The Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands 151
grounds that the previous disobedience Constantinople had shown Rome in
Byzantine times had annulled any rights of jurisdiction it ever possessed over
Cyprus. Antelm the Latin archbishop of Patras also persuaded the pope in
April 1207 to confirm him eventually, citing alleged difficulties in travelling to
Constantinople, but in this instance the pope granted it with the proviso that
this concession in no way prejudiced the Latin patriarch’s jurisdiction over his
archbishopric. Yet some time prior to June 1222 the papal legate John Colonna
declared the archdiocese of Patras exempt from the jurisdiction of the Latin
patriarch of Constantinople, a decision Pope Honorius iii confirmed in July
- This pope granted similar exemptions to the archdiocese of Ainos in
Thrace and the diocese of Madyte.18
Not all Greek prelates submitted to the incoming Latin clergy. In Athens,
Corinth, Patras and Crete, the Greek metropolitan archbishops fled to Nicaea,
and the prevailing practice was for such Greek prelates to be succeeded by
Latins. As had happened in Cyprus, a reduction in episcopal sees occurred.
Tomasso Morosini proposed this measure and the pope confirmed the deci-
sions of his legates to grant the administration of vacant dioceses to the
bishops of adjacent ones, which resulted in practice in the unification of sees
with increasing frequency, although at times it provoked resistance. Some time
after 1222 Pope Honorius iii united the see of Marmara to that of Heracleia,
confirming a previous act of the papal legate John Colonna. He also united two
bishoprics in Asia Minor previously subject to Ephesus as well as the bishop-
ric of Chios, previously subject to Rhodes, to the archbishopric of Lesbos.19 In
1224 the bishop of Oreos complained to the pope that the bishop of Euboea
had taken advantage of the unification of the see of Oreos with that of Euboea
so as to appoint a Greek priest as his vicar at that bishop’s expense, a clear
case of a protopapas displacing an established bishop. It is, moreover, possible
that some such vicars had been secretly consecrated as bishops so as to ordain
Greek priests according to the Greek as opposed to the Latin rite, a phenome-
non noted by the papal legate John of St Praxedes, who stated in 1218 that some
Greeks “had secretly been given holy orders by persons other than their own
18 Wolff, “Organization,” pp. 35–37 and 40; Richard, “Latin Church in Constantinople,” p. 47;
Coureas, Latin Church 1195–1312, p. 90; Christopher Schabel, “Antelm the Nasty, First Latin
Archbishop of Patras (1205–ca.1241),” in Diplomatics in the Eastern Mediterranean 1000–
1500 , ed. Alexander D. Beihammer, Maria G. Parani and Christopher D. Schabel (Leiden,
2008), pp. 98–99; Claverie, Honorius iii, p. 186.
19 Hussey, Orthodox Church, pp. 192 and 198; Wolff, “Organization,” pp. 44–46; Richard, “Latin
Church in Constantinople,” pp. 48–49.