in antiquity, an appellation given, by the emperors of the east, to certain officers sent into Italy, in quality of vicars, or rather prefects, to defend that part of Italy which was yet under their obedience, particularly the city of Ravenna, against the Lombards, who had made themselves masters of the greatest part of the rest.

The residence of the exarch was at Ravenna; which city, with that of Rome, was all that was left the emperors. The first exarch was the patrician Boetius, famous for his treatise, De Consolatione Philosophiae; appointed in 568 by the younger Justin. The exarchs subsisted about 185 years, and ended in Eutychius; under whose exarchate the city of Ravenna was taken by the Lombard king Astulphus, or Astolophus.

The emperor Frederic created Heraclius, archbishop of Lyons, a descendant of the illustrious house of Montboissier, exarch of the whole kingdom of Burgundy; a dignity till that time unknown anywhere but in Italy, particularly in the city of Ravenna.

Homer, Philo, and other ancient authors, give likewise the name exarchus to the choragus or master of the fingers, in the ancient choruses, or him who sung first; the word ἐξαρχομαι or ἐξαρχομαι, signifying equally to begin, and to commend.

Exarch of a Diocese was, anciently, the same with primate. This dignity was inferior to the patriarchal, yet greater than the metropolitan.

Exarch also denotes 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 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 same 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.