Tomis, „Prima Sedis Episcopalis” of the Church of Scythia Minor. Historical and Legal Testimonies about the Juridical Status of its Primates

Abstract

About the status of the Primate of a local autocephalous Church, constituted within an ethnic and geographical framework - as it was the case with the Church of the Roman province "Scythia Minor" - we have reliable evidence both from historical and legal sources (State and Church).
In order to write the pages of this study, with an interdisciplinary content (historical and juridical), we have resorted to first-hand sources, i.e. to the testimonies provided by the historical sources, the State and Church legislation of the first millennium and the text of the "Episcopal Lists" (Notitiae Episcopatuum), which has been of real use to us both in terms of knowledge of the history of the ancient legal institutions of the Church in the Danubian-Pontic area, i.e. in the geographical area of Romanian territory between the Lower Danube and the Black Sea, namely of the province Dobrudja, and, ipso facto, of the evolutionary process of the constitution of the legal status of its Primate, i.e. of archbishop of the metropolis of Tomis and metropolitan of the Roman province of Scythia Minor.