Status in The Orthodox Church
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is first in honour among all the Eastern Orthodox bishops, presides in person - or through a delegate - over any council of Orthodox primates and/or bishops in which he takes part and serves as primary spokesman for the Orthodox communion, especially in ecumenical contacts with other Christian denominations. He has no direct jurisdiction over the other patriarchs or the other autocephalous Orthodox churches, but he, alone among his fellow-primates, enjoys the right of convening extraordinary synods consisting of them and/or their delegates to deal with ad hoc situations and has also convened well-attended Pan-Orthodox Synods in the last forty years.
In addition to being the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, he is the direct administrative superior of dioceses and archdioceses serving millions of Greek, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Albanian believers in North and South America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong, Korea, Southeast Asia and parts of modern Greece which, for historical reasons, do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Church of Greece.
His actual position is Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, one of the fourteen autocephalous and several autonomous churches and the most senior (though not oldest) of the four orthodox ancient primatial sees among the five patriarchal Christian centers comprising the ancient Pentarchy of the undivided Church. In his role as head of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople, he also holds the title Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome.
He should not be confused with the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, an office that is now extinct, and created after the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade. That office became effectively redundant after the city was recaptured by the Byzantine Greeks, half a century later. Thus he is also known, outside Orthodoxy, as the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople. His official title is "His All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch".
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