mandriarch

plural mandriarchs

1. rareA leader or founder of a monastic order.

   On the other side, opposite S. Mary, S. John the Baptist forms the head of the second dividing line, which consists of holy Mandriarchs; S. Francis, S. Benedict, S. Augustine being alone named. To the right of the Blessed Virgin ...

   1881, Maria Francesca Rossetti, A Shadow of Dante, Being an Essay Towards Studying Himself, His World and His Pilgrimage, page 205

   2 more examples

   Then as increased the nation mendicaunt In following him, whose wondrous life they would Better in empyrean glory chaunt, The course that holy Mandriarch pursued Through Pope Honorius with a crown more late Was gifted by the eternal […] those who believed in Christ before and after His Coming, one Extremity of the Line of Demarcation, which on the opposite Side of the Rose, is continued through St. Austin and other holy Mandriarchs, up to St. John the Baptist.

   1854, Dante Alighieri, translated by C. B. Cayley, Dante's Divine comedy, tr. in the original ternary rhyme by C.B. Cayley

   […] an idealized attempt made along standard, stylized iconographic conventions used in contemporary portrayals, attributing to his stature, dignity and splendour fitting for a founding figure or a mandriarch of a leading hegemony.

   2007, Per K. Sørensen, Rulers on the Celestial Plain: Ecclesiastic and Secular Hegemony in Medieval Tibet : a Study of Tshal Gung-thang