Rome, autrement and You Are Peter

Clément’s short book on the papacy answers John Paul II’s invitation in Ut Unum Sint (1995) for help in reconceiving how the Roman primacy might be exercised. It argues, from history, that a real primacy of the Bishop of Rome existed and was accepted in the first millennium; that it was subsequently deformed by imperial and juridical models on the Western side and by an unchecked multiplication of autocephalies on the Eastern; and that a recovered primacy would be a service of communion at three levels rather than a universal jurisdiction. It is one Orthodox theologian’s proposal, not a statement of the Orthodox Church.

Tradition: Orthodox (Western Europe)

The occasion

On 25 May 1995 Pope John Paul II issued the encyclical Ut Unum Sint, on commitment to ecumenism. In its most quoted passage he acknowledged that the exercise of the Roman primacy constitutes a difficulty for other Christians and asked their pastors and theologians to enter with him into “a patient and fraternal dialogue” on the subject.

The invitation drew remarkably few Orthodox responses. Adam DeVille, reviewing the English edition of Clément’s book, noted that the encyclical “received few Orthodox responses officially” and that this was part of what gave Clément’s essay its significance (DeVille, review of You Are Peter, First Things, November 2004). The Catholic Books Review notice likewise describes the book as “a straightforward response to the invitation made by Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint” (catholicbooksreview.org, 2003).

The book

French. Rome, autrement: une réflexion orthodoxe sur la papauté (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer), 128 pp., ISBN 9782220039145. [Disputed: the publication year. The academic literature and most bookseller descriptions give 1997 — the year before the Colosseum meditations, and two years after *Ut Unum Sint*, which is the occasion the book itself names. French Wikipedia's bibliography gives 1995. The publisher's own current web listing and several retail databases give 7 October 1992, which cannot be right if the book answers a 1995 encyclical, and appears to be a catalogue artefact. This guide uses 1997 and flags the disagreement.]

English. You Are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Primacy (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2003), 112 pp. (catholicbooksreview.org, 2003; publisher and bookseller records; ISBNs 9781565481893 and, for the British New City edition, 9780904287875).

It is a small book — a hundred-odd pages — and it is organized in eleven chapters, opening with “An Ecclesiology of Communion” and closing with paired challenges addressed to Rome and to Orthodoxy, followed by a postscript, “For a Common Future” (catholicbooksreview.org, 2003).

The method: theology through history

Clément was an agrégé d’histoire, and the book proceeds as a historian’s argument. The French publisher’s own description of it names the method: an examination that aims to clarify the Orthodox point of view by constantly illuminating theology through history (Desclée de Brouwer publisher’s description, reproduced by French booksellers).

The historical narrative runs in four movements.

1. Peter at Rome. Clément begins from what the Orthodox do not dispute: that the Church venerates the memory of St Peter at Rome, and that the see of Rome held, in the undivided Church, the first place in the order (taxis) of the churches. The repository sets out the Orthodox account of that primacy at Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism: a primacy of honour, grounded in the apostolic foundation of the see, in Rome’s status as the imperial capital, and in canonical order (canon 3 of Constantinople 381; canon 28 of Chalcedon 451) — not in a divinely instituted universal jurisdiction.

2. The first millennium. For more than a thousand years, Clément argues, the East accepted a Roman primacy, held within a working tension between primacy and conciliarity in which the two were mutually corrective (publisher’s description; catholicbooksreview.org). This is the load-bearing historical claim, and it is one shared, in substance, by the Catholic–Orthodox theological dialogue: the Chieti document of 21 September 2016 describes first-millennium Roman primacy as exercised within communion and synodality, with appeals to Rome functioning canonically rather than as universal jurisdiction (see Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism).

3. The deformation, on both sides. Clément’s central diagnostic claim is that the Roman primacy became “contaminated by the problem of imperial power” (catholicbooksreview.org; DeVille, First Things, November 2004). The pattern of the Western Empire, and later of the medieval and modern papal monarchy, converted a primacy of service into a structure of governance, terminating in the definitions of the First Vatican Council in 1870 — which Clément treats as an additional obstacle to reconciliation rather than as a mere clarification (catholicbooksreview.org, noting his treatment of the 1870 definition of infallibility).

The symmetry is the part usually forgotten by those who cite the book approvingly. Clément held that the schism produced two deformations: extreme centralization in the West, culminating in Vatican I, and in the East a proliferation of increasingly independent autocephalies with no effective expression of universal communion at all (Desclée de Brouwer publisher’s description). His challenge to Orthodoxy in the book’s closing chapters is real: an Orthodoxy that has no functioning way of acting together universally is not thereby vindicated.

4. Since Vatican II. Clément read the meeting of Athenagoras and Paul VI, the lifting of the anathemas in 1965, and the conciliar and post-conciliar developments in the Roman Church as opening a genuine possibility — not of an imminent reunion, but of a mutual need (publisher’s description; see Dialogues with Patriarch Athenagoras).

The proposal

The constructive core has two parts: a general ecclesiological principle and a list of specific structural changes.

The principle: communion, not jurisdiction, at three levels. Clément proposes a return to the original conception of primacy, in which the accent falls on communion rather than on jurisdiction (catholicbooksreview.org). Primacy on this account is exercised at three levels — local (the bishop in his church), regional (the metropolitan or patriarch among the bishops of a region), and universal (the first see among all the churches) — each of them a service of the communion of the churches rather than a power over them (Stefanie Hugh-Donovan, “An Eastern Orthodox Reflection on Papal Primacy,” The Downside Review 134, no. 3 [2016]: 70–87, describing “Clément’s Orthodox interpretation of the three-fold structure of local, regional and universal primacy” as “his irenic response to John Paul II’s call”). The underlying ecclesiology is the eucharistic ecclesiology developed at St Sergius, in which the Church exists whole in each local eucharistic assembly and the universal Church is the communion of those assemblies (see Nicholas Afanasiev and Ecclesiology).

Clément does not pretend that a primacy of honour is powerless. DeVille’s summary and the Catholic Books Review both record his acknowledgment that “the primacy of honor… must inevitably convey to the Patriarch of Rome some measure of power as well” (catholicbooksreview.org). The question for him was never whether primacy carries authority, but of what kind and under what constraint.

The specific proposals. DeVille’s review lists the structural reforms Clément suggests (DeVille, First Things, November 2004):

  • limiting the papal appointment of bishops — that is, restoring to local churches the election of their own bishops, as in the first millennium and as in Orthodox practice;
  • relinquishing the statehood of Vatican City — dismantling the last institutional form of the temporal papal monarchy;
  • clarifying the authority of the post-Nicene councils — that is, distinguishing between the councils of the undivided Church and the later Western councils that the East never received (Lyons, Florence, Trent, Vatican I and II);
  • a tiered primacy — a primacy exercised differently toward different parts of the Christian world. Clément invoked John Paul II’s own language of a primacy operating, as it were, “with different gears,” so that the relation between Rome and Orthodoxy would be one not of jurisdiction but of the plenitude of communion between sister churches (catholicbooksreview.org).

The limits — what Clément did not concede

This is the part most often lost in summaries, and it matters for a fair account.

He did not accept universal jurisdiction. The whole argument is a proposal for primacy instead of jurisdiction. On the Vatican I definition of universal ordinary and immediate jurisdiction over every church and every believer, Clément’s position is the Orthodox one: it is a deformation of primacy, not a development of it.

He did not accept papal infallibility as defined in 1870. He treated the definition as an obstacle to reconciliation (catholicbooksreview.org).

He did not propose Orthodox submission. The book’s closing structure is a double challenge — to Rome and to Orthodoxy alike — and its horizon is reunion between churches recognizing each other as sisters, not the reception of one by the other.

He did not treat the matter as settled or urgent in the practical sense. The proposals concern what a reunited Church might look like; they are not a programme for immediate action, and Clément had no authority to enact anything.

The reception

Roman Catholic. Warm, and grateful for the rarity of the response. The Catholic Books Review notice calls it “solidly rooted in the Orthodox tradition,” representing “the cordial and open mentality characteristic of the theologians of Saint Sergius,” and “a beacon of hope” (catholicbooksreview.org, 2003). DeVille, while praising the irenic and fraternal manner, made two criticisms: that Clément repeats charges about “the annexation by Rome of vast Orthodox territories under the cover of uniatism” without adequate support, and that the postscript wanders into war, environmentalism and technological change with what DeVille calls “exquisite condescension” reminiscent of Hans Küng (DeVille, First Things, November 2004).

Orthodox. Divided, and treated in full in The Papal-Primacy Question.

See Also

References

  • Clément, Olivier. Rome, autrement: une réflexion orthodoxe sur la papauté. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1997. ISBN 9782220039145. (Publication year disputed; see the note above.)
  • Clément, Olivier. You Are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Primacy. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2003. ISBN 9781565481893; British edition ISBN 9780904287875.
  • John Paul II. Ut Unum Sint. Encyclical letter, 25 May 1995.
  • “Olivier CLÉMONT [sic]: You Are Peter.” Catholic Books Review (catholicbooksreview.org), 2003. (Eleven chapters from “An Ecclesiology of Communion” to the paired challenges and the postscript “For a Common Future”; primacy of communion over jurisdiction; “contaminated by the problem of imperial power”; the 1870 definition as an obstacle; the “different gears” formula; primacy of honour nonetheless conveying “some measure of power.”)
  • DeVille, Adam A. J. Review of You Are Peter. First Things, November 2004. (Few Orthodox responses to the encyclical; the specific structural proposals — bishops’ appointment, Vatican statehood, post-Nicene councils, tiered primacy; the criticisms concerning uniatism and the postscript.)
  • Hugh-Donovan, Stefanie. “An Eastern Orthodox Reflection on Papal Primacy: Olivier Clément’s Response to Ut Unum Sint and the Ecclesial Legacy of Patriarch Athenagoras I.” The Downside Review 134, no. 3 (2016): 70–87.
  • Desclée de Brouwer, publisher’s description of Rome, autrement (editionsddb.fr; reproduced by French booksellers). (Theology illuminated through history; Eastern veneration of Peter at Rome; a millennium of accepted Roman primacy in a logic of tension and communion; the two opposite drifts after the schism — Western centralization to Vatican I, Eastern multiplication of autocephalies; Vatican II and Athenagoras as opening a mutual need.)
  • Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium (the Chieti document), 21 September 2016.