The protasekretis or protoasekretis (Greek: πρωτ[ο]ασηκρῆτις), Latinized as protasecretis or protoasecretis, was a senior official in the Byzantine bureaucracy.
The first asekretis are attested from the 6th century, and several Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople and one emperor, Anastasios II (r. 713–715), were drawn from their ranks.
[1] Aside from possibly anachronistic references to Maximus the Confessor being a protasekretis under Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641), the earliest confirmed occurrence (as proto a secreta) comes from the Liber Pontificalis for the year 756.
[2] As head of the imperial chancery (the effective successor of the late Roman primicerius notariorum), the position was highly influential: in the 899 Kletorologion of Philotheos, a list of court precedence of officials, he is placed seventh among the sekretikoi, the financial ministers of the state.
[2] After 1106, however, he was moved from the chancery and assumed judicial duties, heading one of the highest courts of the Byzantine Empire, along with the eparchos, the megas droungarios tes viglas, the dikaiodotes, the koiaistor, the epi ton kriseon, and the katholikos, who headed the court for fiscal affairs (demosiaka pragmata).