Primate of Africa

The Primate of Africa is an honorific title in the Roman Catholic church, but in early Christianity was the leading Bishop or primate in Africa, except for Mauritania which was under Rome and Egypt which was suffragan to Alexandria.

There were at times primates in Numidia and Byzacena,[1] and Donatist[2] claimants as Primate but genrally the role of Carthage was seen as total.[1][3]

History

In the 3rd century, at the time of Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage exercised a real though not formalized primacy in the Early African Church.[4] not only in the Roman province of Proconsular Africa in the broadest sense (even when it was divided into three provinces through the establishment of Byzacena and Tripolitania), but also, in some supra-metropolitan form, over the Church in Numidia and Mauretania. The provincial primacy was associated with the senior bishop in the province rather than with a particular see and was of little importance in comparison to the authority of the bishop of Carthage, who could be appealed to directly by the clergy of any province.[4]

Pope Leo confirmed the Primacy of the Bishop of Carthage in 446,[5] when he wrote Indeed, after the Roman Bishop, the leading Bishop and metropolitan for all Africa is the Bishop of Carthage.[1][6]

At the beginning of the 8th century and at the end of the 9th century, the Patriarch of Alexandria claimed jurisdiction over Carthage, however in 1053AD Pope Leo IV confirmed the primacy of Carthage.[7] and twenty years latter pope Gregory VII reiterated Leo's statement.[8][9]

Today the Archbishops of Carthage and Primate of Africa has been incorporated into the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tunis.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Francois Decret, Early Christianity in North Africa (James Clarke & Co, 25 Dec. 2014) p86.
  2. ↑ Maureen A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World (Fortress Press, 1997) p133.
  3. ↑ Leslie Dossey, Peasant and Empire in Christian North Africa (University of California Press, 2010) p125.
  4. 1 2  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Hassett, Maurice (1908). "Carthage". In Herbermann, Charles. Catholic Encyclopedia. 3. New York: Robert Appleton.
  5. ↑ Herbermann, Charles, ed. "Africa". Catholic Encyclopedia. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1913).
  6. ↑ Leo the Great, Letters89.
  7. ↑ Mas-Latrie, Louis de (1883). "L'episcopus Gummitanus et la primauté de l'évêque de Carthage". Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes 44 (44): 77.
  8. ↑ Bouchier, E.S. (1913). Life and Letters in Roman Africa. Oxford: Blackwells. p. 117. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  9. ↑ Francois Decret, Early Christianity in North Africa(James Clarke & Co, 2011) p200.
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