corner of Asia Minor, near the Hellespont; and there he built them a city which he called Nea Iustinianupolis—the New City of Justinian.[1] Their bishops came too; the Exarch of Cyprus sat at Nea Iustinianupolis, and the 39th Canon of the Quinisextum (692) transfers all the rights, privileges and independence of the See of Constantia to the new city; moreover, the Exarch now was given jurisdiction over the Metropolitan of Cyzicus and all the bishops of the Hellespont, to make up for his lost island. But it all came to nothing. Only one Exarch (John) reigned at Nea Iustinianupolis, then Justinian II died, and the Cypriotes went home again, taking their hierarchy with them. The Hellespont fell back into the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the only relic of Justinian's arrangement is that the Exarchs of Cyprus have added the purely honorary title of Archbishop of Nea Iustiniane to their names.
If, then, we make a survey of the Eastern Churches at any time from the 5th to the 9th centuries, we shall find, first of all, that already a very large number of Christians have left the union of the Catholic Church. Egypt is full of Monophysite Copts, Syria of Jacobites; Armenia has fallen off, the Nestorians have all escaped to Persia. On the other hand, we find established throughout the Empire one great corporate body, far greater than all the schismatical Churches put together, which, in spite of such nicknames as Melkite, Dyophysite, and so on, is always officially known as the Orthodox Catholic Church. Throughout this Catholic Church the Pope reigns as Over-Lord and Chief (we shall see this in the next chapter); it is divided into the five patriarchates and the autocephalous Church of Cyprus.
Except for the schism between the East and West, this remained the fundamental constitution of Eastern Christendom until the rise of independent national Churches almost in our own time. And our Canon Law still contains the 21st Canon of the eighth general council (Constantinople IV, in 869): "We define that no one at all of the mighty ones of this world shall dishonour those who occupy the patriarchal
- ↑ The name was shortened into Nea Iustiniane.
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