Page "Bishop" Paragraph 47

; Metropolitan bishop: A metropolitan bishop is an archbishop in charge of an ecclesiastical province, or group of dioceses, and in addition to having immediate jurisdiction over his own archdiocese, also exercises some oversight over the other dioceses within that province.

Sometimes a metropolitan may also be the head of an autocephalous, sui iuris, or autonomous church when the number of adherents of that tradition are small.

In the Latin Rite, metropolitans are always archbishops ; in many Eastern churches, the title is " metropolitan ," with some of these churches using " archbishop " as a separate office.