The Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands 149
The provisions previously applied to the Greek episcopacy in Sicily, south-
ern Italy and Latin Syria, as well as those of the Fourth Lateran Council of
1215, clearly influenced the formulation of the agreements concluded in 13th-
century Cyprus.
The Latin patriarchs of Jerusalem appointed Orthodox coadjutors, bishops
in name but without territorial jurisdiction, in the 12th century, as recorded by
Jacques de Vitry, the Latin bishop of Acre (1216–28). Such bishops, subject to
the Latin diocesan bishops, existed in Sidon, Lydda, Acre and Gaza. In addi-
tion, the fact that ethnic Syrians as opposed to Byzantine Greeks obtained
these offices once Latin states were established as a result of the First Crusade
greatly facilitated their acceptance of this arrangement.12 This practice was
given expression in the ninth canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, which
while expressly prohibiting the existence of more than one bishop in each dio-
cese, stated that the bishop in areas where more than one rite was practiced
should originate from the rite of the majority and could appoint a vicar or pre-
sul from the minority rite to assist him in ministering to its members.13 In Sicily
and southern Italy, however, sustained Latin immigration gradually tilted the
ethnic balance so that Greeks became minorities in areas where they had pre-
viously predominated, so that sometimes, as in Crotone, the Greek bishop had
to practise both rites during the transition. Contemporary Roman Catholic
canon never defined the juridical status of such presules with exactitude. The
designation presul was often used as a synonym for bishop in the terminology
of the conciliar canon, but the wording employed shows that this designation
could never refer to a second bishop in the same diocese, but only to a substi-
tute under the diocesan’s jurisdiction. The canonist Tancred stated that the
diocesan was empowered to either appoint a suitable cleric for the pastoral
care of those following a rite other than his own or else to appoint a bishop for
them, whom he should make his vicar. This designation of vicar makes it clear
that the person appointed, even if called a bishop, would have no territorial
jurisdiction and so would never be a bishop pleno iure.14
Tancred’s opinion was applied in practice throughout former Byzantine
and even Muslim territories whose Greek populations were now under Latin
rule. Following the capture of Constantinople in 1204 Pope Innocent iii,
despite expressing initial indignation at the reports of Latin atrocities against
12 Hamilton, Latin Church in the Crusader States, pp. 182–84.
13 Joseph Alberigo et al., eds., Concilium Oecumenicorum Decreta (Bologna, 1972), p. 215,
no. 9.
14 Peter Herde, “The Papacy and the Greek Church,” pp. 226–28 and 240–50.