Notice here that the Birshops state that the Bishop of Old Rome was granted priviledges by the Bishops and not because it was his "right."
The preeminence of an Apostolic See, whether that of +Peter or +John or +James, etc. was incumbent on the imperial or royal dignity of the city. This, Antioch, which was originally the See of +Peter did not attain the glory of the Vatican and Antiochan patriarchs never claimed Petrine primacy.
I know this is going to rattle some of our Catholic friends here, but I am saying this in order to make a related point: the Ecumenical Patriarchate needs to move.
There is no Constantinople! The Ecumenical Patriarchy is under siege. This would be equivalent to Serbia claiming the Patriarchy in Pech (Kosovo), which was abandoned in the 17th century because of a Turkish pogrom. naturally, the Patriarchy today is in Belgrade.
The Ecumenical Patriarch is a prisoner of Turkish Muslim officials. He is dhimmified, intimidated and scared, and is prone to say unwise things when it comes to Turkey because his tiny parish and his own See depend entirely on the whim of a people who hate Christians.
Turkey may be our ally but Turkey is not our friend. Nor is Turkey a model democracy. Turkish human rights record is abysmal. It's one thing to ask all it citizens to be responsible Turkish voters, but using the American formula for "nationality" in a country defined by ethnic Ottomans is an insult to everyone's intelligence.
Consequently, Turkey, like Bulgaria (another one of our close newly minted allies) does not recognize minorities. Thus, Kurds cannot use their own language or even their own names. They can't have their own schools, even privately. Turkey to this day denies Armenian Holocaust. Yet, another set of our newly minted allies in Europe, Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Muslims, find Turkey a sentimental pillar of hope and a role model.
Rather than continue to depend on the shims of an Islamic (and inherently anti-Christian) regime which is mixed with strong nationsalism (i.e. the term Islamonazis), rather than risk further humiliation, the Ecumenical Patriarchate needs to move, as Serbian did, to a place where Orthodoxy will be free and where it is surrounded by Orthodox people: Moscow.
Time is ripe for Moscow to become the third Rome, and for Patriarch of all Russia to become the next Ecumenical Patriarch. This will allow Greece to become a Patriarchate as it should be (right now it is under the tutelage of the Ecumenical Patriarch).
Orthodoxy is now predominantly Slavic. Over 85% of all the world's Orthodox are Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, Bulgarians, etc.). Of these 80% of the world's Orthodox are under the Patriarch of All Russia.
That would be one solution--and fine with me, as we could then have jurisdictional unity in North America as we once did under Moscow.
Another would be for the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople to be removed from Turkey. After all the Patriarch of Antioch has not been able to visit Antioch, much less have his seat there, since Second Greco-Turkish War and the establishment by the 'secular' Turkish Republic of a policy forbidding Christian clergy to function in Asia Minor. Antioch's seat is now in Damascus.
Why should Constantinople's seat not be removed to Washington, DC? I understand the E.P. had three possible sites for a retreat from Turkey: Patmos, Geneva, and just outside DC.
Geneva would be a disaster, with the E.P. becoming as much a prisoner of the E.U. and U.N. as he is now of the Turks. Patmos makes some sense, but most of the flock the E.P. claims is now in the Americas, and the removal of Constantinople's seat to DC would as much as the transfer of the title to Moscow, provide the basis for jurisdictional unity in America, and presumably once that is accomplished in the rest of the lands of the mis-named 'diaspora' (we're not scattered from home, thank you, this is our home, whether we're Orthodox in America or Argentina or Australia or. . .).
It doesn't rattle this catholic one way or another but it does reinforce a similar question I raised on another thread. Who, how and why are Patriarchs assigned to certain Sees? And, is it possible for them to move?
The question intrigues me as a similar situation exists in the Catholic Church. Mar Nasrallah Peter Cardinal Sfeir, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, has expressed concern over the exodus of Maronite Catholics from Lebanon, the See of the Maronite Church. In a country that was once predominantly catholic, the Maronites have shrunk to 40% of the population while the Muslim population continues to grow. The Maronite Catholic Church has now spread to nearly every continent around the world and is blossoming in the diaspora. However, Lebanon has been the seat of their church since the 4th century.
How does a Patriarch move a "See"?
Well, leveling is always in order. :)
But without opening a can of theological worms, let me just say that the 4th Ecumenical Council seems to ascribe a little more weight to Leo, Archibishop of Rome, than the fact that he held a once-important historic see.
And for some counter-leveling in all charity, I think that is easier for folks under the omophorion (I hope I used that right) of the EP of Constantinople to want to "move" the patriarchate to Moscow or wherever. Because, as far as I know, Constantinople was the only patriarchate of the five that was created for largely political reasons and not because its importance as an Apostolic See was firmly established by the 4th century. The story of St. Andrew aside (and who am I to deny it?), I'm not aware that Byzantium/Constantinople figures very much at all in Eusebius's History.
I am certainly not opposed to Constantinople's rank but I think that the historicity/apostolicity of the see could be a minor issue to you because, well, it was really never Constantinople's strong suit. That's not a criticism, mind you, just a sociological observation.