The Orthodox, especially since
the schism and the introduction of new doctrines by the Roman Catholic Church,
finds many themes within Roman Catholicism alien, not being able to accept
them. One of the major issues dividing the two ancient churches is the Pope’s
supremacy, i.e. his role within the Christian world. In order to give an
Orthodox explanation of this topic I quote from Metropolitan Kallistos’ book, The Orthodox Church, who in many
respects tries to give a very balanced and diplomatic explanation. I point this topic here not to
emphasise our differences, but merely to understand the various interpretations
within the Christian world.
“…Orthodox believe that among the
five Patriarchs[1] a
special place belongs to the Pope. The Orthodox Church does not accept the
doctrine of Papal authority set forth in the decrees of the Vatican Council of
1870, and taught today in the Roman Catholic Church; but at the same time
Orthodoxy does not deny to the Holy and Apostolic See of Rome a primacy of honour, together with the
right (under certain conditions) to hear appeals from all parts of Christendom.
Not that we have used the word ‘primacy’, not ‘supremacy’. Orthodox regard the
Pope as the bishop ‘who presides in love’, to adapt a phrase of St Ignatius:
Rome’s mistake – so Orthodox believe – has been to turn this primacy or
‘presidency of love’ into a supremacy of external power and jurisdiction.
This primacy which Rome enjoys
takes its origin from three factors. First, Rome was the city where St Peter
and St Paul were martyred, and where Peter was bishop. The Orthodox Church
acknowledges Peter as the first among the Apostles: it does not forget the
celebrated ‘Petrine texts’ in the Gospels (Matthew xvi, 18-19; Luke xxii, 32;
John xxi, 15-17) – although Orthodox theologians do not understand these texts
in quite the same way as modern Roman Catholic commentators. And while Orthodox
theologians would say that not only the Bishop of Rome but all bishops are
successors of Peter, yet most of them at the same time admit that the Bishop of
Rome is Peter’s successor in a special sense. Secondly, the see of Rome also
owed its primacy to the position, occupied by the city of Rome in the Empire;
she was the capital, the chief city of the ancient world, and such in some measure
she continued to be even after the foundation of Constantinople. Thirdly,
although there were occasions when Popes fell into heresy, on the whole during
the first eight centuries of the Church’s history the Roman see was noted for
the purity of its faith: other Patriarchates wavered during the great doctrinal
disputes, but Rome for the most part stood firm. When hard pressed in the
struggle against heretics, people felt that they could turn with confidence to
the Pope. Not only the Bishop of Rome, but every
bishop, is appointed by God to be a teacher of the faith; yet because the
see of Rome had in practice taught the faith with an outstanding loyalty to the
truth, it was above all to Rome that everyone appealed for guidance in the
early centuries of the Church.
But as with Patriarchs, so with
the Pope: the primacy assigned to Rome does not overthrow the essential
equality of all bishops. The Pope is the first bishop in the Church – but he is
the first among equals”[2].
[1]
The five Patriarchates being Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and
Jerusalem.
[2] Ware,
Timothy, The Orthodox Church, (London,
Penguin Books, 1997), p. 27-28
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