The earliest ecclesiastical use of the title catholicos was by the Bishop of Etchmiadzin, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, in the 4th century[1] while still under the Patriarchate of Antioch.
[4] Among the Armenians, catholicos was originally a simple title for the principal bishop of the country; he was subordinate to the See of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
At the beginning of the fourth century, Albania and Georgia (Iberia) were converted to Christianity, and the principal bishop of each of these countries bore the title of catholicos, although neither of them was autocephalous.
At the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, the Georgian catholicos asserted his independence and accepted Eastern Orthodoxy.
In 1783 Georgia was forced to abolish the office of its catholicos, and place itself under the Most Holy Synod of Russia, to which country it was united politically in 1801.
The Albanian catholicos remained loyal to the Armenian Church, with the exception of a brief schism towards the end of the sixth century.
It is asserted by some that the head of the Abyssinian Church, the abuna, also bears the title of catholicos, but, although this name may have been applied to him by analogy, there is, to our[who?]
[citation needed] The founders of Assyrian theology were Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who taught at Antioch.
The normative Christology of the Assyrian church was written by Babai the Great (551–628) and is distinct from the accusations directed toward Nestorius.
Today, the title is known as Catholicos / Maphrian of India or Catholicos of India of the Jacobite Syrian Christian Church headquartered at Puthencruz near Kochi in Kerala is an integral branch of Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch headed by Ignatius Aphrem II Patriarch of Antioch.
He is currently the 9th catholicos of the East since it was relocated to India and 92nd Primate on the Apostolic throne of Saint Thomas.
Abuna Basilios was consecrated the first patriarch-catholicos of the Ethiopian Church by the Coptic Pope Cyril VI at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo on 28 June 1959.
[13] Accordingly it is headed by Major Archbishop Moran Mor Cardinal Baselios Cleemis Catholica Bava since 2007.