ARCHPREBUTER**, a priest or presbyter established in some diocese, with a pre-eminence over the rest. Anciently the archpriest was the first person after the bishop: he was seated in the church next after the bishop; and even acted as his vicar, in his absence, as to all spiritual concerns. In the fifth century, there were found several archpriests in the same diocese; from which time some will have them to have been called deans. In the ninth century, they distinguished two kinds of cures or parishes: the smaller governed by simple priests; and the baptismal churches by archpriests; who, beside the immediate concern of the cure, had the inspection of the other inferior priests, and gave an account of them to the bishop, who governed the chief, or cathedral church, in person. There are archpresbyters still subsisting in the Greek church; vested with most of the functions and privileges of chorepiscopi or rural deans.