The Petrine Primacy, the Orthodox and the Church Fathers

[PilgrimMichelangelo]

In full knowledge this is going to open up another Orthodox-Catholic debate; could you prove the Petrine Primacy/Supremacy from pre-Great Schism Church Fathers? Calling all Catholic and Orthodox to discuss, without too many polemics (please), the boundaries of the Petrine ministry in relation to Rome and the Eastern Sees.

Especially interested in the Eastern Catholic vision of the place of Rome in the Universal Church.

 

[ziapueblo]

There are many instances of the early Church Fathers, both East and West, supporting the Petrine Ministry/Primacy. However, is the Petrine Ministry and Papal supremacy the same thing; supreme and immediate jurisdiction over the whole Church?

I think this is a pretty good article of the Orthodox position, which I’m sure you are aware of, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese here in the U.S.:

https://www.goarch.org/-/papal-primacy#_edn14

ZP

 

[PilgrimMichelangelo]

However, is the Petrine Ministry and Papal supremacy the same thing; supreme and immediate jurisdiction over the whole Church?

This is the question I was hoping to find the answer to in the Church Fathers…

I think this is a pretty good article of the Orthodox position, which I’m sure you are aware of, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese here in the U.S.:

Thanks for sharing. Yes. It’s more of us Orthodox being unbending and essentially imposing our view of polity upon the Rome as condition for reunion.

For the Schism to be healed both sides have to be willing to give way a bit.

 

[Isaac14]

This is the question I was hoping to find the answer to in the Church Fathers…

I think if there were a clear answer in the Fathers, we wouldn’t be in this mess. My personal opinion based almost entirely on watching people argue on these forums is that there just isn’t a clear consensus supporting either the Catholic or Orthodox arguments regarding Papal Primacy/Supremacy. My own take is that for restoration of communion to occur both churches are going to need to figure out a way to both be faithful to our past while also coming to a new understanding of what our respective ecclesiologies entail with regard to the other. I believe that can happen, with humility and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but I also believe there will be a large number on both sides that would be unhappy because they’d perceive any such new understandings as completely caving.

 

[George720]

Is the Autocephaly of local Churches a feature of the Petrine Church?

If the Petrine Ministry is to be the Head of the Church on earth…

And if autocephalous geographical Churches are each their own Head…

Then we have an Hydra-headed Church on earth…

But if the Church in any geographic locale is self-governing, then each autocephalous Church is eo-ipso sui-juris, and not “under” any other geographic Church… From the Orthodox pov, it is the Synodium of Churches that convenes to agree among themselves, in the Holy Spirit, to the solutions of issues that arise among them in the Faith… We call these Councils…

And indeed this is what the Latin Church does in its College of Cardinals, at its local level… And indeed, that has been one of the promising proposals for reunion - eg The regarding of all of post-schism Latin rulings and dogmas as but local rulings, and not having any import other than the local issues they were addressing… Yet this would be a denial of the Latin understanding of their Petrine Primacy, because in their view, these ARE the Petrine prerogatives that define the authority of the Petrine Primacy…

And Rome has in fact been loosening these prerogatives, especially with Her Eastern Churches… Even to the point of “differing theologies”, declaring Eastern Theology to be “valid”… While then placing the pacha mama idol on the Latin Altar… And it is all getting wonky for us simple folk… These are trying times!

So trad-caths want to go back to early post schism standards, and progressives head Amazonian, and the EOC just keeps on doing what they always do…

The Petrine Primacy was instituted to serve the Church, not to rule it…

geo