Evolving Primacy in Eastern Orthodoxy

"Pentkovsky notes that the divine grace was not the only power involved in the selection of the patriarch; the state also participated. According to Pentkovsky, in fourteenth-century Constantinople, the emperor was the one who handed the newly elected patriarch his staff. Thus, medieval Byzantium introduced the notion of the state's claim to primacy in the Church, through the person of the emperor. Gilbert Dagron suggests that the coronation ceremonies and the Byzantine interpretation of the emperor's quasi-episcopal office granted the emperor greater authority than the patriarch himself. By the fourteenth century, the emperor could veto the election of a metropolitan; clergy also had to offer the emperor an oath of loyalty. ... Zhivov states that the 1423 episcopal ordination rite included an intonation of 'Many years' for the Metropolitan of Kyiv only. By 1630, the 'Many years' formula expanded, and the order of officers in the formula denotes the evolving sense of primacy. The tsar is commemorated first, followed by the patriarch and the newly ordained bishop. Then, the patriarch recited a prayer for the tsar."

-- Nicholas Denysenko, "www.academia.edu/23003121/A_Liturgical_Th…" [Primacy in the Church, vol. 1 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Yonkers, New York, 2016)] -- p. 200-201