The Synod of Bishops of the Melkite Church elected Maximos Patriarch of Antioch on 30 October 1947, succeeding the recently deceased Cyril IX Moghabghab.
… Never could the idea have come to them [the Apostles] that in a Christian gathering the celebrant should read the texts of Holy Scripture, sing psalms, preach or break bread, and at the same time use a language different from that of the community gathered there … because this language [Latin] was spoken by the faithful of that time, Greek was abandoned in favor of Latin.
[4] Maximos IV's objections were rooted in history and ecclesiology: he argued that the patriarchs of the Eastern Churches were heads of their respective churches and successors to their respective apostolic sees only subordinate to the Roman Pontiff but were not subordinate to the cardinals whose position was that of being members of the principal clergy of the diocese of Rome.
As such it would be inappropriate for him or other Eastern Catholic patriarchs to accept the rank of cardinal which implied being made a titular member of the Latin Church with a subordinate clerical rank as opposed to their being leaders of their respective churches and successors to their respective apostolic sees united under the leadership of the Supreme Pontiff.
On 11 February 1965, Pope Paul VI decreed[a] that Eastern patriarchs who are elevated to the College of Cardinals would belong to the order of cardinal-bishops, ranked after the suburbicarian cardinal-bishops; that they would not be part of the Roman clergy and would not be assigned any Roman suburbicarian diocese, church or deaconry; that their sees as cardinals would be their patriarchal see.
[5][b] Pope Paul VI's decree satisfied many of the concerns of Maximos and he accepted his elevation to the rank of cardinal.
[citation needed] On 22 November 1965, he was assigned the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin for religious celebrations while he was in Rome.
The title of cardinal-deacon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin was retained by Cardinal Francesco Roberti, who held the titular church from 15 December 1958 until 26 June 1967.