CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Metropolitan - Ministerium by James Strong & John Mcclintock
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THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Metropolitan - Ministerium by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Metropolitan (Mhtropoli>thv) is the name of an ecclesiastical dignitary an episcopal officer who, by virtue of his residence in the capital of a country or province, exercises not only the authority of a presiding officer in his own diocese, but exerts, in some sense, jurisdiction over the other bishops of the same country or province; and in this respect differs from the archbishop (q.v.), who simply enjoys some additional privileges of honors and respect not common to the plain bishop (comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 1:270). The office originated in the Roman countries, when the chief city of a province was called mhtro>poliv. The date of its origin cannot be exactly fixed, but “the third century,” says Coleman (Manual of Prelacy and Ritualism, page 235), “may be regarded as the period in which it was chiefly consolidated and established.” Romanists hold that it can be traced, at least in germ, to the days of the apostles, and that mention is made of the office in the letters of Paul to Timothy and to Titus (comp. Pierre de Marca, Concord. lib. 6, Giorgi, De Antiquo Ital. Metropol.). Several of the Church fathers also mention the fact that the metropolitan office existed in apostolic days (e.g. Chrysostom, 15 Hom. in V. Tim., and Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 3, c. 4); but it is clear that “the name of metropolitan does not occur until the 4th century” (Coleman, Anc. Christianity Exemplified, page 143). The title was first publicly adopted by the Church at the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, and there seems good ground for the belief that, like all other episcopal offices, the metropolitan government “ was not the production of a day, but the result of a gradual modification of the diocesan government, by a further concentration of episcopal power, and the extension of its influence over a wider range of territory” (Coleman, Prel. and Rit. page 242; comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist. 2:270). The following maybe considered as the rights and privileges of the office. The metropolitan had precedence of all other bishops of his province, a decisive voice in their election, and the power of confirming and ordaining them. He summoned provincial councils, presided in them, and drew up the decrees. He had the oversight of the provincial bishops, and the ecclesiastical superintendence of the whole province. He had the privilege of determining all causes of special importance in provincial council, but in concurrence with the other bishops of the province. In extreme cases, appeal was made to him, when he had the power of controlling a provincial 3 bishop, without the assistance of other bishops. He could give and receive letters of communion, and publish and carry into effect laws enacted either by emperors or by councils relating to the Church. The bishops of a province elected and ordained their metropolitan. without the concurrence of the metropolitan of any other province. The ninth canon of the Council of Antioch (341) thus defines the office of the metropolitan: “The bishops of each eparchy (province) should know that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who have business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good that he should also have a precedence in honor, and that the other bishops should do nothing without him-according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers — except that which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i.e., dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. “Otherwise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops.” In the nineteenth canon, this council forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropolitan, and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province. The writers of the Latin Church use promiscuously the words archbishop and metropolitan, making either name denote a bishop, who, by virtue of his see, presides over or governs several other bishops. Thus in the newly- constituted hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in England the archbishop of Westminster has the rank of metropolitan. In the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, the archbishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, all possess the same rank. In the Church of England, also, the real meaning of the term metropolitan seems to have been lost sight of, and the archbishops of Canterbury and York, in England, and in Ireland those of Armagh and Dublin, are called metropolitans. The Greeks, however, use the name only to denote him whose see is really a civil metropolis. See Farrar, Eccles. Dict. s.v.; Hook, Church Dict. s.v.; Walcott, Sacred Archaeology, s.v.; Siegel, Handbuch d. christl.-kirchl. Alterthumer, 3:264 sq.; Planck, Gesch. d. christl.-kirchl. Gesellschaftsverfassung, 1:572 sq.; Ziegler, Versuch d. kirchl. Verfassungsformen, page 61 sq. 4 Metropoliti cum is the name of the archiepiscopal ordinariate and consistory, a sort of ecclesiastical supreme court, or second court of appeals, in the Church of Rome, installed by the metropolitans or archbishops. Occasionally it has the special power conferred which constitutes it also a third court of appeals, but, as a rule, this court hears all appeals in matters of discipline and matrimonial difficulties. As the duties of the archbishop are both to attend to the management of his own diocese and the dioceses of his subaltern bishops, the metropolitan council is divided into two boards or senates, one of which constitutes the court in cases of discipline and matrimonial differences of the archdiocese, the other hearing appeals from the ordinaries and consistories of the assistant bishops. But it is against the nature of archiepiscopal jurisdiction that the metropoliticum can also take the appeals against the sentence of the archiepiscopal vicary and ordinary and decide upon those. An appeal ab eadem ad eundem is not admissible, for it cannot be thought of that the general vicary or the archiepiscopal ordinary represents the archbishop as common bishop in propria dicecesi, the metropoliticum representing him as such, inasmuch as the archbishop is in his own archdiocese as ordinarius. The archbishop certainly cannot fill the offices of two dignitaries; the cognition or decision of appeals from sentences of archiepiscopal general vicaries and metropolitan courts should therefore be sent to other, hence to the metropolitan court of another archbishopric. Appeals from the decisions of the metropolitan courts in second instance are usually presented to the pope himself, securing acquittal at Rome by the Curia Romana, unless his holiness may please to order a judices in partibus, i.e., confer upon the metropoliticum the power of acting as a court of appeal of the third instance. See Wetzer und Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v. Mets, Laurent Re a Flemish prelate, was born at Grammont about 1520. He studied theology at Louvain, became a curate at Deinse, almoner and canon of Saint- Gudula’s church at Brussels, and shortly after the opening of the year 1562 he was appointed vicar to cardinal de Granvelle, archbishop of Malines, and installed ecclesiastical judge, or official, for the district of Brussels. In 1569, the University of Louvain constituted him the conservator of its privileges and vested rights, which were then hotly contested. Laurent de Mets did not long discharge the intricate functions of this last office, for in 5 November 1569, he was preferred to the bishopric of Bois-le-Duc. Mets founded a seminary, and published a Ritual for the’ use of his clergy. In November 1577, he was constrained to yield to the insurrection of the Calvinists. At first he took refuge in Cologne, and then in Namur, where, in 1578, Gregory XIII invested him with the episcopal see rendered vacant by the death of Anthony Havet. He died at Namur, 1580. He is the author of Statuta Synodi Diocesanae Buscoducensis anno Domini MDLXXI (Bois- le-Duc, 1571, 8vo): — Manuale Pastorum diaecesis Sylvaeducensis, (ibid. 1572, 4to). See Paquot, Memoires pour servire l’histoire litteraire des Pays-Bas, 12:319-27; Valere Andre, Bibliotheca Belgica; Guillaume Gazet, Histoire ecclesiastique des Pays-Bas; Foppens, Bibliotheca Belgica, page 810. Metsiah SEE PRISON REFORM. Mettray, Reformatory of. This noted institution for the reformation of juvenile delinquents is the parent of all institutions of this character, and deserves our notice therefor. The object of the Reformatory of Mettray and other like institutions, which have, especially of late, been fast multiplying, is the mild punishment and ultimate restoration to society of juvenile delinquents. The founder of the reformatory — whose labors, like those of the prison reformers of our day, deserve to be cherished forever — was M. Demetz, a French lawyer, a member of the Parisian bar, who, struck with the evils and hardships attending the committal to prison of young persons, and considering the training and habits of scarcely responsible criminals, condemned to languish hopelessly for a time, incapable of producing results other than their emerging worse than when they entered, resolved, in conjunction with the vicomte Bretigneres de Courteilles, to found a school which should have for its object the reformation of this class of offenders.