suffragan was thus determined, and remained unchanged unless the list was subsequently modified.
The hierarchical order included first of all the Patriarch; then the 'greater Metropolitans', i.e., those who had archdioceses with suffragan sees; next 'Autocephalous Metropolitans', who had no suffragans, and were directly subject to the Patriarch; next other Archbishops, although not functionally differing from autocephalous metropolitans, whose sees occupied hierarchical rank inferior to theirs, and were also immediately dependent on the Patriarch; then 'simple', i.e. exempt bishops, neither Archbishop nor suffragan; and lastly suffragan bishops, who depended on a Metropolitan Archbishopric.
It is not known by whom this very ancient order was established, but it is likely that, in the beginning, metropolitan sees and simple exempt bishoprics must have been classified according to the date of their respective foundations, this order being modified later on for political and religious considerations.
The principal documents are :
Patriarchate of Constantinople
- The Ecthesis of pseudo-Epiphanius, a 7th-century revision of an earlier Notitia Episcopatuum, compiled and amended during the reign of Emperor Heraclius I and his successors.
- a Notitia dating back to the first years of the ninth century and differing but little from the earlier one
- the Notitia of Basil the Armenian drawn up between 820 and 842;
- the Notitia compiled by Leo VI the Wise, and Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus between 901 and 907, modifying the hierarchical order established in the seventh century and since disturbed by incorporation of the ecclesiastical provinces of Illyricum and Southern Italy in the Byzantine Patriarchate
- the Notitiae episcopatuum of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, of John I Tzimisces, of Alexius I Comnenus, of Nilus Doxapatris, of Manuel Comnenus, of Isaac Angelus, of Michael VIII Palaeologus, of Andronicus II Palaeologus, and of Andronicus III Palaeologus.
- Gustav Parthey, Hieroclis Synecdemus.
- Heinrich Gelzer, Georgii Cyprii Descriptio orbis romani
- Heinrich Gelzer, Index lectionum Ienae
- Heinrich Gelzer, Ungedruckte und ungenügend veröffentlichte Texte der Notitiae episcopatuum