"I think the Catholic response would be St. Ignatius was saying the Catholic Church is made present immediately through the local Church."
No doubt, no doubt! Orthodoxy has a somewhat more ancient view and therein lies one of the differences in ecclesiology between the churches. It is, as this article and others from both sides of the schism make clear, more than just semantics.I have been told that +BXVI ascribes to the patristic view of the East, namely that the fullness of the Faith reposes within a local diocese. In that ecclesiology, the appropriate exercise of the the papacy is somewhat different from what it in fact or in appearence has been in the past. That said, there is no question but that the primacy of the "Elder brother at Rome" is very real and of necessity implies a sufficient "power" to exercise that office effectivly. Met John Zizoulias, as representative of the EP described it well last fall in an interview with the Italian press given during the Rome Synod. Its posted somewhere on FR.
I think the Orthodox view regarding the unity of the local churches on the universal level is a bit foggy, and I think a lot of Orthodox questions have been defined Rome says A so we think B.
We Uniates are point C, stuck in between, being neither Roman nor Orthodox.