Demetrios Constantelos

Greek Orthodoxy - From Apostolic Times to the Present Day

It was the Western Church that estranged herself from the Eastern Church. Constantinople had been the capital of the Empire since AD 330. The city of Constantine was the commanding center of the orbis Romanorum. By abandoning old Rome and moving to the Greek East, Constantine indicated that the future of the empire lay in the East. The Byzantine Greeks almost ignored the developments in the Western Church, where the bishop of Rome was the sole patriarch. True, the Eastern Church acknowledged and honored the bishop of the old capital as the first among equals (primus inter pares) in honor, but she did not consider him Pontifex Maximus (chief bishop) or vicar of Christ on earth.

Appeals to Rome from the clergy of the Eastern Church in disciplinary or theological matters were rare. When bishops were elected patriarchs of Eastern sees they did not ask for confirmation by the pope but simply announced their elevation and added their confession of faith in order to declare that their faith was the same as that of the first patriarchal sees. The same announcement and declaration of faith or a very similar one were sent to each of the other patriarchs. Even Roman Catholic and other Western theologians and historians, such as Francis Dvornik and H. Grotz, acknowledge that the heads of the Eastern patriarchates acted independently in disciplinary matters in their jurisdictions.

No Church rules existed that obliged the Eastern or Greek patriarchs to submit themselves to Rome before the ninth century. It was in the middle of the ninth century that the Roman pope made claims of supreme jurisdiction over all patriarchs and bishops of Christendom. But even those claims were formulated on the basis of spurious documents, the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The strain in relation between the two parts of Christendom was intensified after the ninth century, when several powerful popes like Nicholas I (858-867) thought of extending to the East the authority they exercised in the West. … But the Western understanding of the papacy was foreign to the Eastern mind, which believed that the supreme authority of the Church rested with the ecumenical synod and that the universal Church honored the heads of the five patriarchates above all other bishops, amongst whom the patriarch or pope of Rome was the first [in honour].

Cf.  Books for getting closer to Orthodox Christianity ||| Orthodox Images of the Christ ||| Byzantium : The Alternative History of Europe ||| The pulse of Ancient Rome was driven by a Greek heart ||| Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire ||| Schmemann, A History of the Orthodox Church ||| Videos about Byzantium and Orthodoxy ||| Aspects of Byzantium in Modern Popular Music ||| 3 Posts on the Fall of Byzantium  ||| Greek Literature / The New Testament

On Line Resources for Constantinople * On the future of the Ecumenical Patriarchate

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp?pg=10