The Patriarch of Alexandria is the Archbishop of Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt. Historically, this office has included the designation of Pope (etymologically 'Father', like Abbot etc.). The first Bishop known to have been called "Pope" was the thirteenth Patriarch of Alexandria, Papas Heraclas.
At first the position was an Episcopate, which was revered as one of the three most ancient Episcopates, along with Rome and Antioch, several centuries before Jerusalem or Constantinople attained that status in 381 or 451; the five subsequently came to be known as the Pentarchy. It was, de facto, elevated to an Archiepiscopal status by the local Alexandrine Council on the one hand and it was then regulated by canon law of the First Ecumenical Council stipulating that all the Egyptian episcopal and metropolitan provinces be subjected to this Metropolitan See of Alexandria, as was already the prevailing custom.
The office was acknowledged as a Patriarchate by the time of the First Council of Ephesus, and was officially ratified as such by the Council of Chalcedon. The title Pope was originally used in a capacity of an appellation rather than a title and eventually it became a title, but unlike the case of the Pope of Rome, the Pope of Alexandria had no distinction in his Papal or Pontifical titles on the one hand and his Patriarchal titles on the other. They were used together in the same capacity and this dual title did not put him on a higher ecclesiastical/hierarchical level than the other Patriarchs of the Pentarchy.
Papa has been the specific designation for the Archbishop of Alexandria and Patriarch of all Africa on the See of Saint Mark. Historically, this office has held the title of Pope, "Παπας" (papas), which means "Father" in the Greek and the Coptic languages, since Pope Heracleus, the 13th Alexandrine Bishop (232–249 AD), was the first to associate the appellation of Pope with the title of the Bishop of Alexandria.
The word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning "Father". In the early centuries of Christianity, this title was applied, especially in the east, to all bishops and other senior clergy; in the west it began to be used particularly of the Bishop of Rome, rather than for bishops in general, in the 6th century and it was only in 1075 that Pope Gregory VII issued a declaration that has been widely interpreted as stating this by then established convention. By the same 6th century this was also the normal practice of the imperial chancery of Constantinople.
The earliest record of the use of this title was in regard to Pope Heraclas of Alexandria (232–248) in a letter written by his successor, Pope Dionysius of Alexandria, to Philemon, a Roman presbyter:
τοῦτον ἐγὼ τὸν κανόνα καὶ τὸν τύπον παρὰ τοῦ μακαρίου πάπα ἡμῶν Ἡρακλᾶ παρέλαβον.Which translates into:
I received this rule and ordinance from our blessed father/pope, Heraclas.According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest recorded use of the title "pope" in English is in an Old English translation (c. 950) of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People:
Þa wæs in þa tid Uitalius papa þæs apostolican seðles aldorbiscop.In modern English:
At that time, Pope Vitalian was chief bishop of the apostolic see.According to Church tradition, the Patriarchate was founded in 42 by the Apostle Saint Mark the Evangelist. All churches acknowledge the same succession of church leaders up to about the monophysite Robber Council of Ephesus of 429 and the orthodox Chalcedonian Council of Chalcedon 451, that gave rise to the non-Chalcedonian (miaphysite/monophysite) Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and to the chalcedonian Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria.