The Role of the Patriarch

I recently got a request from a Roman Catholic brother asking me to identify the role of the Patriarch.

Since the Patriarchs are bishops, before doing this I must identify the role of "Bishop" in the Orthodox Church. This is from Orthodox Wiki:

The bishop is the first and highest degree of the clergy in the Orthodox Church (επίσκοπος or episkopos in Greek, which means overseer).

Then:

A bishop is the successor to the Apostles in the service and government of the Church. The bishop thus serves εις τόπον και τύπον Χριστού (in place and as a type of Christ) in the Church. No bishop in Orthodoxy is considered infallible. None has any authority over or apart from his priests, deacons, and people or the other bishops. They have the responsibility of maintaining the unity of the Church throughout the world by insuring the truth and unity of the faith and practice of their diocese. The bishop represents his particular diocese to the other churches or dioceses, and represents the Universal Church to his own particular priests, deacons, and people.

According to Church Law, bishops of an area must meet in councils. When doing so, the metropolitan or patriarchate presides administratively.

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AHA! Now we are getting somewhere! As you can see from this no bishop has authority over the other and they must meet in councils.

This is the important part:

Sacramentally, all bishops are equal. Nevertheless, there are distinctions of administrative rank among bishops.

Now, let's see how they define Patriarch:

The title patriarch is reserved for the primate of certain of the autocephalous Orthodox churches. The first hierarch of the other autocephalous churches are styled metropolitan or archbishop or archbishop.

The title patriarch was first applied to the original three major sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, and shortly after extended to include Constantinople and Jerusalem (cf. Pentarchy).

Much later the term was granted to the heads of other most significant churches. Significance for some churches now may be more historical than actual.

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So, in short, the Patriarch is the ruling bishop of one of the "significant" churches:

A ruling bishop or diocesan bishop is responsible for and the head of all the parishes located in his a particular geographical territory, called a diocese or archdiocese. All authority of the lower orders of clergy is derived from the bishop. No divine services may be served in any Orthodox temple without the authorization of a bishop. Saint Ignatius the God-bearer of Antioch went so far as to state that "he who acts without the bishop's knowledge is in the devil's service."

He may be called Bishop or Archbishop or Metropolitan or Metropolitan Archbishop or Patriarch.

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So, the Patriarch of Russia is responsible for all the churches in Russia and all the "Russian Orthodox" Churches worldwide.

So, concluding, the role of Patriarch is that of a Ruling Bishop of one of the significant churches. He is not "the Pope" of that church (as they are mistakenly often called), he is merely the bishop of his diocese and is equal to every one of the other bishops.

I hope this post was clear and helped clear up any misunderstanding.