Synodality or Supremacy? Orthodoxy and Rome

Catholic University professor C. C. Pecknold has a column out today regarding the failure of “synodality” in the modern Roman Catholic Church as practiced under Pope Francis. There is a reference there to Orthodox conciliarity: Governance within Orthodoxy is built not around the papacy but around “sister churches” gathering together for collaborative, deliberative self-governance in synodal assembly. It is important to understand…

Pope Francis: One Patriarch Among Many?

(RealClearReligion: Reading the Franciscan Tea Leaves) In his inaugural address from the loggia, he never once used the words “pope” or “pontiff” or their cognates. (There is nothing wrong with either term: pope comes from the Greek for “father” and “pontiff” in Latin means bridge-builder.) Instead he consistently referred to Rome now having a bishop again. This is extremely significant because of…

Two Chairs of Peter: Reform, Orthodoxy and the Papacy

Update: At the request of Ancient Faith Radio, this post has been recorded for your listening edification. In the anticipation preceding yesterday’s election of the new Roman pontiff, especially what with the American media’s constant chatter about reform for the Roman Catholic Church, I could not help but be reminded of a somewhat less-anticipated primatial election that is still fresh in the…

Chalcedon: The Triumph of Cyril, not Leo

Over at John Sanidopoulos’s Mystagogy website, we read the following regarding the Fourth Ecumenical Council, a quotation from the late Fr. John Romanides: Theologians of the Vatican have been supporting their position that Leo of Rome and his Tome became the basis of the decisions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of 451 which, according to them, supposedly corrected the monophysitic and theopassion…