www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Drawn to Orthodoxy????

Originally posted by ByzantineAscetic:

My understanding is that in the Catholic Interpretation of Peters Confession, if peter was
the Rock of the Church, St. Peters Successor would have universal jurisdiction and would indeed be a "Universal Pope".

Since the Western Church Fathers agree that Peters Confession is the Rock, it would seem that he is not held in such a High Authority as the papacy claims today. If they did not have the authority they claim, then all of their papal doctrines would be false correct?

If am wrong in my understanding please correct me.
If I am wrong what is the true significance of Peter being the Rock & Peters Confession being the Rock?

Another byzantine catholic friend of mind is going to lend me her copy of "Primacy of Peter" on thursday. It looks good.

Questions which Orthodox liturgiologists and theologians need to ask are: 1) Does the Orthodox liturgical tradition ever refer to anyone other than the Bishops of Rome as the Successor of Peter and as exercising Peter's presidency? 2) If not, why not? If it does, in what sense does it use these terms? 3) If the liturgical tradition does not, in fact, refer to anyone other than the Bishops of Rome as the Successor of Peter, what are the implications of this for that theological understanding which would interpret the Chair of Peter as existing in every episcopal see but without a contemporary source and locus in the Church of Rome?

Can we not overcome the dilemna between a single Successor of Peter in Rome and many successors in every episcopal see, as Paul McPartlan has suggested, by understanding the Pope not as "Peter" and other bishops as "apostles", but by understanding the Pope as a definitive Peter in his own local Church, constituting and enabling the presence of Peter in the various local Churches? The universal ministry of the Pope exists in order to serve each local Eucharist. To assert that the Chair of Peter is found in each episcopal see and that it has a particular locus and source in the Church of Rome is to affirm that the "one-many" configuration in God, which includes both the "monarchy" of the Father and the equality of the three divine persons, is the basis for the worldwide communion and configuration of local Churches.

The Pope is no more above the bishops, who head their own local Churches, than the Father is above the Son and the Spirit. The uniqueness of papal primacy is to be located among the bishops, not above or apart from them. It can, however, be affirmed that the Pope is the source of the episcopal ministry in each local Church just as the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit, as the "one" who simultaneously is one among the "many" and yet constitutes the "many". It seems that we must say this if we are to affirm that the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church" refers to both the local Church and to the universal, worldwide communion of Churches and that every authentic, catholic local Church is a manifestation of the universal Church in a particular place. To limit the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church to either the local Church or to the worldwide Church would result in either an inappropriate localism or an inappropriate universalism in ecclesiology.

Although the Pope is a bishop like all other bishops, exercising the Petrine ministry in his own local Church of Rome, the worldwide communion of bishops depends existentially upon him as the "one" without whom the "many" are inconceivable. As Bishop Zizioulas has asserted, "there can be no communion of local Churches without some form of universal synodality, and no universal synodality without some form of universal primacy".

This is the specific ministry of the Bishop of Rome, and as such he is uniquely styled the Successor of Peter, without denying that every bishop, as head of a local Church, shares in this Petrine ministry. An appropriate Orthodox understanding of papal primacy must, I would argue, take into account two factors: 1) the source of all episcopal ministry derives from the Chair of Peter and this Chair is to be found in every catholic episcopal see, and 2) there is a perpetual contemporary source and locus Petri, and these are found in Rome. Both the conciliarity of bishops and the primacy of Rome derive from the apostolic Tradition.

The idea that the papal presidency is entirely due to the socio-political status of the city of Old Rome within the structure of the ancient Roman Empire, the so-called "principle of accomodation", is not a sufficient interpretation, either historically or theologically. Rome, no less than the rest of the Church, did indeed accept ecclesiastical accomodation to imperial structures, and as Francis Dvornik has argued, it is quite possible that up until the fourth century the bishops of Rome drew sufficient authority and prestige from the fact that their residence was in the imperial capital that it was unnecessary for them to invoke continually the Petrine origin of their see. Nonetheless, this origin was not forgotten, and its significance gradually developed in Christian thinking. By the second half of the fourth century the "principle of apostolicity" was so widely accepted that the See of Rome simply was known as the See of Peter. The principle of apostolicity means that the Roman Pope exercises his ministry of presidency because he is the successor of Peter, and not simply because he is bishop of a city which at one time was the capital of a large empire.

Nor is the Pope simply an ecclesiastically appointed head with a "primacy of honor" (a diplomatic, political category), such as Canon 3 of the Council of Constantinople I (381) and Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) might suggest, if read in isolation from the wider tradition. As Bishop John Zizioulas has asserted, no patriarch has a mere primacy of honor in relation to a synod. His presence is a sine qua non condition for all canonical deliberations. The synod, in fact, cannot function without its head; the "many" without the "one" are inconceivable. The primus, therefore, gives its theological status to the synod, and not simply honor. This claim, I would argue, must certainly apply to the universal primate in relation to the worldwide communion of bishops, especially when they meet in synod, but not only on such occasions. The relationship between bishops and their primates, both regional and universal, is an ongoing one.

The problem with Canon 28 of Chalcedon is that it makes no mention of the apostolic and Petrine origin of the Roman presidency, but reflects only the principle of accomodation to imperial structures. The council fathers, however, did not deny this origin, since in their deliberations and correspondence they clearly acknowledged Rome as the "Apostolic See" and the Bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter. One need only recall the acclamation by eastern bishops, "St. Peter has spoken through Leo", after the reading of Leo's famous tome. The eastern bishops who signed the Libellus Hormisdae of 519, which ended the Schism of Acacius, moreover, clearly acknowledged the Pope's Petrine ministry of ensuring doctrinal orthodoxy and unity:

We cannot pass over in silence the affirmation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church. . . ." These words are borne out by the facts: it is in the Apostolic See that the Catholic religion has always been preserved without stain. . . it is for this reason that I hope to achieve communion with the Apostolic See in which is found the entire, true, and perfect stability of the Christian religion. (47)

One finds, then, eastern bishops relating to the Roman See in terms of both the principle of accomodation and the principle of apostolicity. Depending on their current needs and situation, they emphasized one or the other. This produced an ambiguity which has tended to characterize eastern Christian thought with regard to the Roman presidency. The most balanced position, it seems to me, is that of the eastern Father, St. Maximus the Confessor, who in 643/644 acknowledged both the synodically-determined and divinely-given origin of Roman See:

. . . the very holy Church of Rome, the apostolic see, which God the Word Himself and likewise all the holy Synods, according to the holy canons and the sacred definitions, have received, and which owns the power in all things and for all, over all the saints who are there for the whole inhabited earth, and likewise the power to unite and to dissolve...

One of the main problems with an understanding of primacy or presidency based on the principle of accomodation (which still tends to dominate Orthodox thinking on this issue) is that it is no longer applicable. The empire is gone. We have canons which speak of the old taxis of patriarchal sees and primacy but which no longer reflect the world in which we live. Constantinople and Alexandria, for example, are no longer even Christian centers. They are beleaguered sees, basically serving ethnic communities. If the origin of their status was socio-political, and that socio-political order is now gone, on what basis can they rank first and second in the hierarchy of patriarchal Churches other than being simply a relic of the past?

The reluctance of Orthodox even to reconsider this ancient taxis is perhaps partly due to the fear that there is, in fact, no basis upon which to rely for establishing order and unity other than the ancient socio-politically determined one. Another principle, however, is needed in Church life, and that principle is the apostolic one. The Orthodox liturgical texts cited above direct us to this principle and provide us with a basic framework for a renewed understanding of the Roman presidency as one based on the succession of Peter. It was this very principle which Patriarch Athenagoras once again evoked when in 1967 he greeted Pope Paul VI as "holy brother and successor of Peter".

A renewed Orthodox understanding of Roman primacy must, it seems to me, include the clear acknowledgment that as heir to the apostolic throne of Peter the Bishop of Rome is the visible, identifable "chief" (κoρυφα_oς) and "president" (πρόεδρoς), who exercises the ministry of presiding within the ecumenical orthodox catholic Church. I would, therefore, seriously take issue with the position espoused by some Orthodox theologians such as the eminent Vladimir Lossky that "Orthodoxy recognizes no visible head of the Church", but only a "certain primacy of honour" because "The unity of the Church expresses itself through the communion of the heads of local churches among themselves". Here, it seems to me, Lossky has fallen into a reductionist position in which he pits a visible head of the Church over against the Church's conciliarity, that is, he suggests that an effective universal presidency is contrary to the Church understood as the communion of local Churches.