credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/assyrians.htm
< In the afore-mentioned Letter to his people, Bishop Mar Bawai Soho, the present Assyrian Bishop of San Jose, California, has expressed his determination to do what he can to further the union of Christian Churches, noting that the “sacred objective of the unity of Christ’s Church must however be developed from an ecclesiological mentality not political, but from an apostolic way of thinking, not secular.” He went on to note the genuine tradition of his ancient Eastern Church concerning the Petrine Primacy in the Church:
“The Church of the East attributes a prominent role to Saint Peter and a significant place for the Church of Rome in her liturgical, canonical and Patristic thoughts. There are more than 50 liturgical, canonical and Patristic citations that explicitly express such a conviction. The question before us therefore is, why there must be a primacy attributed to Saint Peter in the Church? If there is no primacy in the Universal Church, we shall not be able to legitimize a primacy of all the patriarchs in the other apostolic churches. If the patriarchs of the apostolic churches have legitimate authority over their own respective bishops, it is so because there is a principle of primacy in the Universal Church. If the principle of primacy is valid for a local Church (for example, the Assyrian Church of the East), it is so because it is already valid for the Universal Church. If there is no Peter for the Universal Church, there could not be Peter for the local Church. If all the apostles are equal in authority by virtue of the gift of the Spirit, and if the bishops are the successors of the Apostles, based on what, then, can one of these bishops (i.e., [our own] Catholicos-Patriarchs) have authority over the other bishops?
The Church of the East possesses a theological, liturgical and canonical tradition in which she clearly values the primacy of Peter among the rest of the Apostles and their churches and the relationship Peter has with his successors in the Church of Rome. The official organ of our Church of the East, Mar Abdisho of Soba, the last theologian in our Church before its fall [he is referring to the 14th century canonist who was the last prominent theologian before the Mongol invasion], based himself on such an understanding when he collected his famous Nomocanon in which he clearly states the following: “To the great Rome [authority] was given because the two pillars are laid in the grave there, Peter, I say, the head of the Apostles, and Paul, the teacher of the nations. [Rome] is the first see and the head of the patriarchs” (Memra; Risha 1). Futhermore, Abdisho asserts “…And as the patriarch has authority to do all he wishes in a fitting manner in such things as are beneath his authority, so the patriarch of Rome has authority over all patriarchs, like the blessed Peter over all the community, for he who is in Rome also keeps the office of Peter in all the Church. He who transgresses against these things the ecumenical synod places under anathema” (Memra 9; Risha 8). I would like to ask here the following: who among us would dare to think that he or she is more learned than Abdisho of Soba, or that they are more sincere to the Church of our forefathers than Mar Abdisho himself?” >
