Hi Vico - I know that the various Latin patriarchs do not preside over distinct ritual churches (there are four at present - Jerusalem, Venice, Lisbon, and Goa) - I was counting the Pope as the “patriarch” of the Roman Rite/Latin Church for all practical intents and purposes.
I understand. Rome favors from the time of Pope Gregory, three Petrine episcopal sees: Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.
“Patriarch of the West” is a title introduced in the east at the time of the imperial Justinian (527 A.D. - 565 A.D.), when there were four Eastern patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Jerusalem gets left out often, because it was absorbed into Antioch.
Press Release About The Abolition Of The Title
“Patriarch of the West” from The 2006 Pontifical Yearbook
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
In The 2006 Pontifical Yearbook the title “Patriarch of the West” is missing from the enumeration of the Pope’s titles. This absence has been commented on in different ways and requires clarification.
Without presuming to consider the complex historical question of the title of patriarch in all its aspects, it can be said from the historical point of view that the ancient patriarchs of the East, established by the Councils of Constantinople (381) and Chalcedon (451), were related to a fairly clearly defined territory, where the territory of the See of the Bishop of Rome remained vague. In the East, under the ecclesiastical imperial system of Justinian (527-565), in addition to the four Eastern Patriarchs (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem), the Pope was included as the Patriarch of the West. Conversely, Rome favors the idea of the three Petrine episcopal sees: Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. Without using the title “Patriarch of the West,” the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-70), the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Council of Florence (1439), listed the Pope as the first of the then five Patriarchs.
The title “Patriarch of the West” was used in the year 642 by Pope Theodore I. Thereafter, it only used rarely and did not have a clear meaning. Its heyday came in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, under the multiplication of the Pope’s titles, it appeared in The Pontifical Yearbook for the first time in 1863.
Currently, the meaning of the term “West” refers to a cultural context that refers not only to Western Europe, but extends to the United States of America to Australia, and New Zealand, thus differing from other cultural contexts. Obviously, this meaning of the term “West” does not intend to describe an ecclesiastical territory nor it can be used as a definition of a patriarchal territory. If you want to give to the term ‘West’ a meaning applicable to ecclesiastical juridical language, it could only be understood with reference to the Latin Church. Therefore, the title “Patriarch of the West” would describe the Bishop of Rome’s special relationship with it and could express the particular jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome for the Latin Church.
Consequently, the title “Patriarch of the West” from the outset is unclear, and with the evolution of history became obsolete and practically unusable. All the more so, since the Catholic Church from Vatican II founded for the Latin Church in the form of episcopal conferences and their international meetings of bishops’ conferences, the canons targeted to the needs of today.
Omitting the title of “Patriarch of the West” clearly does not change anything in the recognition, so solemnly declared by Vatican Council II, of the ancient patriarchal Churches (Lumen Gentium 23). Still less can this suppression mean that it implies new demands. The waiver of that title is meant to express a historical and theological realism, and at the same time, be the relinquishment of a claim, a waiver that may be of benefit to ecumenical dialogue.
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