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St. Augustine for example. Mat 16 is in the future tense. All the Apostles were given the keys (see Mat 18 and John 20).

When you hear the words: 'Peter, do you love me?' imagine you are in front of a mirror and looking at yourself.
Peter, surely, was a symbol of the Church. Therefore the Lord in asking Peter is asking us too.
To show that Peter was a symbol of the Church remember the passage in the
Gospel: 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Has only one man received those keys? Christ himself explains what they are
for: 'Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.' If these words had been said only to Peter, now that he is dead who would ever be able to bind and loose?
I make bold to say that all of us have received the keys. We bind and loose. And you also bind and loose.
Whoever is bound is separated from your community: he is bound by you. When he is reconciled, however, he is loosed, thanks to you because you are praying for him. We all in fact love our Lord, we are all his members.
And when the Lord entrusts his flock to shepherds, the whole number of shepherds is reduced to one individual body, that of the one Shepherd.
Peter is undeniably a shepherd, but without doubt Paul also is a shepherd, each Apostles is a shepherd. All the holy bishops are shepherds, without a shadow of a doubt. St. Augustine, Serm. Morin, 16 (Miscellanea Agostiniana, 493ff.)

So? Didn't it happen as Jesus said? What from Augustine?


There is very little of key(s) in scripture, and nothing of keys in Mat 18 or John 20. Don't read into scripture what's not there.

This is why I disbelieve the notion of Papal Infallibility - it just isn't there. For the quote from St. Augustine, agreeing that the keys were given to all the apostles to bind and loose (Mat 18 and John 20) see the quote above.

Good advice. For an Orthodox perspective on the "keys," I suggest this commentary [books.google.com] by Fr. Laurent Cleenewerck.

In the same way -- explicitly -- neither is the Trinity, the Dormition, homoousios, etc. "there."

There is certainly a patristic witness of all bishops sitting on the chair of Peter. The quoted passage seems to argue that point. From a purely exegetical viewpoint, however, I think it goes too far beyond the text. Unlike the writing of even the Fathers, which no one claims are infallible, scripture is the inerrant word of God, and in being explicit provides the scope and limits for interpretation.

The trinity and homoousios is explicitly taught in scripture if one reads it with the mind of the church. I would not equate the Dormition with either of these two fundamental dogmas.


I agree with St. Augustine here, as I think his interpretation is the common one during the patristic era. However, as it is not a matter of dogma, and there is a lack of consensus I wouldn't hold anyone else to it. Suffice it to say, there is not a consensus in the fathers for Pastor Aeternus either.

His Grace John Elya did in fact celebrate Divine Liturgy at EWTN on one occasion. So, I would say that whatever tension-if any-that existed between EWTN and the Melkites was resolved.

Hahaha this is by far the most amusing thing I have heard a Catholic say in long time. I was having a bad day but you gave me a good belly laugh. The days of post-Vatican II disdain for authority are clearly not over.

It doesn't.

Whereas I get the impression that EWTN is fundamentally clueless FULL STOP! In the language of choice of the neo-con troglodytes "Infinitus est autem numerus stultorum" (Sap. Reg. Sal.)

No, it wasn't, since Bishop John was definitely odd man out in the Melkite Synod. His views definitely did not represent those of his Church, and neither those of his predecessor, Bishop Joseph (Tawil) nor his successor Archbishop Cyril (Boutros), nor even his "auxiliary", Bishop Nicholas (Samra).

Actually, it's not a matter of "disdain for authority", but rather discerning where authority resides, and in what manner. I know that gives those with the rule-following fetish headaches, but there it is.

That's why Tradition trumps magisterium.

I think it still works. That Vat II is not strictly speaking an "ecumenical council" because the Orthodox Churches were not participants as full members, does not mean it was not a General Council of the Catholic Communion and does not mean that it was not authoritative (given that the Eastern Catholic Churches were full participants and did not have objects {as apparently happened at other General Councils})