“Perhaps I am not missing what I have never known, but in terms of living faith, I see no superiority at all among the laity of any of the three groups over any other.”
Superiority, FK, is not the issue at all. Its a matter of what The Church is. Read this as sort of an overview from a conservative Orthodox pov:
http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.11.en.the_ecclesiology_of_st._ignatius_of_antioch.01.htm
Kolo, I believe this particular work attributed to +Ignatius has been shown to be a 14th century forgery. Unfortunately much of the Majority Text is questionable and of late origin.