E
East_and_West
Guest
Ignatius of Antioch,Letter to the Romans:
…who are filled inseparably with the grace of God, and are purified from every strange taint, * abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God.
Cyprian of Carthage:
“Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come” (Epistulae 59 (55), 14, [256 A.D.]).
Pope Sixtus III
…“all know that to assent to [the Bishop of Rome’s] decision is to assent to St. Peter, who lives in his successors and whose faith fails not.”
St. Peter Chrysologus (449 A.D.):
“We exhort you in every respect, honorable brother, to heed obediently what has been written by the most blessed pope in the city of Rome, for blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, provides the true faith* to those who seek it. For we … cannot try cases on the faith without the consent of the bishop of Rome.”
St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (A.D. 465-533):
“That which the Roman Church, which has the loftiest place on the earth, teaches and holds, so does the whole Christian world believe without hesitation for their justification, and does not delay to confess for their salvation”
(Letter 17, 21, A.D. 519).
Signatories of the “Formula of Hormisdas” (519 AD) to restore union after the Acacian Schism (484 AD):
“[We agree that] in the Apostolic See the Catholic Religion is always kept immaculate. . . . We receive and approve all the letters of the blessed Pope Leo . . . and, as we have said, we follow the Apostolic See in everything and teach all its laws. Therefore, I hope that I may deserve to be with you [Pope Hormisdas] in that one Communion taught by the Apostolic See, in which Communion is the whole, real and perfect solidity of the Christian Religion. And I promise that in the future I will not say in the holy Mysteries the names of those who are banished from the Communion of the Catholic Church, that is, who do not agree with the Apostolic See.”
Theodore the Studite:
“I witness now before God and men, they [the Iconoclasts] have torn themselves away from the Body of Christ, from the Supreme See [Rome], in which Christ placed the keys of the Faith, against which the gates of hell (I mean the mouth of heretics) have not prevailed, and never will until the Consummation, according to the promise of Him Who cannot lie. Let the blessed and Apostolic Paschal [Pope St. Paschal I] rejoice therefore, for he has fulfilled the work of Peter.”
(Theodore Bk. II. Ep. 63).
“…a manifest successor of the prince of the Apostles presides over the Roman Church. We truly believe that Christ has not deserted the Church here [in Constantinople], for assistance from you has been our one and only aid from of old and from the beginning by the providence of God in the critical times. You are, indeed the untroubled and pure fount of orthodoxy from the beginning, you the calm harbor of the whole Church, far removed from the waves of heresy, you the God-chosen city of refuge."
(Letter of St. Theodor & Four Abbots to Pope Paschal).
OH, our EO brothers and sisters jump through hoops to explain this away. One thing they like to do is claim that the quotes of the Fathers that support the Papacy were forged. Then they say, “Well these quotes really only mean a Primacy of honor.” Then you ask them what that means and you find out that a “Primacy of Honor” is really a primacy of nothing.