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To: Hermann the Cherusker
Show me a Father of the Church who denied the Primacy. I doubt you can find one who was not also a heretic, and thus not really a Father of the Church.

The greatest saints of the east, men like St. John Chrysostom, St. Peter Chrysologus, and St. Maximus the Confessor all explicitly recognized the Primacy.

According to this Catholic site, St. John Chrysostom, one of the first Doctors of the Church never did that:

Strangely enough, in the Latin Church, Chrysostom was still earlier invoked as an authority on matters of faith. The first writer who quoted him was Pelagius, when he wrote his lost book "De Naturæ" against St. Augustine (c. 415). The Bishop of Hippo himself very soon afterwards (421) claimed Chrysostom for the Catholic teaching in his controversy with Julian of Eclanum, who had opposed to him a passage of Chrysostom (from the "Hom. ad Neophytos", preserved only in Latin) as being against original sin (see Chrys. Baur, "L'entrée littéraire de St. Jean Chrys. dans le monde latin" in the "Revue d'histoire ecclés.", VIII, 1907, 249-65). Again, at the time of the Reformation there arose long and acrid discussions as to whether Chrysostom was a Protestant or a Catholic, and these polemics have never wholly ceased. It is true that Chrysostom has some strange passages on our Blessed Lady (see Newman, "Certain difficulties felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teachings", London, 1876, pp. 130 sqq.), that he seems to ignore private confession to a priest, that there is no clear and any direct passage in favour of the primacy of the pope. But it must be remembered that all the respective passages contain nothing positive against the actual Catholic doctrine.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm

255 posted on 07/01/2003 6:54:07 PM PDT by katnip
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To: katnip
According to this Catholic site, St. John Chrysostom, one of the first Doctors of the Church never did that:

St. John Chrysostom in his homilies on the Gospel of St. John, the Gospel of St. Matthew, St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the First Letter to Timothy, the Acts of the Apostles, etc. clearly stated that Peter held the authority and primacy (yes, that word) in the Church over the whole world.

Anyone with a glimmer of knowledge of Church history knows that once you admit Peter to the primacy, you give it also to the pontiffs. Thus the famous acclimation "Peter has spoken through Leo!" at Chalcedon, and "Peter has spoken through Agatho!" at Constantinople III. The Popes never have claimed anything more. "Which as soon as my said predecessor knew, he dispatched letters annulling by the authority of the holy apostle Peter the acts of the said synod" (Pope St. Gregory the Great). The formula in making an infallible pronouncement today invariably includes "By our supreme Apostolic authority", in other words, by the Authority of Blessed Peter, who lives on in my exercise of the Papacy.

Chrysostom can scarcely be accused of being ignorant of the Roman interpretation of Matthew 16.17-19, most recently sent to Constantinople in 382, a scant few years before his own accession to that throne. In fact, his Homilies give exactly the Roman interpretation sent by Pope St. Damasus I.

271 posted on 07/01/2003 7:59:30 PM PDT by Hermann the Cherusker
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