we find in the two patriarchs of old Rome and New Rome ; the one representing the AVestern or Latin church, the other the East- ern or Greek. Their power and their relation to each other we must now more carefully observe. The organization of the church in the East being so largely influenced by the political constitution, the bishop of the im- perial capital could not fail to become the most powerful of the four oriental patriarchs. By the second and fourth ecu- menical councils, as we have already seen, his actual preemi- nence was ratified by ecclesiastical sanction, and he was desig- ' 'A(coAot;3ia TTjy ti/xtjs ; which is variously interpreted. Comp. Ilefele, i. 389 sq. § 57. THE EIVAL PATRI^VKCHS OF OLD AND NEW ROME. 285 iiated to tlie foremost dignity.' From Justinian I. he further received supreme appellate jurisdiction, and the honorary title o^ ecumenical patriarch, which he still continues to bear,' He ordained the other patriarchs, not seldom decided their depo- sition or institution by his influence, and used every occasion to interfere in their affairs, and assert his supreme authority, though the popes and their delegates at the imperial court incessantly protested. The patriarchates of Jerusalem, Anti- och, and Alexandria were distracted and weakened in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries by the tedious mono- physite controversies, and subsequently, after the year 622, were reduced to but a shadow by the Mohammedan conquests. The patriarchate of Constantinople, on the contrary, made important advances southwest and north ; till, in its flourish- ing period, between the eighth and tenth centuries, it em- braced, besides its original diocese, Calabria, Sicily, and all the provinces of Illyricum, the Bulgarians, and Kussia. Though often visited with destructive earthquakes and confla- grations, and besieged by Persians, Arabians, Hungarians, Russians, Latins, and Turks, Constantinople maintained itself to the middle of the fifteenth century as the seat of the Byzan- tine emipire and centre of the Greek church. Tlie patriarch of Constantinople, however, remained virtually only jyrhrmH ' Ta npeaPua ttJs TijUTjy . . . Sia to elvat aiirrii' [i. e. Constantinople] viav "P<jiix7\v. Comp. § 56. * The title olKovyaviKhs naTpiapxris, universalis episcopus, had before been used in flattery by oriental patriarchs, and the later Roman bishops bore it, in spite of the protest of Gregory I., without scruple. The statement of popes Gregory I. and Leo IX., that the coimcil of Chalcedon conferred on the Roman bishop Leo the title o( miniver salis episcopus, and that he rejected it, is erroneous. No trace of it can be found either in the Acts of the councils or in the epistles of Leo. In the Acts, Leo is styled 6 oyiciraTos koI /xaKapiioTaros apx^c^icTKOTro^ rrjs fJifydX-q^ Kal Trpecr^uTtpav 'PcijUTjr ; which, however, m the Latin Acts sent by Leo to the Galilean bishops, was thus enlarged : " Sanctus et beatissimus Papa, caput universalis ecclesice, Leo." The papal legates at Chalcedon subscribed themselves : Vicarii apostolici universalis ecclesice papxe,