The Papacy Is Not a 'Development'—It's a Contradiction

We often hear our Catholic friends say that papal supremacy “developed” over time. They like to use Cardinal Newman’s image of the acorn that grows into an oak tree. It is, fundamentally, the same “thing”; it has simply grown and matured.

Consider this, however. The Constitution attributes some authority to the Presidency. Now, imagine that a President were to declare himself dictator—to assume total authority over the United States. Would this be a valid “development” of the Constitution? Of course not. Because the Constitution also attributes some authority to other institutions: Congress, the Supreme Court, etc. Therefore, presidential authority could grow only at the expense of these other institutions. This is not a more "evolved" form of the American system of government. It's simply a different system of government.

Likewise, the Early Church clearly recognized that local bishops possess a great deal of authority in their own right. By attributing total authority to the Pope over the Church, they break with the ecclesiology of the first millennium. This is not true, however. Papal infallibility is not a development but a contradiction of the ecclesiology of the Early Church.

Here is how the First Vatican Council defines papal supremacy:

By divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.

This is in sharp contrast to the principle of “one bishop in one city”—which, as Fr. John Meyendorff points out, is the principle affirmed most consistently by the ancient canons and councils.

The Holy Canons

According to the Apostolic Canons, “A bishop is not to be allowed to leave his own parish, and pass over into another, although he may be pressed by many to do so.... And this must be done not of his own accord, but by the judgment of many bishops, and at their earnest exhortation." No exception is made for the Bishop of Rome.

According to the First Council of Nicaea, “There may not be two bishops in the city." The Nicene Fathers do not account for the Roman pontiff’s immediate jurisdiction over the whole Church.

According to the First Council of Constantinople, “The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches.... And let not bishops go beyond their dioceses for ordination or any other ecclesiastical ministrations, unless they be invited." Again, no exception is made for the Pope.

These canons are unanimous: each bishop is the “supreme pontiff” of his own city (i.e., diocese). Therefore, no bishop may interfere in the affairs of another. If a rogue bishop needs to be reined in, this must be done in a collegial manner, with several bishops coming together to correct their brother. And yet the First Vatican Council asserts that the Bishop of Rome possesses “episcopal and immediate” jurisdiction over the entire Church. 

Clearly, Vatican I does not develop the ancient canons. It contradicts them.

The Ecumenical Councils

The Ecumenical Councils also explicitly rule out the notion that the pope has any kind of supreme juridical or magisterial authority over the Church.

Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon states: “For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city.” The Orthodox traditionally point to this canon as proof that the Pope’s primacy is derived, not from Christ, but from the love and reverence of his brother bishops. To use the technical terms, it exists by ecclesial rather than by divine right.

Elsewhere, the Fathers of Chalcedon declare: “From what has been done and brought forward on each side, we perceive that the primacy of all and the chief honor according to the canons, is to be kept for the most God-beloved archbishop of Old Rome, but that the most reverend archbishop of the royal city Constantinople, which is new Rome, is to enjoy the honor of the same primacy.” Again, this suggests that Rome’s primacy is an honor granted by the bishops, not a divine mandate.

The Second Council of Constantinople is perhaps the most powerful example of the Early Church's anti-papalist tendencies. It was convened by Emperor St. Justinian to address the problem of Nestorianism. Pope Viligius, a Nestorian sympathizer, refused to attend.

The other bishops were outraged, with the African synod going so far as to break communion with Rome. Justinian ordered that Vigilius be arrested and forced to attend the Council. The Pope remained obstinate until Justinian ordered the Council Fathers to excommunicate him, at which point Vigilius signed on to their anti-Nestorian acts.

The Council Fathers also ratified its Sentences Against the Three Chapters, which (among other things) explicitly teaches a conciliar ecclesiology:

In order to persuade [Vigilius], we reminded him of the great example left us by the apostles and of the traditions of the fathers. Even though the grace of the holy Spirit was abundant in each of the apostles, so that none of them required the advice of another in order to do his work, nevertheless they were loathe to come to a decision on the issue of the circumcision of gentiles until they had met together to test their various opinions against the witness of the holy scriptures.

In this way they unanimously reached the conclusion which they wrote to the gentiles: It has seemed good to the holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.

The holy fathers, who have gathered at intervals in the four holy councils, have followed the examples of antiquity. They dealt with heresies and current problems by debate in common, since it was established as certain that when the disputed question is set out by each side in communal discussions, the light of truth drives out the shadows of lying.

The truth cannot be made clear in any other way when there are debates about questions of faith, since everyone requires the assistance of his neighbor.

Read that final line again: “The truth cannot be made clear in any other way, because everyone requires the existence of his neighbor.” 

The Third Council of Constantinople, likewise, issued the following denunciation of Pope Honorius I, a Monothelite:

And with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what we found written by him to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines… To Honorius, the heretic, anathema!

Would it be possible, in the modern Roman Catholic Church, for an ecumenical council to depose a pope? Would it be possible to anathematize him as a heretic? Of course not! This would be a contradiction of two core Latin dogmas: papal infallibility and papal supremacy. Clearly, then, the Fathers of Constantinople III held to a very different ecclesiology than our Catholic friends today.

The Church Fathers

In addition to the canons and councils, many Church Fathers explicitly stated that the Pope possesses no special, God-given authority over his brother bishops. 

Pope St. Gregory the Great famously declared: “I say it without the least hesitation, whoever calls himself the universal bishop, or desires this title, is, by his pride, the precursor of Antichrist, because he thus attempts to raise himself above the others.”

When Pope Stephen I attempted to excommunicate the Eastern bishops over the dating of Easter, he was rebuked by St. Cyprian (a Western father) thus:

Even Peter, whom the Lord chose first, and upon whom He built his church, when Paul later disputed with him over circumcision, did not claim insolently any prerogative nor make any special claims for himself. He did not assert that he had rights of seniority and that therefore upstarts and latecomers ought to be obedient to him.

St. Ambrose of Milan (another Western father) who said that Peter possessed “the primacy of confession, not of honor; the primacy of belief, not of rank.”

The Second Council of Carthage (a Western synod) declared:

No one among us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by tyranny and terror forces his colleagues to compulsory obedience, seeing that every bishop in the freedom of liberty and power, possesses the right to his own mind and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another.

We also have the example of the Meletian Schism. In the middle of the fourth century, a schism erupted in the Church of Antioch between two rival claimants: Meletius and Paulinus. St. Basil the Great asked Pope Damasus I to intervene, as “first among equals,” and defend Meletius’s claim. Damasus does intervene… but in favor of Paulinus and “deposes” Meletius. Basil refused to accept Damasus’s decision. In an astonishing letter, he declared:

I congratulate those who have received the letter from Rome. And, although it is a grand testimony in their favor, I only hope it is true and confirmed by facts. But I shall never be able to persuade myself on these grounds to ignore Meletius, or to forget the Church which is under him, or to treat as small, and of little importance to the true religion, the questions which originated the division. I shall never consent to give in, merely because somebody is very much elated at receiving a letter from men. Even if it had come down from heaven itself, but he does not agree with the sound doctrine of the faith, I cannot look upon him as in communion with the saints.

Basil implicitly denies both papal supremacy and papal infallibility. In fact, he mocks the notion that popes have any special authority in the Church, listing Damasus among the mass of “men.”

Meletius died outside of communion with Rome. Damasus’s successor Siricius likewise supported Paulinus’s line. However, later popes admitted Damasus’s error. Not only did Rome eventually recognize the Meletian line: it canonized Meletius himself!

In the seventh century, St. Maximus the Confessor was arrested during a feud with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. As it happens, the Pope was coming to Constantinople to celebrate liturgy with the Ecumenical Patriarch. Maximus’s jailers asked, “What will you do when the Romans are united to the Byzantines?” Maximus replied:

Even if the whole universe holds communion with the Patriarch, I will not communicate with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul: the Holy Spirit declares that even the angels would be anathema if they should begin to preach another Gospel, introducing some new teaching.

As it happens, the Ecumenical Patriarch in question was Sergius I; the Pope was Honorius I. Both were anathematized by the Sixth and Seventh Ecumenical Councils for teaching the heresy of Monothelitism.

In the eighth century, in response to the FILIOQUE controversy was beginning to heat up, Pope St. Leo III declared that no further modifications to the Nicene Creed were possible. In order to emphasize his point, Leo struck two huge silver plates, upon which the Symbol of Faith was inscribed without the FILIOQUE, once in Latin and once in Greek. He then hung the plates over the gates of the Vatican. 

Concerning the plates, the holy pope said: “I, Leo, put these here for the love and protection of the Orthodox faith.” He also noted that, in formulating the Symbol of Faith, the First and Second Ecumenical Councils had “acted upon divine illumination rather than by human wisdom… and far be it from me to count myself their equal.”

Leo understood that his authority as pope is less than that of an ecumenical council. And yet Vatican I clearly states: “They stray from the genuine path of truth who maintain that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs to an ecumenical council as if this were an authority superior to the Roman Pontiff." How can we possibly square that circle?

Conclusion

So, the Holy Canons assert the absolute authority of each bishop within his own diocese. The Ecumenical Councils, while acknowledging the Pope's symbolic primacy, also explicitly checked his attempts to exercise superior authority over the Church, or to place himself above his fellow bishops. And the Church Fathers fleshed out this ecclesiology, affirming the rights of bishops and synods while checking papal ambitions.

It’s worth pointing out once again that, according to modern Roman Catholics, the Pope has the right to:

• Appoint any bishop on earth, for any reason.
• Depose any bishop on earth, for any reason.
• Convene and ratify an Ecumenical Council.
• Define dogma unilaterally.
• Create, reform, or abolish liturgical rites.
• Erect or abolish an autocephalous church.

And, per the Code of Canon Law (1404 and 1405§2), none of his decisions can be appealed in a canonical court. So, there is literally no limit on papal power in the Catholic Church. 

Once again, this is not a “development” of the ecclesiology laid out by the Canons, the Councils, and the Fathers. It is a blatant contradiction of the ecclesiology of the Early Church, a violation of the rights of the bishops and the synods.

Once we understand this, we can see that the Orthodox Church really is the Church of the first millennium, alive and flourishing today.

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