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Lumen Gentium is a wonderful document, and I am sure that the Eastern Catholic bishops present at that synod voted for it, but the Second Vatican Council is not ecumenical, and -- as a consequence -- its novel teachings (whether on papal infallibility or Islam, etc.) are merely theologoumena.

I am once again reminded of the words of the Melkite Patriarch, who said:


Clearly, if the Pope is infallible, so are the other Patriarchs.

That said, as an Eastern Christian I hold to the doctrine of primacy within synodality (see the Apostolic Canon 34), which means that no one bishop taken in isolation holds authority in the Church. In other words, the primate must have the assent of his synod to act, and the synod must always work in conjunction with its primate. All the bishop are equal in authority, since they all are successors of the Apostles (i.e., all of the Apostles, including Peter).

If you do some research on the Melkites involved in Vatican I and Vatican II, you'll quickly understand the situation around those councils.

Lumen Gentium is a wonderful document, and I am sure that the Eastern Catholic bishops present at that synod voted for it, but the Second Vatican Council is not ecumenical, and -- as a consequence -- its novel teachings (whether on papal infallibility or Islam, etc.) are merely theologoumena.

I am once again reminded of the words of the Melkite Patriarch, who said:


Clearly, if the Pope is infallible, so are the other Patriarchs.

That said, as an Eastern Christian I hold to the doctrine of primacy within synodality (see the Apostolic Canon 34), which means that no one bishop taken in isolation holds authority in the Church. In other words, the primate must have the assent of his synod to act, and the synod must always work in conjunction with its primate. All the bishop are equal in authority, since they all are successors of the Apostles (i.e., all of the Apostles, including Peter).

Pope Benedict XVI has other fish to fry, such as the infestation of the Latin Church with liberals who would use and abuse any relaxation of papal authority. How can Rome relax its claims relative to the East without furthering the disintegration of the Latin Church?

That's the major question probably looking from the pope's perspective. It's a delicate balance.

The bishops of every country ought to know who is the primate among them, and to esteem him as their head, and not to do any great thing without his consent; but every one to manage only the affairs that belong to his own parish, and the places subject to it. But let him [i.e., the primate] not do anything without the consent of all; for it is by this means there will be unanimity, and God will be glorified by Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Now, as far as the bishop of Rome being the successor of St. Peter, I hold that every bishop is a successor of St. Peter (and of all the other Apostles as well) through the mystery of Episcopal consecration. Thus, the bishop of Rome does not have a unique position doctrinally in relation to St. Peter, and there is not mystery (i.e.. sacrament) of primacy distinct from episcopacy. Nevertheless, the bishop of Rome does have a historical connection to St. Peter (and St. Paul), but even this historical connection to St. Peter is not unique to his Episcopal see, because he shares it, as St. Gregory the Great himself admitted, with the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria. That said, the bishop of Rome has a primacy within the worldwide synod of bishops (i.e., the universal episcopate), but not a supremacy over the Church, nor over any other bishop, because the bishops are sacramentally equal.

CONTRADICITUR!
By Vladimir Soloviev

Russia and The Universal Church (Part 2, Chapter 13)

In the writings and acts of Leo I we see no longer the germ of the sovereign Papacy but the Papacy itself exhibiting the full extent of its powers. To mention only the most important point, the doctrine of infallibility ex cathedra is here proclaimed fourteen centuries before Pius IX. St. Leo asserts that the authority of St. Peter's Chair is of itself sufficient to resolve a fundamental question of dogma, and he does not ask the ecumenical council to define the dogma but to assent, for the sake of the peace of the Church, to the definition given by the Pope who is by divine right the lawful guardian of the true Catholic faith. If this thesis, which was merely developed by the Vatican council in its Constitution claimed, then Pope St. Leo the Great is a declared heretic or rather a heresiarch, since never before had this thesis been affirmed so explicitly, so forcibly or so insistently.

Let us see then the kind of reception which the Orthodox Church gave to the authoritative assertions of Pope St. Leo; for this purpose we will take the acts of those Greek councils which were contemporary with this Pope and read the documents (Mansi, Concil., vols. v., vi. and vii.). We find first of all a remarkable letter from the bishop Peter Chrysologus to the archimandrite Eutyches. When St. Flavian the patriarch of Constantinople had in conjunction with his synod condemned Eutyches, archimandrite of one of the monasteries of the Greek capital, for heresy and had applied to the Pope for confirmation of the sentence, Eutyches following the advice given him at the Emperor's court, where he had many influential patrons, attempted to win certain orthodox bishops to his side.

The following is the reply he received from one of them, Peter Chrysologus: 'Above all we advise you, venerable brother, to adhere with the greatest confidence to the writings of the blessed Pope of the city of Rome; since the blessed Apostle Peter who lives and presides in his own see gives to those who seek it the truth of the faith. As for us, our anxiety for peace and for the faith forbids us to decide causes which concern religion without the assent of the bishop of Rome." (Mansi, Concil., v.I349).

Peter Chrysologus, though a Greek and writing to a Greek, was nevertheless bishop of Ravenna and therefore half Western. But a few pages further on we find the same doctrine from the representative of the metropolis of the East, Flavian, a saint and confessor of the Orthodox Church. On the heresy of Eutyches he writes thus to the Pope: 'The whole question needs only your single decision and all will be settled in peace and quietness. Your sacred letter will with God's help completely suppress the heresy which has arisen and the disturbance which it has caused; ' and so' he continues, 'the convening of a council which is in any case difficult will be rendered superfluous.'

Next to the saintly patriarch of Constantinople should be quoted the learned bishop of Cyrus, Theodoret, who has been beatified by the Greek Church. 'if Paul the herald of the truth and the trumpet of the Holy Spirit,' he writes to Pope Leo, 'had recourse to the great Peter . . .we, simple and humble as we are, ought all the more to hasten to your apostolic throne to receive at your hands healing for the wounds which afflict the Churches. For the primacy belongs to you for every reason. Your see is adorned with every sort of privilege and above all with that of faith; to which the divine Apostle bears sufficient witness when in addressing the Church of Rome he exclaims: "Your faith is spoken of in the whole world". "It is your see which possesses the tombs of the fathers and doctors of the truth, Peter and Paul, enlightening the souls of the faithful. That divine and thrice blessed pair appeared in the East and shed their rays abroad; but it was in the West that they chose to be delivered from this life and it is from thence that they now illumine the whole world. They have shed manifest luster upon your throne and that is the crown of your blessings' (ibid, 1350). 'As for me I have only to await the sentence of your apostolic see. And I beg and beseech your Holiness to give me, who am unjustly accused, access to your lawful and just tribunal; give but the word and I hasten to receive from you my doctrine in which I have only desired to follow in the Apostles' footsteps' (ibid.,40)

These are no mere empty words or rhetorical phrases addressed to the Pope by the representatives of orthodoxy. The Greek bishops had cause enough to cling to the supreme authority of the Apostolic See. The robber-council of Ephesus had just given them ocular demonstration of what an oecumenical council without the Pope could be like. It is instructive to recall the circumstances of that occasion.

Since the fourth century, that part of the Church which was mainly Greek in culture had suffered from the rivalry and continual strife of central sees, the ancient patriarchate of Alexandria and the new one of Constantinople. The outward fluctuations in this struggle depended mainly on the attitude of the Byzantine court; and if we look into the causes which influenced the attitude of the secular power to the two ecclesiastical centers of the East we note a remarkable fact.

A priori it might be supposed that the Byzantine Empire had from the political point of view three lines of action from which to choose: she might support the new patriarchate of Constantinople as her own creation always within her control and unable to achieve any permanent independence; or else imperialist Byzantium might wish to avoid the necessity of repressing clericalist tendencies at home and, in order to rid herself of a rather too close and irksome connection, she might prefer to have the center of ecclesiastical administration somewhere farther off and yet within her sphere of influence; she might, with this end in view, incline to support the patriarchate of Alexandria which satisfied both these conditions and besides could claim on traditional and canonical grounds a relative primacy over the East; or lastly, the imperial government might choose to maintain an even balance between the rival sees by favoring now one and now the other according to political circumstances. It is clear, however, that actually none of these courses was chosen.

When ample allowance has been made for individual coincidences or purely personal reactions it must still be recognised that there was a general motive dictating the policy of the Byzantine Emperors in the struggle between the great sees of the East; but the motive lay outside the three political considerations just indicated. If the Emperors varied in their attitude to the. two patriarchates, alternately giving first one and then the other their support, this variation had nothing to do with the balance of power; the Byzantine court invariably supported, not the one of the two rival prelates who was least dangerous at the moment, but the one who was in the wrong from the religious or moral point of view.

It was enough for a patriarch, whether of Constantinople or of Alexandria, to be a heretic or an unworthy shepherd of his flock, and he was assured of the active protection of the Empire for a considerable period, if not for the rest of his career. And conversely, a saint or a champion of orthodoxy who ascended the episcopal throne either in the city of Alexander or in that of Constantine might count at once upon the hatred and persecution of the imperial court and often upon nothing short of martyrdom.

This invincible tendency of the Byzantine government towards injustice, violence and heresy and its ineradicable antipathy to the worthiest representatives of the Christian hierarchy was quick to show itself. Scarcely had the Empire recognised the Christian religion before it was already persecuting St. Athanasius, the light of orthodoxy. The whole of the long reign of Constantius, the son of Constantine the Great, was taken up with the struggle against the renowned patriarch of Alexandria, while the heretical bishops of Constantinople were backed by the Emperor.

Nor was it the power of the see of Alexandria which was intolerable to the Christian Csar, but the moral greatness of its occupant. Half a century later the position was reversed and the see of Constantinople was occupied by a great saint, John Chrysostom, while the patriarchate of Alexandria had fallen to Theophilus, a man of the most contemptible character; but the court of Byzantium favoured Theophilus and used every means in its power to bring about Chrysostom's downfall. It may be said, however, that it was merely the independent character of the great Christian orator which made him suspect in imperial circles.

Yet not long afterwards the Church of Constantinople was ruled by Nestorius, a personality of an equally courageous and independent character; but since he possessed the additional qualification of being a determined propagator of heresy, he received every encouragement from Theodosius II and could count on the Emperor's unfailing support in his struggle against St. Cyril, the new patriarch of Alexandria and the rival of the great Athanasius, if not in personal character, at least in his zeal for orthodoxy and his theological ability. We shall see before long why the imperial government did not succeed in upholding the heretic Nestorius and bringing about the fall of St. Cyril.

Shortly afterwards the position was again reversed: the patriarchate of Constantinople had in St. Flavian a worthy successor of John Chrysostom, and the see of Alexandria was now held by a second Theophilus, one Dioscorus, nicknamed 'the Pharaoh of Egypt'. St. Flavian was a gentle and unassuming person; Dioscorus' character, on the other hand, was stained with every wickedness and was distinguished mainly by an inordinate ambition and a despotic temper to which he owed his nickname.

From the purely political point of view it was obvious that the imperial government had nothing to fear from St. Flavian, while the domineering ambitions of the new 'Pharaoh' might well arouse justifiable apprehensions. But St. Flavian was orthodox, and Dioscorus had the great merit of favoring the new heresy of Monophysitism. That alone was enough to ensure him the support of the Byzantine court and an oecumenical council was summoned under imperial auspices to give official sanction to his cause. (A curious fact and one which strikingly confirms our theory of the partiality of the Byzantine Emperors for heresy as such is that the same Emperor Theodosius II, who had favored the Nestorian heresy and had seen it condemned by the Church in spite of his efforts, became subsequently the enthusiastic supporter of Eutyches and Dioscorus who held the view diametrically opposite to that of Nestorius though no less heretical).

Dioscorus had everything in his favor: the support of the secular arm, a well-disciplined body of clergy brought with him in from Egypt and blindly devoted to him, a mob of heretical monks, a considerable following among the clergy of the other patriarchates, and lastly the cowardice of the majority of the orthodox bishops who dared not offer open resistance to a heresy which enjoyed the favor of 'the sacred majesty of Divus Augustus'.

St. Flavian was condemned unheard, and his fall must have involved the collapse of orthodoxy throughout the Eastern Church--had that Church been left to her own resources. But there was outside that Church a religious and moral authority with which the 'Pharaohs' and the Emperors had to reckon. Though in the struggle between the two Eastern patriarchates the Byzantine court always took the side of injustice and heresy, yet the cause of justice and orthodoxy, whether maintained by Alexandria or Constantinople, never failed to find vigorous support in the Apostolic See of Rome.

The contrast is indeed striking. It is the Emperor Constantius who ruthlessly persecutes St. Athanasius; it is Pope Julius who takes his Part and defends him against the whole East. It is Pope Innocent who makes energetic protest against the persecution of St. John Chrysostom and after the death of the saint takes the first step towards the rehabilitation of his memory in the Church. Again, it is Pope Celestine who backs St. Cyril with all the weight of his authority in his courageous struggle against the heresy of Nestorius and its political champions; and there can be no doubt--that without the aid of the Apostolic See the patriarch of Alexandria for all its energy would not have succeeded in overcoming the combined forces of the imperial power and the greater part of the Greek clergy. This contrast between the policy of the Empire and that of the Papacy may be observed right through the history of the Eastern heresies which were not only invariably supported but sometimes even invented by the Emperors, as the Monothelite heresy was by the Emperor Heraclius and the Iconoclastic heresy by Leo the Isaurian.

But we must pause at the fifth century over the struggle of the two patriarchates and the instructive history of the 'robber-council' of Ephesus.

Repeated experience had proved that in the quarrel between the two princes of the Eastern Church, the Western Pope showed no bias or partiality, but invariably gave his support to the cause of justice and truth. Accordingly the tyrant and heretic Dioscorus could not count on Rome for the same assistance that his predecessor St. Cyril had received. His plan was to secure primacy over the whole Eastern Church by the condemnation of St. Flavian and the triumph of the Egyptian faction, more or less Monophysite, of which he himself was the leader. Realizing that there was no hope of the Pope's consent being given to such a plan, he resolved to achieve his object without the Pope or if necessary in spite of him.

In 449 a council which was oecumenical in its composition assembled at Ephesus. The whole Eastern Church was represented. The legates of Pope St. Leo were also present but were not allowed to preside over the council. Dioscorus, guarded by the imperial officers and attended by his Egyptian bishops and a mob of clerics armed with staves, presided like a king holding court. The bishops of the orthodox party were cowed and silent. 'All of them,' we read in the Russian Martyrology (life of St. Flavian), 'loved darkness rather than light and preferred falsehood to truth, desiring rather to please their earthly king than the King of Heaven.'

St. Flavian had to submit to a farcical trial. Some of the bishops threw themselves at Dioscoros' feet and implored his indulgence for the accused. They were roughly handled by the Egyptians amid deafening cries of 'Hack asunder those who would divide Christ!' The orthodox bishops were given tablets on which nothing was written and to which they were compelled to put their signatures, knowing that a heretical formula would be immediately inscribed upon them. The majority signed without a murmur. A few desired to sign with certain reservations, but the Egyptian clergy tore the tablets from their hands, breaking their fingers with blows from their staves. Finally Dioscorus rose and in the name of the council pronounced sentence of condemnation against Flavian, who was deposed, excommunicated and handed over to the secular arm. Flavian tried to protest, but Dioscorus' clerics fell on him and handled him so roughly that he died within two days.

When injustice, violence and falsehood thus reigned supreme in an Ecumenical council, where was the infallible and inviolable Church of Christ? It was present and moreover gave proof of its presence. At the moment when St. Flavian was being done to death by the brutalities of Dioscorus' minions, when the heretical bishops were loudly acclaiming the triumph of their leader, while the orthodox bishops stood by trembling and silent, Hilary, the deacon of the Roman Church, cried: 'Contradicitur!'"

At that moment it was certainly not the cowering silent crowd of orthodox Easterns which represented the Church of God. All the immortal power of the Church was concentrated for Eastern Christendom in that simple legal word spoken by the Roman deacon: contradicitur.

We are accustomed to find fault with the distinctively juridical and legalistic character of the Western Church; and no doubt the principles and formula of Roman law do not hold good in the Kingdom of God. But the robber-council of Ephesus was an express vindication of Latin justice.

The contradicitur of the Roman deacon was the symbol of principle against fact, of right against brute force, of unshakeable moral stability against victorious wickedness on the one hand and cowardice on the other; it was, in a word, the impregnable Rock of the Church against the gates of hell.

The murderers of the patriarch of Constantinople did not dare to touch the deacon of the Roman Church. And in the short space of two years the contradicitur of Rome had changed 'the most holy oecumenical council of Ephesus' into 'the robber-council of Ephesus', had ousted the mitred assassin, decreed the canonisation of his victim, and brought about the assembling of the true oecumenical council of Chalcedon under the presidency of the Roman legates.

Two interesting interviews with Met. Zizioulas on the doctrine of primacy:

Where the Eucharist is, there is the Catholic Church [30giorni.it]

When we speak of the primacy... [30giorni.it]

Wherefore though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places [i.e., Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch] is the See of one. For he himself exalted the See in which he deigned even to rest and end the present life. He himself adorned the See to which he sent his disciple as evangelist. He himself established the See in which, though he was to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since then it is the See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you, this I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your merits, since we are one in Him Who says, That they all may be one, as You, Father, art in me, and I in you that they also may be one in us. [Registrum Epistolarum, Book VII, 40]

I seem to recall then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his book, Called to Communion, mentioning something about the transfer of authority from Jerusalem to Rome. [. . .]