On October 21, 1997, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, not generally known for being radically anti-Western, sought to explain the nature of the rupture between East and West. After forty years of official participation in the ecumenical movement by the Roman Catholic Church, early hopes about a swift restoration of communion had generally been tempered, and questions had arisen about what conditions undergirded the apparent lack of progress. The Ecumenical Patriarch denied that the problem was merely one of “organizational structures” or “jurisdictional arrangements.” The question, that is, was not simply a superficial question about the particular powers that the bishop of Rome would have vis-à-vis the Christian East. These questions, the Patriarch suggested, were indicative of something deeper: in a millennium of separation, “the manner in which we exist has become ontologically different.” In order to have any potential for lasting success, a restoration of communion demanded a “transfiguration and transformation towards one common model of life.”[1] It will be argued that such a common model of life can be found in the recognition of the absolute mutual complementary of primacy and collegiality as well as the authentically petrine and jurisdictional character of the Roman universal primacy. Nevertheless, given the catholic character of apostolic tradition, it will be seen that the specific manner in which this primacy is defined by the First Vatican Council is incompatible with any legitimate reintegration of Christian life.



In order to demonstrate these theses, I will attempt to isolate which aspects of current Roman Catholic teaching on the papacy constitute actual barriers to the restoration of communion. Then, I will examine the historical evidence in order to lay the foundation for an alternative conception of primacy in the Church, focusing especially on the evidence of ecumenical councils acknowledged as common authorities by Orthodox and Catholics alike. In order to do this successfully, one must first understand the nature of the tradition to which all apostolic Christians[2] profess allegiance. In understanding the nature of tradition more deeply, one can probe particular dogmatic claims and assess their relationship to that tradition.

In order to understand the way in which papal primacy operates in a contemporary context, it is important to distinguish between the primacy as it is manifested prudentially and the primacy as it is understood dogmatically. The conflation of these two modes of understanding can create ambiguity about the actual conditions for unity and impede the path towards clear and productive dialogue. In his famous Ut Unum Sint, Pope John Paul II invited Christian theologians of other traditions “to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on [the exercise of the primacy]”[3] while acknowledging that certain actions of the popes in the past had contributed to the rupture. As important as this call genuinely is, its significance can be overstated. In the process of arguing that there really are no significant theological reasons for the ongoing separation, David Bentley Hart interpreted the pope’s words as opening up the question of the “pope’s ecclesial jurisdiction.”[4] While this is true after a manner of speaking, it seems to me that the really significant question concerns the question of whether it is possible, within the constraints of current Catholic dogma, to place a concrete limit on papal jurisdiction or whether such limitations are solely self imposed. The Catholic doctrine of papal primacy is articulated with great specificity in Vatican I’s Pastor Aeturnus and Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium.[5]. The ongoing doctrinal relevance of these statements and their continuing standing as infallible statements having the authority of the extraordinary magisterium are illustrated in the lukewarm response of the Roman Church to the so-called Zoghby Initiative, a proposal for Eastern Catholics to restore communion with the Orthodox while retaining communion with Rome.

Of particular significance is the profession of “all that Eastern Orthodoxy teaches” and “limits” upon the Bishop of Rome’s primatial ministry set by the “Holy Fathers of the East” before the separation. A formal papal response to this proposal came in an official document issued by the Congregation for the Eastern Churches authored principally by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Citing the aforementioned statement of John Paul II, Ratzinger referred to alterations in the exercise of the petrine office as an issue “distinct from that of doctrine” and describing complete identity of faith between Orthodox and Catholics as “not possible” because the “doctrine relating to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff has been the subject of some development within the elaboration of the Church’s faith through the ages, and…must thus be upheld in its entirety from its origins all the way to the present day”, again making reference to the dogmatic statements of Vatican I and II.[6]

Pastor Aeturnus defines the character of papal primacy both in terms of its basis and in terms of its extent. The basis of papal jurisdiction is defined exclusively with reference to its petrine character. The Council thus states that “the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to Blessed Peter”[7] and anathematizes any person who states that this jurisdiction “is not ordinary and immediate, both over each and all the Churches and over each and all the Pastors and the faithful…”[8] This definition is reiterated in the Second Vatican Council, where the papal “power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact.” Most importantly, while the pope is “always free to exercise this power”, the collegial power of jurisdiction cannot be exercised “without [their] head.”[9] More important than the universal character of papal jurisdiction- a power which is subject to different interpretations- is the ordinary and immediate character attributed to papal jurisdiction. In stating that the power of jurisdiction is “over each and all the Pastors and the faithful”, the Council precisely specifies its immediate relation to each particular Christian. That is, in principle, a pope can decide, with absolute finality, the ecclesial status of any person within his communion- needing the cooperation or consent neither of their local bishop or synod. Moreover, these particular prerogatives are intrinsic to the office whose existence is derived from the pope’s manner of succession from the apostle Peter. That is, the pope’s being the successor of Peter is both necessary and sufficient[10] for his having ordinary, immediate, and universal jurisdiction over all Christians.

These statements present themselves as reiterations of the content of tradition and should be evaluated by that criterion. While the development of Christian doctrine is certainly a reality, one must make the crucial distinction between development on the one hand and evolution on the other. In Pascendi Dominici, for example, Pope Pius X condemns the idea that dogma evolves while leaving open the possibility of doctrinal development. A doctrine can be said to develop where the truths professed explicitly in later formulations are logically implied by earlier formulations. Because of this, one cannot say that a doctrine has developed from earlier formulations where the earlier confessions explicitly contradict the later ones. An idea cannot be implicit where it is denied explicitly.

According to Pastor Aeturnus, its definition of papal primacy has been “ever been understood by the Catholic Church…”[11] More specifically, its definitions are described as having emerged from the confirmation of the “perpetual practice of the Church…and Ecumenical Councils…especially those in which the East with the West met in the union of faith and charity.”[12] The citation of the evidence of the East is key, as it roots the legitimacy of this vision of papal primacy in its universal, catholic character. Such an idea is also echoed in Leo XIII’s encyclical Satis Cognitum, where the origin of the doctrine of the primacy is described in words echoing the Vincentian canon: the profession “not by one nation only nor in one age, but by the East and by the West, and through all ages.”[13] The pressing question for the modern ecumenist, therefore, is the degree to which these doctrines, specifically defined, pass the bar set by St. Vincent himself. The authentic Catholic is to “to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.”[14] Where such exists, one must “prefer the decrees…of an ancient General Council…” If such a decree does not exist, one must “collate and consult and interrogate the opinions of the ancients, of those, namely, who, though living in various times and places…stand forth acknowledged and approved authorities.”[15]

Before examining Roman Catholic teaching on primacy in light of these criteria, it is important to first qualify that there are certain contemporary Orthodox statements on primacy which fail catastrophically to meet these qualifications. These are often, though not always, found in an apologetic context. When the “Orthodox position” is compared with the above teaching, it is natural for the historically informed inquirer to reject the Orthodox claim to bear this living tradition out of hand. For example, Clark Carlton entirely denies a “primacy of jurisdiction” to the Church of Rome,[16] interpreting the phrase “primacy of honor” as signifying a mere ceremonial primacy. Similarly, Orthodox apologist Michael Whelton states that “the Orthodox Church has always maintained…that the Early Church saw no theological basis in Matthew 16:18-19 to support the claims of Rome…”[17] Such claims are absurdly easy to refute, and Carlton’s statement that by the mid-fifth century the Church of Rome was articulating a doctrine of the Church fundamentally at odds with orthodox Christian teaching[18] makes disingenuous any claim of the Orthodox Church to represent the catholic tradition of the Holy Fathers of East and West. Unfortunately, claims like this are not limited to popular apologetic work. In its formal response to the Ravenna Document on primacy, the Moscow Patriarchate asserted that “has never been a single administrative center on the universal level” and that any universal primacy that did exist “is instituted not by God but men.”[19] Even read charitably, such statements are profoundly selective and cannot be seriously set forth as a basis for full communion.

If one is to find a more serious proposal for what a reintegrated Church would look like from an Orthodox perspective, one must turn to the time when such a reintegration was attempted with real seriousness. While there were two attempted reunion Councils between East and West, the Second Council of Lyons lacked participation from major Orthodox centers and was essentially a formalization of the emperor’s personal confession of faith.[20] A more serious attempt was made two centuries later, at the Council of Florence. While the formulae of union themselves were ultimately rejected, St. Mark of Ephesus, since canonized as one of the three “Pillars of Orthodoxy” might be considered something of a canonical articulation of a vision for genuine unity with the West. Mark’s contribution to a theology of primacy is especially pertinent because of the intra-Western disputes about ecclesiology that were transpiring at the time of the Council. Surprisingly given certain historical constructions of St. Mark, he criticized the Latin conciliarists because of their “denial [of] the essential role of the pope in the function and approval of acts and decrees of an ecumenical council.”[21] Nevertheless, Mark limited papal authority by holding that he, like the other patriarchs, was bound by the decrees of such councils, without having the exclusive prerogative to reinterpret their teaching. Because of this, Christiaan Kappes refers to Mark’s theology of primacy as a “mitigated papalism” avoiding the extremes of both ultramontanism which placed no limits on papal power and conciliarism which had no need for it.[22]

Mark is not the only medieval Byzantine theologian to speak of the papal office in such ways. In the decades leading up to the Council of Florence, for example, Symeon of Thessaloniki criticized certain polemics which had dismissed any kind of papal prerogative, writing that “when the Latins say that the bishop of Rome is first, there is no need to contradict them…[if] he has the same faith as Peter and his successors…then he will be the first, the chief and head of all, the supreme high priest.”[23] Even as there were other, lower views of papal power in medieval Byzantium, passages like these demonstrate that profession of a real headship among the Churches based, in part, on succession from Peter was not held to be incompatible with Orthodox faith and was hardly the exclusive belief of the Latinophrone party. Consequently, demonstrating the catholic character of some kind of papal primacy and petrine ministry is not sufficient to demonstrate the apostolicity of the specific form of that primacy dogmatically affirmed by Rome today.

Indeed, a number of factors suggest that the eleventh century marked a turning point not only for relations between East and West, but also for the actual theological development of the idea of papal primacy in the West itself. It is in the eleventh century that the word papatus was coined, suggesting a qualitative order of ministry, even if not a sacramental one, superseding the order of episcopatus.[24] Siecenski likewise describes how “titles that had been shunned by earlier popes…were now embraced with full vigor.”[25] Likewise, it was at this point that the traditional practice of circulating among the churches a profession of faith upon the accession of a new pope was abandoned, despite Patriarch Peter III’s request to the pope that he restore such communication.[26] The concrete changes that were transpiring in the Roman self-conception of her jurisdictional powers reflected a more basic shift in the papal conception of the Church’s ontology. Along these lines, Klaus Schatz describes the “new interpretation of primacy of [sic] the eleventh century” as “not primarily juridical in nature, but more spiritual or even mystical.”[27] The essence of the new doctrine is encapsulated in the phrase “mother of the churches.” At this point in time, the essence of the Church qua Church was understood to actually flow through the bishop of Rome from Christ. Such a conception makes intelligible the coinage of the word papatus. In the patristic era, the primacy of the bishop of Rome was generally understood to arise within the subsistence of the communion of local Churches. Roland Minnerath writes concerning the actions of Basil and John Chrysostom that they “sought the help of Rome in order to activate the communion between Eastern and Western bishops…[because] communion with Rome was the sign of effective communion with all the Catholic bishops.”[28] In the developing view of the Gregorian reform, the church was a body whose life was mediated by the bishop of Rome personally.

The range of possible Orthodox views, given the evidence of medieval theology, thus appears to be more broad than the range of possible Roman Catholic views, given the specificity of formal magisterial teaching on the subject. Applying Vincent’s counsel to consult first the decrees of Ecumenical Councils, one immediately finds that certain extreme statements on Roman primacy by Orthodox writers and even official church bodies are ruled out. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, for example, Pope Hadrian I is addressed as the “Most Holy Head” who possesses the “dignity of the chief priesthood.” The Pope of Rome is the “veritable chief priest” who presides “in the see of the holy and superlaudable Apostle Peter.” Also of interest in this context is the statement of the Council that the “will of the Lord will be accomplished” when the Pope is conjoined with those who are “assembled here” because of Christ’s statement that He is present where “two or three are gathered in my Name.”[29] Similarly, at the Council of Chalcedon, Pope Leo is spoken of as the “Archbishop of all the Churches.”[30] The deposition of Dioscorus of Alexandria is carried out in the name of “the archbishop of the great and elder Rome… and through this present most holy synod together with the thrice blessed and all-glorious Peter the Apostle, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church.”[31] It is of special note that the specific invocation of the Apostle Peter does not simply follow the name of Pope Leo, but follows the invocation of papal authority conjoined with conciliar authority, suggesting something like the “mitigated papalism” of Mark of Ephesus, where the authority of the Church Catholic exists in the mutually complementary offices of pope and college.

Of special interest is also the reference to the bishop of Rome as the “archbishop of all the churches.” The pertinent question for the inquirer, upon reading such a title, concerns the kind of authority which was possessed by an archbishop. While varying jurisdictional arrangements with varying degrees of primatial power have been present in different times and regions, the intrinsic character of primacy is defined in Apostolic Canon 34: “The bishops of every nation must acknowledge him who is first among them and account him as their head, and do nothing of consequence without his consent… But neither let him who is the first do anything without the consent of all; for so there will be unanimity, and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit.”[32] To speak of the Pope of Rome as the archbishop of all the churches cannot, then, be equated without consideration to his having ordinary and immediate jurisdiction over all the Churches. Indeed, the context of the Council, given the critical analysis of St. Leo’s Tome by the Council Fathers[33], suggests something more like that described in the Apostolic Canons, where primatial and collegial authority are both necessary for the Council’s being what it is. The most significant example in distinguishing between the defined Roman Catholic view and the “moderate papalism” of Mark and Symeon can be found in the Fifth Ecumenical Council, where the Council Fathers specifically invoked the necessity of collegial action to rebuke Pope Vigilius, declaring the need to follow “the great examples left us by the Apostles” who did not make a formal ruling “until…gathered together…nor is there any other way in which the truth can be manifest…since each one needs the help of his neighbor [and] in Ecclesiastes [Solomon] says ‘two are better than one…'”[34] Given the criterion of fidelity to General Councils cited in the documents of Vatican I themselves, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how the principle of even possible (even if not prudentially wise) papal unilateralism can be warranted from tradition.

That the apostolic authority of Peter is invoked in the conjunction of primacy and collegiality points a way towards integrating the well-known tradition of Peter’s association with the local bishop with the universal primacy of the Roman See. The Apostle Peter is associated with the episcopate most famously in Cyprian’s On the Unity of the Church, but also in Dionysius the Areopagite and by Gregory of Nyssa, who stated that “through Peter [Christ] gave to the bishops the keys of the heavenly honors.”[35] Indeed, Cyprian himself, while clearly expounding the relationship of the episcopal college to the Apostle Peter, once uses the phrase “Chair of Peter” to refer to the episcopal chair at the Church of Rome in particular.[36]

The above evidence suggests that the Petrine texts ought to be taken in reference to the episcopal college as a whole, with specific prerogatives within that episcopal college belonging to the bishop of Rome as the head of the church who presides in love. Such a model accounts does not simply place one interpretation alongside the other, but integrates the two so that they imply one another. In that the Church is the Body of Christ who is the incarnate Son of the Eternal Father through the Holy Spirit, the Church necessarily reflects the interplay of unity and diversity within the life of the triune God. As John Zizioulas writes, “The Church cannot but be a unity of the one and the many at the same time.” The Father is the one and only source of the triune God, but is that source only as the Father and thus cannot be who He is without the Son to whom He is bound in love by the Holy Spirit.[37] In Zizioulas’ words “there is simultaneity between the one and the many, similar to that found in the very being of God as Trinity…”[38] The trinitarian basis for the simultaneous birth of primatial and conciliar qualities is confirmed by the the concluding invocation of “God”, the “Lord”, and the “Spirit” in Apostolic Canon 34, the New Testament signifiers for the triune personhood of God. The link between the trinitarian and petrine character of episcopal collegiality and primacy may also be found in the first of the Apostolic Canons, requiring that each bishop be consecrated by “two or three” other bishops.[39]

This triadic character to the episcopate, intriguingly, was manifested in a number of Roman sources through the triple Petrine primacy belonging not only to the Church of Rome, but also to the Churches of Alexandria and Antioch. The Decretum Gelasianum, for example, orders the three primatial churches as Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, linking each of them to the apostolic mission of Peter and distinguishing Rome from the other two not through its particular relationship to the Apostle Peter but instead through its relationship to Paul, who is said to have “equally” made Rome “special in Christ the Lord.”[40] Likewise, writing to Eulogius of Alexandria, Pope Gregory the Great wrote, regarding the “principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places is the See of one.”[41] Indeed, it was only after establishing itself as the sole Petrine See of theological weight that the Papacy finally acceded to the fivefold primatial ordering of the Church.[42]

The pursuit of “ecumenism in time” is essential if there is to be a true restoration of communion between East and West. The theological vision of primacy patterned therein, particularly in the Ecumenical Councils, suggests that petrine authority is received by the episcopal college as a whole immediately from Christ, with a primacy of “mediate” or “extraordinary” jurisdiction being intrinsic to it, concentrated particularly on the Apostolic See of Rome. The interlocking necessity of collegial and primatial power emerges from the nature of the Trinity whose unity and diversity are equally ultimate, contextualizing and reinforcing each other rather than being a compromise where two opposites meet halfway. Any “common model of life” for the churches will have to look something like this. Such a model, however, cannot honestly accommodate the theological definitions of the First and Second Vatican Councils. Such barriers reveal the necessity of miracles for any ecumenical success, thus constantly redirecting us to the real purpose and source of ecumenical dialogue- more perfect embodiment of the one who finally answered the question: “Son of Adam, can these bones live?” (Ezk. 37:3)

[1] Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew "Phos Hilarion” Joyful Light, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., October 21, 1997).

[2] i.e. not Protestants.

[3] Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint 95.

[4] David Bentley Hart, “The Myth of Schism,” Ecumenism Today: The Universal Church in the 21st Century. Edited by Francesca Aran Murphy, Christopher Asprey (Ashgate, 2008).

[5] Both of which are, after all, cited in Ut Unum Sint.

[6] Joseph Ratzinger, Achille Silvestrini, Edward Cassidy, Congregation for the Eastern Churches Prot. No. 251/75, June 11, 1997. It is notable how this contradicts Ratzinger’s earlier statements that Rome must not require from the East more “than had been formulated and lived in the first millennium.” See A. Edward Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 397.

[7] First Vatican Council Session IV, Pastor Aeturnus, Chapter I, 1870.

[8] Pastor Aeturnus, Chapter 3.

[9] All citations from Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium 22, November 21, 1964.

[10] The sufficiency of the petrine character of the Apostolic See for papal power seems to me more important than generally recognized- it entails, for example, that other factors often cited in the first millennium actually had nothing to do with the source of papal power- since the pope would retain exactly the powers he had even lacking these other elements.

[11] First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeturnus, Chapter I.

[12] First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeturnus, Chapter IV.

[13] Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, Chapter XIII, June 29, 1896.

[14] Vincent of Lerins, Commonitorium, 3.7

[15] Vincent, 3.8. Sometimes, the complexity and apparent subjectivity of this process is cited as a reason to prefer the contemporary Catholic idea of a living Magisterium with the capacity to provide definitions whose dogmatic character is known from the canonical criteria which they fulfill independent of one’s views of the doctrine defined therein. The problem with this argument is twofold. First, the question facing a contemporary inquirer is not what sort of Church one would establish if one were Christ- it concerns the sort of Church our Lord actually established. Second, the canonical criteria which are said to distinguish an infallible teaching from a non-infallible teaching are themselves not infallibly defined in a way which is not circular. Thus, arguments about the alleged epistemological ease of the Roman Catholic system (in addition to presuming such ease to be an objective good- see Prov. 25:2) are useless for distinguishing apostolic tradition from pretenders.

[16] Clark Carlton, The Truth: What Every Roman Catholic Should Know about the Orthodox Church (Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox Press, 1999), 118.

[17] Michael Whelton, Two Paths: Papal Monarchy, Collegial Tradition: Romes Claims of Papal Supremacy in the Light of Orthodox Christian Teaching (Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox Press, 1998), 27. Emphasis mine.

[18] Carlton, 118.

[19] Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Problem of Primacy in the Universal Church, December 26, 2013. Emphasis mine.

[20] Aristeides Papadakis and John Meyendorff, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church, 1071-1453 A.D. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1994), 221-222.

[21] Christiaan Kappes, “A Latin Defense of Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara Florence (1438-39)," Greek Orthodox Theological Review 59 (2014): 184.

[22] Kappes, 184-189.

[23] Symeon of Thessaloniki, Dialogue in Christ, 120.

[24] Andrew Louth, Greek East and Latin West: The Church, AD 681-1071 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2007), 298.

[25] Siecenski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 244.

[26] Siecenski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 247. It is also notable that Peter III referred to the Pope of Rome as the “great Successor of St. Peter”, again demonstrating the falsity of the idea that the East never countenanced any kind of petrine office in the bishops of Rome.

[27] Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 85.

[28] Roland Minnerath, "The Petrine Ministry in the Early Patristic Tradition,” in How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church?, ed. James F. Puglisi (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2010).

[29] Acts of the Second Council of Nicea, Session I.

[30] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Session IV.

[31] Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Session III.

[32] Apostolic Canon 34.

[33] On the historical role of Leo’s Tome to the definitions of the Council, see John A. McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy: Its History, Theology, and Texts (St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 2006).

[34] Acts of the Second Council of Constantinople, VII.

[35] As cited in John Meyendorff, The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992), 72.

[36] Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 54.

[37] As discussed in St. Gregory Palamas, 150 Chapters, 36-37.

[38] John Zizioulas, The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today (Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2010), Kindle Location 5485- pagination not available.

[39] Apostolic Canons, 1. Normally, the rule was three.

[40] Decretum Gelasianum, III.1-3.

[41] Gregory the Great, Epistles, VII.40. It seems to me that something like this will probably be necessary if full communion with the Coptic Church is ever to be restored.

[42] Acts of the Fourth Council of the Lateran, V.

Bibliography of Secondary Sources

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Address of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew “Phos Hilarion” Joyful Light, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., October 21, 1997.

Carlton, Clark. The Truth: What Every Roman Catholic Should Know about the Orthodox Church. Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox Press, 1999.

Kappes, Christiaan. “A Latin Defense of Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara Florence (1438-39).” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 59 (2014).

Louth, Andrew. Greek East and Latin West: The Church, AD 681-1071. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007.

McGuckin, John A. St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy, Its History, Theology, and Texts. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2006.

Meyendorff, John. The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1992.

Papadakis, Aristeides, and John Meyendorff. The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church, 1071-1453 A.D.Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1994.

“The Petrine Ministry in the Early Patristic Tradition.” Edited by Roland Minnerath. In How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church?, edited by James F. Puglisi, 34-48. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 2010.

Schatz, Klaus. Papal Primacy: From Its Origins to the Present. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996.

Siecienski, A. Edward. The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Whelton, Michael. Two Paths: Papal Monarchy, Collegial Tradition: Romes Claims of Papal Supremacy in the Light of Orthodox Christian Teaching. Salisbury, MA: Regina Orthodox Press, 1998.

Zizioulas, John. The One and the Many: Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today. Alhambra: Sebastian Press, 2010.