towered the bishops of the capital cities of the various provinces. They W' ere styled in the East inetroj/olitans^ in the West usually archbishops.^ They had the oversight of the other bishops of the province ; ordained them, in connection with two or three assistants ; summoned y» provincial synods, which, according to the fifth canon of the council of Nic^ and the direction of other councils, were to be held twice a year ; and presided in such synods. They pro- moted union among the different churches by the reciprocal communication of synodal acts, and confirmed the organism of the hierarchy. This metropolitan constitution, which had gradually arisen out of the necessities of the church, became legally established in the East in the fourth century, and passed thence to the Grseco-Russian church. The council of N^ice, at that early day, ordered in the fourth canon, that every new bishop should be ordained by all, or at least by three, of the bishops of the eparchy (the municipal province), under the direction and with the sanction of the metropolitan.^ Still clearer is the ' Can. 6 : . . . 'lya jj-^i KarevTeXi^TiTaL Th rod fTricrKSrrov opo/xa Ka\ r] av^evria ; or, in the Latin version : " Ne vilcscat nomen episcopi et auctoritas." Comp. Ilefelo, i. p. 656. The differences between the Greek and Latin text in the first part of tliis canon have no influence on the prohibition of the appointment of country bishops. ^ MTjTpoTToAiVijr, metropolitanus, and the kindred title e^apxos (applied to tlie most powerful metropolitans) ; apxteTricTKonos, archiepiscopus, and primas. ' This canon has been recently discovered also in a Coptic translation, and pub- lished by Pitra, in the Spicilegium Solesmeuse, i. 526 sq. I § 55. THE PATRIAKCHS. 271 ninth canon of the council of Antioch, in 341 : " Tlie bisliops of each eparchy (province) should know, that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who have business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good, that he should also have a precedence in honor,' and that the other bishops should do nothing without him — according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers — except that which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i. e. dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them ; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. Other- wise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops." This council, in the nineteenth canon, forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropoli- tan and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province. In Africa a similar system had existed from the time of Cyprian, before the church and the state were united. Every province had