Rzymska geneza kościelnych instytucji metropolii i metropolity

This short article accounts for the origins of the metropolitan office in Catholic Church. The first chapter describes Greek and the Roman cultural context of this institution referring to the history of the ancient ‘polis’ and the imperial ‘province’. The second chapter deals with the necessity to creating the office of the metropolitan in the early stage of the development of the ecclesial hierarchy given the cultural background present in that historical period. The further analysis shows the way these ecclesiastical units were evolving during the antiquity and the Middle Ages.