| Summary: | The article deals with the nominal signature by which the patriarchs of Constantinople used to ratify documents granting favours in the Middle Ages. Particular attention has been paid to the adoption of the epithet οἰκουμενικός, which appears in the signature of ratification only during the late Comnenian period, as clearly evidenced by the surviving originals. The opinion, accepted so far by scholars of Byzantine diplomatics, that the adoption of this epithet goes back to the years of Nicene exile is critically discussed and refuted. This opinion is based on an article of Vitalien Laurent, which has been reconsidered in the light of the advancement of the studies on diplomatics in the last decades. We publish here for the first time the pictures of the most ancient granting documents of the Comnenian period, now in the Archives of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos, which are not yet critically edited.
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