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Catholicos
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== Origin of the title == The earliest ecclesiastical use of the title ''catholicos'' was by the [[Catholicos of All Armenians|Bishop of Etchmiadzin]], head of the [[Armenian Apostolic Church]], in the 4th century<ref name=Wigram91/> while still under the Patriarchate of Antioch.<ref name=ce>{{Catholic|wstitle=Catholicos}}</ref> Among the Armenians, catholicos was originally a simple title for the principal bishop of the country; he was subordinate to the See of Caesarea in Cappadocia.<ref name=ce/> Sometime later, it was adopted by the [[Patriarch of Seleucia-Ctesiphon|Grand metropolitans of Seleucia-Ctesiphon]] in [[Persia]], who became the designated heads of the [[Church of the East]]. The first claim that the bishop of [[Selucia-Ctesiphon]] was superior to the other bishoprics and had (using a later term) ''patriarchal'' rights was made by [[List of Patriarchs of the Church of the East|Patriarch]] [[Papa bar Aggai]] (c. 317 β c. 329). In the 5th century this claim was strengthened and Isaac (or ''Ishaq'', 399 β c. 410), who organized the [[Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon]], used the title of ''bishop of Selucia-Ctesiphon, Catholicos and Head over the bishops of all the Orient''.<ref>{{cite book|page=931|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7IHmyKcPtYC&pg=PA931|access-date=2009-02-22|title=The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods|isbn=978-0-521-24693-4|year=1983|first1=Ehsan|last1=Yar-Shater|first2=W. B.|last2=Fisher| publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> This line of Catholicos founded the [[List of Patriarchs of the Church of the East|Church of the East]] and the development of the [[East Syriac Rite]]. At the beginning of the fourth century, Albania and Georgia ([[Kingdom of Iberia|Iberia]]) were converted to Christianity, and the principal bishop of each of these countries bore the title of catholicos, although neither of them was autocephalous. They followed the Armenians in rejecting the [[Council of Chalcedon]]. At the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, the Georgian catholicos asserted his independence and accepted Eastern Orthodoxy. Henceforward the Georgian Church underwent the same evolutions as the Greek. In 1783 Georgia was forced to abolish the office of its catholicos, and place itself under the [[Most Holy Synod]] of Russia, to which country it was united politically in 1801. The Albanian catholicos remained loyal to the Armenian Church, with the exception of a brief schism towards the end of the sixth century. Shortly afterwards, Albania was assimilated partly with Armenia and partly with Georgia. There is no mention of any catholicos in Albania after the seventh century. It is asserted by some that the head of the Abyssinian Church, the [[abuna]], also bears the title of catholicos, but, although this name may have been applied to him by analogy, there is, to our{{who|date=October 2023}} knowledge, no authority for asserting that this title is used by the Abyssinian Church itself.<ref name=ce/>
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