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Abbot
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===Early history=== In [[Egypt]], the first home of monasticism, the jurisdiction of the abbot, or archimandrite, was but loosely defined. Sometimes he ruled over only one community, sometimes over several, each of which had its own abbot as well. Saint [[John Cassian]] speaks of an abbot of the [[Thebaid]] who had 500 monks under him. By the [[Rule of St Benedict]], which, until the [[Cluniac reforms]], was the norm in the West, the abbot has jurisdiction over only one community. The rule, as was inevitable, was subject to frequent violations; but it was not until the foundation of the [[Abbey of Cluny|Cluniac]] Order that the idea of a supreme abbot, exercising jurisdiction over all the houses of an order, was definitely recognised.{{sfn|Venables|Phillips|1911}} Monks, as a rule, were laymen, nor at the outset was the abbot any exception. For the reception of the [[sacrament]]s, and for other religious offices, the abbot and his monks were commanded to attend the nearest church. This rule proved inconvenient when a monastery was situated in a desert or at a distance from a city, and necessity compelled the [[ordination]] of some monks. This innovation was not introduced without a struggle, [[ecclesiology|ecclesiastical]] dignity being regarded as inconsistent with the higher [[spirituality|spiritual]] life, but, before the close of the 5th century, at least in the East, abbots seem almost universally to have become [[deacon]]s, if not priests. The change spread more slowly in the West, where the office of abbot was commonly filled by laymen till the end of the 7th century. The ecclesiastical leadership exercised by abbots despite their frequent lay status is proved by their attendance and votes at ecclesiastical councils. Thus at the [[first Council of Constantinople]], AD 448, 23 [[archimandrite]]s or abbots sign, with 30 [[bishop]]s.{{sfn|Venables|Phillips|1911}} The [[second Council of Nicaea]], AD 787, recognized the right of abbots to ordain their monks to the inferior orders{{sfn|Venables|Phillips|1911}} below the [[deacon|diaconate]], a power usually reserved to bishops. Abbots used to be subject to [[bishop|episcopal]] jurisdiction, and continued generally so, in fact, in the West till the 11th century. The [[Code of Justinian]] (lib. i. tit. iii. de Ep. leg. xl.) expressly subordinates the abbot to episcopal oversight. The first case recorded of the partial exemption of an abbot from episcopal control is that of Faustus, abbot of Lerins, at the council of Arles, AD 456; but the exorbitant claims and exactions of bishops, to which this repugnance to episcopal control is to be traced, far more than to the arrogance of abbots, rendered it increasingly frequent, and, in the 6th century, the practice of exempting religious houses partly or altogether from episcopal control, and making them responsible to the pope alone, received an impulse from [[Pope Gregory I|Pope Gregory the Great]]. These exceptions, introduced with a good object, had grown into a widespread evil by the 12th century, virtually creating an ''imperium in imperio,'' and depriving the bishop of all authority over the chief centres of influence in his [[diocese]].{{sfn|Venables|Phillips|1911}}
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