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Considering that James, according to St. Paul, had been the leader of the pro-circumcision faction up until that time, it looks like Peter's statement must have been pretty compelling.

Are you serious?
1. Peter spoke.

2. They listened to Banabus and Paul. (I guess I can only imagine they also spoke and that they had no influence on James.)

3. James made the judgment.

How far is it possible for anyone to stretch this to indicate Peter recieved any special attention?????

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More about the Primacy of Peter:

Galations 2:

11 But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
12 For before certain men came from James, he ate with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.
13 And with him the rest of the Jews acted insincerely, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their insincerity.
14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
15 We ourselves, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners,
16 yet who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified.

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Gee whizz, Paul not only rebukes Peter but he says we can be justified by faith alone. THE HERETIC

Oh well. If the Romans hadn't got him the Church would have.

Gee whizz, Paul not only rebukes Peter but he says we can be justified by faith alone. THE HERETIC

You are under the impression, perhaps, that Popes do not listen to advice or do not deserve to be rebuked when they are acting hypocritically? Let me disabuse you of that notion. Peter had already decided the issue of the Jews and Gentiles and was not living up to his decision. Paul rightly calls him to account for this. It doesn't make Peter not the Pope any more than the present Pope listening to the advice of his confessor makes JPII not Pope.

You paranoid Protestants all imagine the Pope as an absolute ruler like Hitler who no man dared to speak against. It's just not that way.

In the Orthodox Church we usually point to the Apostolic Council recorded in Acts 15 as showing the conciliar, decidedly non-papal mode of Church polity to which the East has always held. The Apostles meet in council to decide the matter, and the local bishop (James being the first Bishop of Jerusalem according to Church historians East and West) pronounces the decision.

This pattern was followed by the Ecumenical Councils, which (with one exception) were not even attended by the Popes of Rome (and in the exceptional case, the Pope was constrained to attend by the Emperor), and is still the pattern followed in the East.