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Criostoir I fail to see the point of informing us that the Patriarchate in Constantinople was staffed by servants. All large households across the world to this day require staffing in order to function. Call the staff servants if you like. The Vatican Papal household also requires a number of 'servants' to function properly in our time. As of the importance of your view that there were many servants in the pre 1453 Patriarchate, you fail to tell us why this matters.

You dont seem to understand the "Great Church" is Constantinople and they were not divided. As for politics it is safe to say that were 2 or 3 are gathered together, there will always be politics. Thats is not the reason why the churches are interacting as they do today, the politics are still there.

You dont understand the title of a Patriarch. A Church can exist and have it's own head who does not have to have that title.

The Cardinals are very sensitive to the Patriarchs. At Vat II the two were placed opposite each other with the Patriarchs up one extra step. I had a conversation with a now deceased Cardinal who told that in processions they were always trying to put the Patriarchs in the place of precedence.

The Patriarch of the Melkites is no more or less in communion with the Pope of Rome than any other of the heads of the particular Churches, or any of the Catholic bishops. Being in union means a total commitment with no reservations. It does not mean that there can't be discussion about what union and communion might look like in the future and what it was in the past. Thats what I mean by saying that the Church is living. A Monk once said to me if you want to live you have to get old and getting old means you have to change. Nothing is as it once was, with the exception of the teachings of our Churches. How that manifests itself depends on the times the churches find themselves.

ICXC
NIKA

It is interesting that Yves Congar, hardly a slacker when it came to ecumenical issues touching the Orthodox, saw in Vatican I one of "the loci theologici of collegiality". This is in part due to the definition on Papal primacy and the "supreme power" in the church which resides in the Pope's ministry when he speaks for the whole Church and in the whole episcopate with the Pope as its head. He also asserted that in light of the thesis of the dogmatic decree, De Ecclesiae which was never promulgated due to the disruption created by the Savoyards. It was only at Vatican II that the papal ministry was situated appropriately in the context of and at the service of the whole eccelsia. The invasion of Rome disrupted the "complete thought" of the council...and so for nearly a century, theologians took the primacy football and attempted to run it all the way home.

The issue for me is less with the teaching and more with its implmentation and interpretation.

Gordo

Can anyone tell me when this happened?

Thanks

I found an article from March 2nd.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=6137

Thank you for the article. I found it quite informative.

This is absurd. If anything the cardinals should be done away with as a holdover from the political situation in the Roman Church and its temporal authority. A cardinal has no standing as far as apostolic orders are concerned and is a "political appointee" and seems to be a church version of the Roman senate. Since when are red 'sombreros" eccliastical vestments? Perhaps the "primates" of present day countries should fill this role?

It's a system of Governance that has evolved and seems to work very well. The 'red hat' died out out ages ago and there are not all that many countries that have the office of Primate in the Catholic Church.

ICXC
NIKA

Is this a system of governance or something more like the "electorial college" in the US? Does it really have any authority other than electing an new pope? The cardinals may not have a system of seniority but there does seem to be some political "pecking order" behind the scenes.