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Well, there you have it. Many of us have tried, and failed, to express what Orthodoxy means by primacy. +John has laid it out more clearly than I have ever seen it. One point which Roman Catholics reading this may not fully appreciate is the great influence that Russian theologians have had on this theory of primacy. Usually the Russian Church is seen as being terribly conservative and ontologically anti-Rome. It is not. Some years back, it was the Russian Church which felt most strongly that we allow inter-communion with Rome as a matter of economia, hardly an anti-Roman attitude. In some areas concerning validity of Roman sacraments, the Russian Church was the first to recognize their full validity. The present problems between Rome and Moscow rest solely on the matter of Uniatism and jurisdiction which is completely consistent with the ecclesiastical view advanced by +John.

Thanks so much for this piece which I think will help all of us interested in this issue come to a better understanding of the proper ecclesiology of The Church.