enotes an officer, still subsisting in the Greek church; being a kind of deputy or legate à latere of the patriarch, whose office it is to visit the provinces allotted him, in order to inform himself of the lives and manners of the clergy; take cognizance of ecclesiastical causes; the manner of celebrating divine service; the administration of the sacraments, particularly confession; the observance of the canons; monastic discipline; affairs of marriages, divorces, &c.; but, above all, to take an account of the several revenues which the patriarch receives from several churches; and, particularly, as to what regards the collecting the same.

The exarch, after having greatly enriched himself in his post, frequently rises to the patriarchate itself.

Exarch is also used, in the eastern church antiquity, for a general or superior over several monasteries; the name that we otherwise call archimandrite; being exempted, by the patriarch of Constantinople, from the jurisdiction of the bishops; as are now the generals of the Romish monastic orders.