EXARCH of a Diocese was, anciently, the same with primate. This dignity was intermediate between the patriarchal and the metropolitan. Exarch is also used, in the ecclesiastical antiquities of the Eastern Church, for a general or superior over several monasteries.
In the modern Greek Church, an exarch is a deputy or legate a latere of the patriarch, whose office it is to visit the clergy and churches in the provinces allotted him. The power which the exarch enjoys, and the uses to which he turns it, recall the times of the corrupt proconsuls of the Roman empire. He usually enriches himself greatly in his post, and frequently rises to the patriarchate itself.