Sentence:  Taronas' church also bore the name of St. Nicholas, and he managed to obtain a patriarchal <WSD>"stauropegion</WSD>" for it. (p. 242) If the patriarch recognized these <WSD>"stauropegia</WSD>" as valid charters of foundation, the bishop would stand to lose his traditional rights over these institutions.  (p. 239) 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  In Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, an autonomous Orthodox church body (church, monastery, brotherhood) which does not answer to any local hierarch, but is ruled directly by the highest authority of the church, i.e. the primate of the said church (e.g. a Patriarch) or in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918 by the (Most Holy Synod). Equivalent in the Catholic Church to a (personal prelature).