Alexander Schmemann

2. The Triumph Of Christianity (27 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 11

The Roman Position.

Already by the end of the second century we have seen the gradual development in the West of a Roman self-consciousness. The Roman Church was the most ancient Western Church and the only Western apostolic see, consecrated by the names and blood of the apostles Peter and Paul.
Christianity in the West developed from Rome, so that most of the Western churches regarded the Roman Church as the Mother Church, from which they had received the tradition of the faith and apostolic succession. While Rome’s position in the West was exceptional, the Church of St. Peter was the object of special respect in the East as well, so that Ignatius of Antioch referred to it as “presiding in love.” After the fall of the apostolic community in Jerusalem, Rome undoubtedly became the first Church, the center of that universal unity and consent which Irenaeus of Lyons contrasted with the splintered Gnostic sects.

But alarming signs appeared very early: the Roman bishops were more and more inclined to regard their primacy, which no one disputed, as a special power, and their “presiding in love” as presiding in power and authority. Thus in 190-192, Pope Victor demanded in an ultimatum that the Eastern churches accept the Roman practice of celebrating Easter. Rome held this celebration on the first Sunday after the Jewish Passover, while in the East it coincided with the Jewish holiday. Victor based his demand on the authority of the apostles Peter and Paul. He was answered by one of the senior bishops of the East, Polycrates of Ephesus, who referred in turn to a tradition that had reached him directly from the apostles. That is, he simply repudiated the Roman claim to force its practice on other churches. “I have lived in the Lord sixty-five years, I have read all the Holy Scriptures, and I fear nothing, whatever might threaten me. Greater men than Victor have said: It is better to listen to God than men.” In reply Victor in an encyclical letter simply excluded the churches of Asia Minor from communion with Rome, and this decisive measure evoked protests even in places where the Roman practice, not the Eastern, prevailed.

Later, in the middle of the third century, a dispute arose between Rome and Africa over the question of the baptism of heretics. Pope Stephen also required unconditional submission to the Roman decision. The African bishops through Cyprian of Carthage answered: “None of us claims to be a bishop of bishops or resorts to tyranny to obtain the consent of his brethren. Each bishop in the fullness of his freedom and his authority retains the right to think for himself, he is not subject to any other and he does not judge others.” Stephen was answered still more sharply by Firmilian of Caesarea in Cappadocia, one of the pillars of the Eastern Church: “There are many distinctions within the Church, but what is important is spiritual unity, unity of faith and tradition. What boldness to claim to be the judge of all! Stephen by this claim excludes himself from the universal unity of the episcopate.”

Thus very early we see both acknowledgment of the universal significance of Rome as the first Church to express the common consent and the common unity, but also a reaction against a specifically Roman interpretation of this significance. In each case, however, the reaction was merely to a concrete situation and never to the matter of the Roman claims in their essence. Thus a Roman tradition was gradually allowed to develop. When East and West later came to face it, it was too late; for Rome the tradition was already sanctified by antiquity and interpreted as true.

 

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