Primacy and the Orthodox Reading

The single deepest question dividing the Orthodox East and the Roman West turns on the word primacy: both Churches grant that the see of Rome held a primacy among the churches; they differ over whether that primacy is a primacy of honor within a conciliar communion of equal sees or a primacy of jurisdiction — a supreme, universal, and divinely instituted authority over the whole Church. This file sets out, per METHODOLOGY §4 and without polemic, the patristic and conciliar data — the canons of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon, and the pentarchy — and the two readings of primacy, each stated in its strongest form, dated, and attributed.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Distinction: Primacy of Honor vs Primacy of Jurisdiction

The terms must be kept precise. A primacy of honor (presbeia tēs timēs, “prerogative of honor”) means a recognized first place — a precedence in rank, a right to preside, to be named first, to convene and to be appealed to — exercised within a communion of churches that remain, in their bishops, equal in their episcopal dignity and sacramental authority. A primacy of jurisdiction (or supremacy) means an authority over the other churches and bishops: a power of universal governance, by which the holder can teach, judge, depose, and bind the whole Church by his own authority. The Orthodox tradition affirms that Rome held the first and denies that it ever rightly held the second; the developed Roman Catholic tradition holds that the Petrine primacy is, of divine institution, a primacy of supreme jurisdiction. The whole dispute can be stated as the difference between first among equals (primus inter pares) and first above all.

The Conciliar Data

The Orthodox case rests heavily on how the ecumenical councils themselves described and ranked the sees — for the councils, not later theory, are the Church’s authoritative voice (see The Ecumenical Councils).

Nicaea I (325), Canon 6. The first ecumenical council ranks the great sees by custom and treats Rome’s prerogatives as parallel to those of Alexandria and Antioch: “Let the ancient customs prevail: that in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis the bishop of Alexandria shall have authority over all these, since this is also customary for the bishop of Rome. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the churches retain their prerogatives” (Nicaea I, Canon 6; trans. NPNF II/14). The Orthodox reading stresses that Rome’s authority is here treated as a regional primacy of the same kind as Alexandria’s and Antioch’s, grounded in “ancient custom,” not in a unique Petrine grant of universal rule.

Constantinople I (381), Canon 3. The second ecumenical council ranks Constantinople immediately after Rome, and gives the reason: “The bishop of Constantinople shall have the prerogative of honor (ta presbeia tēs timēs) after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is New Rome” (Constantinople I, Canon 3; trans. NPNF II/14). The decisive point for the Orthodox reading is the ground given: Rome’s primacy is here attributed to its status as the imperial capital — and Constantinople is ranked second precisely because it is “New Rome” — not to Peter. The primacy is a “prerogative of honor,” and it is movable by the Church’s own canonical decision (see Constantinople).

Chalcedon (451), Canon 28. The fourth ecumenical council makes the principle explicit and, in the Orthodox reading, decisive. Canon 28 confirms Constantinople’s rank and states the basis of Roman primacy in so many words: “The Fathers rightly granted prerogatives (ta presbeia) to the throne of Old Rome, because it was the imperial city; and the one hundred and fifty bishops [of Constantinople 381], moved by the same intention, gave equal prerogatives to the most holy throne of New Rome, judging with reason that the city honored with the imperial power and the senate should enjoy equal prerogatives with the older imperial Rome” (Chalcedon, Canon 28; trans. NPNF II/14). Here a council of the whole Church grounds Rome’s primacy in its civil dignity as the old imperial capital, not in Peter — and grants Constantinople “equal prerogatives.” The Roman legates protested the canon and Pope Leo refused to confirm it, precisely because it grounded Roman primacy in imperial geography rather than in the Petrine commission [Disputed: Canon 28's standing — the Eastern Church received it as ecumenical and binding; Rome long rejected it and grounded its own primacy on Peter rather than on imperial status. Pope Leo confirmed Chalcedon's doctrine but withheld assent from Canon 28 (Leo, *Letter* 104–106). The canon is thus a key text precisely because the two traditions read its authority and its theology of primacy oppositely.].

The Pentarchy

Out of this conciliar ranking grew the Byzantine model of the pentarchy: the governance of the universal Church by the five great patriarchal sees in order of honor — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — each supreme within its own territory and none over the others, with Rome holding the first place and Constantinople the second. The pentarchy is itself an ecclesiology of primacy within conciliarity: a structured order of honor among equal patriarchal thrones, deciding the affairs of the whole Church in council. It expresses the Orthodox conviction that the Church is governed collegially, by the consensus of its bishops in synod, with a primate who presides but does not rule alone — the pattern the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem already displays (Acts 15; see Cornelius and the Gentiles).

The Two Readings of Primacy

The Roman Catholic reading (stated in its strongest form, and dated): Christ conferred on Peter personally a primacy of supreme and universal jurisdiction over the whole Church (Matt 16:18–19; Luke 22:32; John 21:15–17); this Petrine office did not die with Peter but is permanent and is held by the bishops of Rome as Peter’s successors, by divine institution. The Roman primacy is therefore not merely a primacy of honor but of jurisdiction: the pope is the supreme pastor and teacher of the universal Church. This was articulated by St. Leo the Great (Sermons 3–5; Letters; see St. Leo the Great), pressed through the medieval period, and defined dogmatically at the First Vatican Council (1870, Pastor Aeternus), which declared the Roman pontiff’s “ordinary and immediate” jurisdiction over the whole Church and (under defined conditions) his infallibility to be revealed dogmas (Pastor Aeternus, chs. 3–4; Denzinger §§3050–3075).

The Orthodox reading (stated in its strongest form, and sourced): Rome held a primacy of honor as the first see — primus inter pares, first among equal bishops — grounded by the councils themselves in its status as the ancient imperial capital and in the apostolic dignity of its founders Peter and Paul (Nicaea, Canon 6; Constantinople, Canon 3; Chalcedon, Canon 28). This primacy carries real prerogatives of presidency, of being named first, of receiving appeals and convening — but never a jurisdiction over the other churches, whose bishops are equal sharers in the one episcopate and the one apostolic authority (the keys given to all, Matt 18:18; John 20:23; see The Rock and the Keys). The Church is governed conciliarly; no see and no bishop is “bishop of bishops” (St. Cyprian, at the Council of Carthage of 256). Peter’s own primacy was a primacy of confession, witness, and initiative exercised within the apostolic college, not a transmissible office of monarchy. This reading is set out by the Orthodox theologians of The Primacy of Peter in the Orthodox Church (Afanasiev, Schmemann, Meyendorff, et al., 1992) and was the ground of St. Photios’s and St. Mark of Ephesus’s resistance to the Roman claims (see St. Photios the Great; St. Mark of Ephesus).

Where the Difference Lies

The two traditions are not divided over whether Peter was great, or whether Rome was first, or even whether the universal Church needs a primate. They are divided over the nature of that primacy: whether it is a presidency of honor within a communion of equal and conciliar churches, or a supremacy of jurisdiction by divine right. The Orthodox affirm the first and confess that the developed claim to the second — defined at Vatican I but rooted in the long Roman reading of Matt 16 and of Peter at Rome — is an over-reading of the apostle’s place, unsupported by the conciliar canons that ground Roman primacy in imperial dignity rather than in Peter. The contemporary inter-Orthodox and ecumenical discussion of how primacy and conciliarity rightly relate (e.g. the Ravenna Document of 2007 between Orthodox and Roman Catholic theologians, and the ongoing intra-Orthodox debate over the prerogatives of Constantinople) continues to work within exactly this distinction (on which see Autocephaly and Territory and Orthodox vs Catholic).

References

The Holy Bible — Matthew 16:18–19; 18:18; Luke 22:32; John 20:23; 21:15–17; Acts 15. Cited by book chapter:verse.
The Canons of the Holy Ecumenical Councils — Nicaea I (325), Canon 6; Constantinople I (381), Canon 3; Chalcedon (451), Canon 28. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 14.
Leo the Great. Letters 104–106 (on Canon 28); Sermons 3–5. Trans. NPNF II/12. (The Roman rejection of Canon 28; the Petrine theology of the see.)
Cyprian of Carthage. Opening statement, Council of Carthage (256), in ANF Vol. 5. (“No one of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops.”)
First Vatican Council (1870), Pastor Aeternus. In Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum §§3050–3075. (The dogmatic definition of papal jurisdiction and infallibility.)
Afanasiev, Nicholas, Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, et al. The Primacy of Peter in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992.
Ravenna Document (Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, 2007). (Primacy and conciliarity.)