stavropegion

Noun

stauropegion (plural stauropegia)

1. (initially) In Eastern Orthodoxy, the placement of a cross by a bishop which symbolises his approval of the construction of a church or monastery on the site the cross is placed.
2. (later) In Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, an autonomous Orthodox church body (church, monastery, brotherhood, lavra, theological school) which does not answer to any local hierarch, but is ruled directly by the highest authority of the church, i.e. the primate of the said church (e.g. a Patriarch) or in the case of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918 by the Most Holy Synod. Similar to a personal prelature.
   • Taronas' church also bore the name of St. Nicholas, and he managed to obtain a patriarchal stauropegion for it. (p. 242) If the patriarch recognized these stauropegia as valid charters of foundation, the bishop would stand to lose his traditional rights over these institutions. (p. 239)1987, John Philip Thomas, Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire, Dumbarton Oaks, pages 239, 242