TAKTIKÁ. — The expression derived from the word taxis (= ordo) was applied to the lists of civil and ecclesiastical dignities (Notitiae dignitatum), among which the list written at the end of the 4th century is famous: Notitia dignitatum omnium tam civilium quam militarium, with its two parts (Oriens–Occidens) in Seeck’s edition (Berlin 1876). Today, however, the term is used rather for lists of Byzantine ecclesiastical geography, of which several exist, drawn up in different centuries.
Particularly famous are the T. of Leo VI (end of the 9th century), the Nea T. of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (10th century), and the Ecthesis of Andronicus Palaeologus (14th century); but other lists also exist, that of Epiphanius (4th century), of George of Cyprus (7th century), and of Nilus Doxopatres (12th century). The schema of the Byzantine lists ordinarily has four parts: 1) patriarchs; 2) metropolitans; 3) archbishops (autocephalous); 4) bishops; these parts do not contain the names of the prelates, but only their sees. The subscriptions of the synodals at the ecumenical councils are very important for completing and authenticating those lists. Nor should the liturgical sources (diptyca, synodika), the diplomatic sources (imperial and ecclesiastical), the literary sources, and the epigraphic sources be neglected in establishing accurate lists. The Assumptionist Fathers have begun the publication of a Corpus notitiarum episcopatum in order to carry out a project of the late Gerland.