ARCHIMANDRITE (from Gr. apxcov, a ruler, and µav3pa, a

See also:

• FOLD

fold or monastery)  , a title in the Greek Church applied to a superior abbot, who has the supervision of several abbots and monasteries, or to the abbot of some specially great and important monastery, the title for an ordinary abbot being hegumenos . The title occurs for the first time in a letter to Epiphanius, prefixed to his Panarium (c . 375), but the Lausiac History of Palladius may be evidence that it was in common use in the 4th century as applied to Pachomius (q.v.) . In Russia the bishops are commonly selected from the archimandrites . The word occurs in the Regula Columbani (c . 7), and du Cange gives a few other cases of its use in Latin documents, but it never came into vogue in the West . Owing to intercourse with Greek and Slavonic Christianity, the title is sometimes to be met with in southern Italy and Sicily, and in Hungary and Poland . See the article in the Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne et de liturgie .