Podział i wykonywanie jurysdykcji patriarszej w świetle obowiązującego prawa dla katolickich Kościołów wschodnich

Abstract

The code of canon law for the Eastern Catholic Churches proclaims that various functions of patriarchal jurisdiction, i.e. legislative, judicial, executive, doctrinal, administrative and liturgical power are to be exercised „sub auctoriatte Romani Pontificis". Comparison of patriarch al jurisdiction with papal one attempted in the present article reveals fundamental differences between the two modes of jurisdiction existing in the order of hierarchical subordination. Legislative, doctrinal or preceptorial, administrative and liturgical power to which a patriarch is entitled on his territory is included in jurisdiction in the broad meaning of the term. Yet according to the Eastern code, judicial power alone is meant by jurisdiction in the strict sense of the term. Judicial power is exercised either by patriarch himself or through his tribunals, both internally and externally. Studies concerning external judicial power permit to discern the exstence of threefold hierarchy of tribunals in every patriarchate: from epatriarchal through metropolitan to patriarchal (the patriarchal tribunal and the standing [permanent] synod). The latter ranks of tribunals, i.e. metropolitan and patriarchal act also as instances of appeal, except the standing synod which as an administrative organ of a patriarchate does not accept any appeals. It is possible to appeal from its verdicts solely the Apostolic See. Thus defined, in different manners of its activity, jurisdiction of a patriarch permits to see him against the hierarchy of the universal Church.