Boris’s reference is the Orthodox Protopresbyter

Protopresbyter is the highest presbyterian title for a person of the white clergy in the Russian Church and in some other local Churches. It is not a separate degree of the priesthood, but there is a higher priestly rank in the white clergy, just as archimandrite is the highest presbyterian rank in the black clergy. The rank of protopresbyter is awarded "in exceptional cases, for special church services, on the initiative and decision of His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia". The rank, in addition, had a number of white clergy in the Russian Church abroad in the XX century.

In the modern Official of the episcopal priesthood, there is a rank of elevation to protopresbyter. The same rank is used in the delivery of all archpriests.

This title belongs also to such popes of the first rank as exercise some rights of supervision and administration over several surrounding parishes; for every diocese or eparchy in Russia is divided into several protopopates (as in the Roman Catholic Church into deaneries). This class of dignitaries forms, in litigious and disciplinary matters of ecclesiastical resort, the first instance in the diocese. In important cities the protopopes are generally employed as counsellors, assessors or secretaries in the episcopal consistories or other ecclesiastical colleges. The distinguishing garment of the protopopes is the so-called epigonaticon. The protopresbyterate is the most influential of the lower clerical functions, and the highest degree open to a secular ecclesiastic; for in the Greek Church the episcopate, and the still higher dignities, can only be occupied by unmarried priests, or such as are separated from their wives by death or voluntary renunciation, and who belong to the monastical order, mostly archimandrites (abbots) and hegemons (priors). — Wetzer u. Welte, Kirchen-Lexikon, s.v.