Primate religion: Encyclopedia II - Primate religion - Roman Catholic Church

Primate religion - Roman Catholic Church

In the Western Church, a Primate is an archbishop (or rarely a suffragan or exempt bishop) of a see (called a primas) which confers precedence over the other bishops of his own province, or over a number of provinces (possibly part of a province), such as a 'national' church in (historical) political/cultural terms. This precedence gives no additional authority over these other bishops, such as that exercised by a Metropolitan bishop.

The term is generally found in the older Catholic countries, and is now purely honorific, enjoying no single real right under canon law. The title may be vested in one of the oldest Archdioceses in a country, if it exists. As incumbents, especially nation's leading archbishops, are often elevated cardinal, a higher rank, and the national leadership is rather vested in the chairmanship of the national conference of bishops (often vested in his see; old-fashioned synods have become rare) the title is rather void for them. The see city may no longer have the prominence it had when the diocese was created, or its circumscription may no longer exist as a state/nation. In rank, Primate corresponds to the title of Exarch of the Eastern Church.

In the United States, the Archbishop of Baltimore is called "honorary primate." Since Baltimore was the first diocese in the nation, its bishop is granted ceremonial precedence before all other bishops in the United States.

At the Vatican Council (Coll. Lacens., VII, pp. 34, 488, 726) the only (arch)bishops figuring as primates, in virtue of recent concessions, were these (by country) :

• Hungary — Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, styled Prince-primate of Gran (uniquely a legal status)
• Austria — Archbishop of Salzburg
• the exempt archbishopric Antivari (Bar in Servo-Croatian, now in Montenegro) is primate of Dalmatia since the 12th century (formal papal confirmation 1902)
• the archbishop of Salerno, in the historical Neapolitan kingdom
• Belgium — Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel

(previously Mechelen, primate of all the Netherlands = Low Countries)

• Brazil — Archbishop of Sao Salvador da Bahia
• Ireland (whole island of Ireland, including UK-governed Northern Ireland) — Archbishop of Armagh
• Poland — traditionally Archbishop of Gniezno (Gnesen in German), an exception for the incumbent Archbishop of Warsaw who headed both archdioceses until 1992
• in Spain : Tarragona (under the Aragonese crown, now in Catalonia; for its Castilian rival, see below).

A selection of other countries and their Roman Catholic primates (some claims are dormant or have been void for centuries):

• Australia — Archbishop of Sydney, who is effectively primate by precedence due to his usually being a cardinal.
• Canada — Archbishop of Quebec
• Cuba — Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba
• France — Archbishop of Lyon ("Primate of the Gauls")
• Germany — Archbishop of Salzburg (since 1648 "Primas Germaniae")
• Italy — Bishop of Rome (the Pope)
• Philippines — Archbishop of Manila
• across the Pyrenees, the French archbishoprics of Auch (western) and Narbonne (eastern) claimed, in 714-1019, primacy over the northern parts of Spain, ultimately relinquished to Tarragona (in Catalonia)
• Portugal — the Archbishop of Braga, claiming primacy over Spanish Galicia to its north, where the pilgrimage mecca of Santiago de Compostela itself later claimed to be a primas - his Portuguese precedence was lost when the national capital was raised to the higher rank of Patriarch of Lisbon
• Scandinavia — Lund, now in southern Sweden and abolished even as a diocese, was primas of a larger Denmark, above the other, slightly younger Swedish Archbishopric, Upsala (famous for its university) also extending into Finland and even Reval (Teutonic Order, but not under Riga; now in Estonia)- all these countries turned protestant
• Scotland — Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh
• primate of all Spain by papal bull of 1088 — the Archbishop of Toledo, under the Castilian crown

• United States — technically has no primate, but the Archbishop of Baltimore was granted ceremonial precedence before all other American archbishops

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Roman Catholic Church", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki