among Christians, are ecclesiastical dignitaries, or bishops, so called from their paternal authority in the church. The power of patriarchs was not the same in all, but differed according to the different customs of countries, or the pleasures of kings and councils: thus the patriarch of Constantinople grew to be a patriarch over the patriarchs of Ephesus and Caesarea, and was called the oecumenical and universal patriarch; and the patriarch of Alexandria had some prerogatives, which no other patriarch besides himself enjoyed, such as the right of consecrating and approving every single bishop under his jurisdiction.

PATRIARCHAL cross, in heraldry, is that where the shaft is twice crossed; the lower arms being longer than the upper ones. Plate CXXXIV. fig. 14. is a patriarchal cross, gules, on a field argent.