Catholicos

Basically an adjective denoting “general, universal,” it naturally became a title, both secular (“supervisor of accounts”) and ecclesiastical (“archbishops,” “heads of monastic houses”). Today the title has become limited in use to certain patriarchs: among Orthodox, the head of the Georgian Church; among Monophysite churches, the head of the Armenian (Gregorian) Church, and the Armenian patriarch of Sis; among Nestorians (Assyrians), “catholicos of the East”; and among Roman Catholics, the heads of the Uniate Armenians, and of the Uniate Nestorians (Chaldeans).