The Early Church Fathers on The Primacy of Peter/Rome (Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)

The Early Church Fathers understood from the beginning that Peter and his successors held a place of primacy in the Church.

Accept our counsel and you will have nothing to regret. . . . If anyone disobeys the things which have been said by him [Jesus] through us, let them know that they will involve themselves in no small danger. We, however, shall be innocent of this sin and will pray with entreaty and supplication that the Creator of all may keep unharmed the number of his elect (Letter to the Corinthians 58:2, 59:1[A.D. 95]).

You [the See of Rome] have envied no one, but others have you taught. I desire only that what you have enjoined in your instructions may remain in force (Epistle to the Romans 3:1 [A.D. 110]).

But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles. Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition (Against Heresies 3:3:2 [inter A.D. 180-190]).

[T]he blessed Peter, the chosen, the preeminent, the first among the disciples, for whom alone with himself the Savior paid the tribute [Matt. 17:27], quickly grasped and understood their meaning. And what does he say? "Behold, we have left all and have followed you" [Matt. 19:2 7, Mark 10:28] (Who is the Rich Man That is Saved? 21:3-5 [A.D. 200]).

[T]he Lord said to Peter, "On this rock I will build my Church, I have given you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [and] whatever you shall have bound or loosed on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven" [Matt. 16:18-19]. ... Upon you, he says, I will build my Church; and I will give to you the keys, not to the Church; and whatever you shall have bound or you shall have loosed, not what they shall have bound or they shall have loosed (Modesty 21:9-10 [A.D. 220]).

Be it known to you, my lord, that Simon [Peter], who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus himself, with his truthful mouth, named Peter, the first-fruits of our Lord, the first of the apostles; to whom first the Father revealed the Son; whom the Christ, with good reason, blessed; the called, and elect (Letter of Clement to James 2 [A.D, 221]).

With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the Chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source" (Epistle to Cornelius [Bishop of Rome] 59:14 [A.D. 252]).

The Lord says to Peter: "I say to you," he says, "that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church" . . . On him he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church? (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4 [A.D. 251]).

In the power of the same Holy Spirit, Peter, both the chief of the apostles and the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, in the name of Christ healed Aeneas the paralytic at Lydda, which is now called Diospolis [Acts 9 ;3 2-3 4] (Catechetical Lectures 17;27 [A.D. 350]).

In the city of Rome the Episcopal chair was given first to Peter, the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head — that is why he is also called Cephas — of all the apostles, the one chair in which unity is maintained by all. Neither do the apostles proceed individually on their own, and anyone who would [presume to] set up another chair in opposition to that single chair would, by that very fact, be a schismatic and a sinner. . . . Recall, then, the origins of your chair, those of you who wish to claim for yourselves the title of holy Church" (The Schism of the Donatists 2:2 [circa A.D. 367]).

[Christ] made answer: "You are Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church . . ." Could he not, then, strengthen the faith of the man to whom, acting on his own authority, he gave the kingdom, whom he called the rock, thereby declaring him to be the foundation of the Church [Matt. 16:18]? (The Faith 4:5 [A.D. 379]).

Among these [apostles] Peter alone almost everywhere deserved to represent the whole Church. Because of that representation of the Church, which only he bore, he deserved to hear "I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Sermons 295:2 [A.D. 411]).

Who is ignorant that the first of the apostles is the most blessed Peter? (Commentary on John 56:1 [A.D. 416]).

"But, ultimately, there needs to be a final voice. And that voice is the Successor of St. Peter."

A final infallible voice? That voice belongs to The Church, NYer. What you propose, Orthodoxy sees as heresy. One of the greatest Orthodox saints of the 20th century, one particularly noted for cures of all sorts of illnesses, especially cancer (the son of my secretary was cured of his terminal cancer through the intercessions of this saint) +Nektarios of Aegina wrote this:

"Through the dogma of "Infallibility" the Western church lost its spiritual freedom. It lost its beauty and balance, and was deprived of the wealth of the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ- from spirit and soul and ended up a dead body. We are truly grieved for the injustice done to the church and we pray from the bottom of our hearts that the Holy Spirit illumine the mind and the heart of the Most Blessed Pontiff to have him return to the ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH that which he took from her, something that should never have taken place."

This is the cry of anguish of the Orthodox Church for its elder brother at Rome, NYer.

"I now know this intimately by virtue of my choosing to join the Maronite Catholic Church which has a Pariarch as its overseer."

Do you believe for one minute that +Sfeir jumps when the pope says jump, not that even +BXVI would try to tell him what to do? How long do you think it would take for the Patriarch of the Melkites to jump ship if Rome presumed to tell him what to do, let alone what to believe?

That voice belongs to The Church, NYer.

Spoken like a 'true' Protestant. Somewhere, Martin Luther is applauding. His teaching on the "priesthood of all believers" is "spiritual egalitarianism", and was what led to the anarchism of the Anabaptists and the rampant individualism of contemporary Protestantism.

Kolokotronis, listen to your Eastern fathers. Sorry NYer, but your list is somewhat wimpy compared to my list of fathers on Petrine primacy. :-) Included in my list of quotations are many Eastern fathers, and their voices could not be more explicit.

And second, you absolutely have to read Soloviev's The Russian Church and the Papacy.

What you propose, Orthodoxy sees as heresy.

Nektarios of Aegina, not being infallible, is wrong when he denies the ex cathedra infallibility of the bishop of Rome. Nektarious does not carry any weight compared to the Eastern fathers that I quote in my list. On the issue of Rome, the East has departed from what it once held, as my list of quotations shows.

It is time to get over this. It is time to stop stubbornly and repeatedly assuring us that you (plural, somehow, you think it possible for you to speak for all the EOC) will never submit to Peter's successor. It is time to start working with us at least to figure out the truth together and to find a way of reconciling with a different spirit. When you repeatedly declare that you (and all the EOC) will never submit, and that our position is "heresy", that is *not* the spirit that will lead to the reconciliation that is absolutely necessary in the body of Christ. Though you have accused us of "heresy", I will only ask of you to adopt greater humility. Read my list, and read Soloviev. Read Stephen Ray's Upon This Rock. And come to the table with a different attitude, a rolling up your shirt sleeves, lets-get-to-the-bottom-of-this, sort of attitude (since, as you said before, from your point of view, the reconciliation between is not going to happen 'above' us. Well, let it then start between you (Kolokotronis) and Pope Benedict XVI.

I'm planning on reading The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church, edited by Meyendorff. That provides an Orthodox perspective on the question. My point in mentioning that is to show that I'm working on reading *your* side. Are you willing to read *our* side? In order to work out this 953 year-old schism, we have to be willing to read each other's evidence and argumentation.

It seems to me that you have not grasped the significance of Jesus giving the keys of the kingdom to Peter. The visible Church has a head. Not every member is the head.

Blessings to you brother, on this the Lord's Day.

-A8

"How would it work to EO satisfaction to roll back before 1054? Wouldn't they require the RC to revoke dogma?"

The only way it could work is if we all believe the exact same things in matters of dogma. On virtually all of the areas of disagreement arising before Vatican I I think a council can deal with them. The big one, filioque, has pretty much been nuanced out of existence anyway, though the IC may pose a problem for two reasons. First it arises out of an understanding of the Sin of Adam which is foreign to Orthodoxy and (I've often wondered if the Calvinist view of +Augustine didn't in some way contribute to Rome's notions by the 19th century) second it arguably raises questions on the human nature of Christ. I vaguely remember seeing a way around this once, but I've forgotten what it was.

Post Vatican I we have real problems for precisely the reason +Nektarios pointed out back in the early 20th century; with that declaration, the Church of Rome lost its spiritual freedom to function as a church. Everything about reunion hinges on this one issue, the proper exercise of the Petrine Office which of course our hierarchs and yours recognize. Without the infallibilty claim and an enforcible claim of immediate universal jurisdiction, even that could be worked out, but....

My suspicion is that if there is a way to cut this seeming Gordian Knot, it lies in the nature of Vatican I and indeed all the post schism councils of the churches. They were of necessity, despite what Rome may have once claimed, local and therefore only binding on the churches involved. Now even that doesn't fully solve the problem because even if the dogmas of Vatican I were said to apply only to Rome and its dependencies (save the Melkites who very wisely conditioned their assent)I sincerely doubt that Orthodoxy would enter into communion with a church which denied the basic equality of all bishops and the synergistic nature of The Church even if only internally (not to say that some of our hierarchs wouldn't love to see exactly that; they've tried before, recently in fact but we didn't let them get away with it). Maybe there's a way to call those declarations disciplinary in some fashion and thus subject to change? Maybe an Ecumenical Council, since there would necessarily have to be one, could overrule Vatican I? I don't know.

One thing is certain. Whatever the hierarchs come up with will have to be acceptable to the whole Church and despite our Orthodox nostalgia for a pre 1054 system, the fact is that the world has changed in the past 950 years and the necessity that The Church speak with one voice to, frankly, save civilization is magnified, at least as to the area in play. Rome needs Orthodoxy to make a common front not only against the Mohammedan threat, but also to the poisonous weed of secular humanism which has sapped the strength of Western First World culture. We can't go back to a system where Patriarchs communicated occassionally by letter or envoy and met only every 100+ years or so in an Ecumenical Council. Today the exercise of the Petrine Ministry and the primacy of the Church of Rome needs some sort of authority to actually make those offices meaningful. I don't know what that would be. I know it won't include infallibility or immediate universal jurisdiction. I would think it would have to include something which never existed before and that's some sort of Patriarchal world synod headed by the pope as the primus to deal with issues which affect the entire Church.

Proof texting the Fathers is as fruitless a pursuit as when the heterodox proof text the scriptures. What counts is the reality of the consensus patrum and how that worked on the ground. The Eastern Churches never accepted Rome's pretentions to universal immediate jurisdiction. The appeals to Rome made by various Fathers were made pursuant to an authority given by the Council of Sardica, an authority which was limited and only could be exercised in individual cases and accepted only if the hierarch involved chose to accept the decision. The authority of the pope lay in three areas; first, his Orthodox Teaching, second his primacy and third his right to break communion (which is not an anthema) with the offending hierarch. Examples of how this works can be seen in the way the EP and Moscow handled the matter of the Estonian Church.

Now, you doubt that an Orthodox person can speak for the Orthodox Church on these matters. You are very, very wrong. What I and the other Orthodox Christians here believe about this question is of the utmost importance because without our agreement, there will be no reunion. You say that I spoke like a Protestant, and yet Protestantism is the child of Rome, not the East. It was Rome which introduced dogmatic innovations in derogation of the declarations of the Ecumenical Councils, not Orthodoxy. It was Rome which concluded that it had a monopoly on the Holy Spirit.

The excesses of Rome lead to the Protestant Reformation. The outrage of Vatican I lead to this following comment by the +Anthimos VII and the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in their response to Praeclara Gratulationis of Pope Leo XIII. Noting that unity of the churches can only be founded on a complete unity of faith, the Synod, in A Reply to the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Reunion, wrote inter alia:

"XIV Passing over, then, these serious and substantial differences between the two churches respecting the faith, which differences, as has been said before, were created in the West, the Pope in his encyclical represents the question of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff as the principal and, so to speak, only cause of the dissension, and sends us to the sources, that we may make diligent search as to what our forefathers believed and what the first age of Christianity delivered to us. But having recourse to the fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church of the first nine centuries, we are fully persuaded that the Bishop of Rome was never considered as the supreme authority and infallible head of the Church, and that every bishop is head and president of his own particular Church, subject only to the synodical ordinances and decisions of the Church universal as being alone infallible, the Bishop of Rome being in no wise excepted from this rule, as Church history shows. Our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the eternal Prince and immortal Head of the Church, for 'He is the Head of the body, the Church," [14] who said also to His divine disciples and apostles at His ascension into heaven, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' [15] In the Holy Scripture the Apostle Peter, whom the Papists, relying on apocryphal books of the second century, the pseudo-Clementines, imagine with a purpose to be the founder of the Roman Church and their first bishop, discusses matters as an equal among equals in the apostolic synod of Jerusalem, and at another time is sharply rebuked by the Apostle Paul, as is evident from the Epistle to the Galatians. [16] Moreover, the Papists themselves know well that the very passage of the Gospel to which the Pontiff refers, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' [17] is in the first centuries of the Church interpreted quite differently, in a spirit of orthodoxy, both by tradition and by all the divine and sacred Fathers without exception; the fundamental and unshaken rock upon which the Lord has built His own Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, being understood metaphorically of Peter's true confession concerning the Lord, that 'He is Christ, the Son of the living God.' [18] Upon this confession and faith the saving preaching of the Gospel by all the apostles and their successors rests unshaken. Whence also the Apostle Paul, who had been caught up into heaven, evidently interpreting this divine passage, declares the divine inspiration, saying: 'According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' [19] But it is in another sense that Paul calls all the apostles and prophets together the foundation of the building up in Christ of the faithful; that is to say, the members of the body of Christ, which is the Church; [20] when he writes to the Ephesians: 'Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the house hold of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.' [21] Such, then, being the divinely inspired teaching of the apostles respecting the foundation and Prince of the Church of God, of course the sacred Fathers, who held firmly to the apostolic traditions, could not have or conceive any idea of an absolute primacy of the Apostle Peter and the bishops of Rome; nor could they give any other interpretation, totally unknown to the Church, to that passage of the Gospel, but that which was true and right; nor could they arbitrarily and by themselves invent a novel doctrine respecting excessive privileges of the Bishop of Rome as successor, if so be, of Peter; especially whilst the Church of Rome was chiefly founded, not by Peter, whose apostolic action at Rome is totally unknown to history, but by the heaven-caught apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, through his disciples, whose apostolic ministry in Rome is well known to all. [22]

XV. The divine Fathers, honoring the Bishop of Rome only as the bishop of the capital city of the Empire, gave him the honorary prerogative of presidency, considering him simply as the bishop first in order, that is, first among equals; which prerogative they also assigned afterwards to the Bishop of Constantinople, when that city became the capital of the Roman Empire, as the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon bears witness, saying, among other things, as follows: 'We do also determine and decree the same things respecting the prerogatives of the most holy Church of the said Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers have rightly given the prerogative to the throne of the elder Rome, because that was the imperial city. And the hundred and fifty most religious bishops, moved by the same consideration, assigned an equal prerogative to the most holy throne of New Rome.' From this canon it is very evident that the Bishop of Rome is equal in honor to the Bishop of the Church of Constantinople and to those other Churches, and there is no hint given in any canon or by any of the Fathers that the Bishop of Rome alone has ever been prince of the universal Church and the infallible judge of the bishops of the other independent and self-governing Churches, or the successor of the Apostle Peter and vicar of Jesus Christ on earth."

Here's a link to the entire encyclical. While much of what the Synod speaks of has been resolved or near resolved, the issue of Petrine Supremacy remains, for Orthodoxy, in every aspect identical today as it was then. Proof texting the Fathers then didn't work and it won't work now.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1895orthodoxencyclical.html

and accepted only if the hierarch involved chose to accept the decision.

Do you think Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, accepted the decision to be removed from his office. No, he did not. Soldiers had to be brought in to forcibly remove him from the church building. That was almost 80 years before Sardica.

Sardica did not *give* the bishop of Rome any authority. It recognized his authority, as the authority to whom accused bishops could appeal. And throughout the early church we see examples of accused or troubled bishops and priests appealing to the bishop of Rome. Have you read the documents from Sardica? I have.

It was Rome which introduced dogmatic innovations in derogation of the declarations of the Ecumenical Councils,

Name one such derogation.

It was Rome which concluded that it had a monopoly on the Holy Spirit.

Name one place where Rome claims to have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit. Can't do it? Ok, now retract your ridiculous straw man. (It wouldn't be your first straw man either; NYer just had to correct your claim that the Pope makes himself out equal to God, as if you didn't really know better.)

The excesses of Rome lead to the Protestant Reformation.

That's a red herring. Instead of pointing to the Protestants, let's focus on the schism between the Orthodox and the Catholics.

I have to run. Talk to you later.

-A8

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