After the destruction of Jerusalem in 78 A.D., the church of Jerusalem temporarily ceased to exist, and it was the Roman Church and the authority of its bishop that slowly came to the fore. Basing his stand on the central position of Rome as the Imperial city, and the Roman cathedra’s provenance from the leading apostles, the bishop of Rome began already in the 3rd century to talk of his dominant position in the Church, which was rejected by the bishops of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire.

We have already spoken of the ecclesiastical/administrative elevation of a series of cities and provinces in the far-ranging Roman Empire beginning with the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Thus, Irineus of Lyon was the acknowledged head of all Gaul, Cyprian of Carthage looked upon the bishops of Mauritania and Numidia as his subordinates, the bishop of Alexandria ruled over the churches of Egypt, the bishop of Ephesus ruled over the churches of Asia Minor, while the church of Rome dominated the Roman province. Afterwards the Ecumenical Councils decreed several churches to be dominant by virtue of their ecclesiastical and civil positions. However, this did not violate their equality, and all issues related to the entire Church were resolved by the entire Church – by its Ecumenical Councils.

The 34th apostolic rule states: “The bishops of all nations should recognize the first one among them and acknowledge him as their head, and not do anything that exceeds their power without his permission: each one should occupy himself only with what concerns his diocese and its environs. However, the chief bishop should likewise do nothing without the concurrence of all the others. In this manner there will be full consensus, to the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This rule clearly promotes the principle of conciliarity.

In general, the apostolic rule and the rules of the early councils did not allow for any despotism in the leading bishop, or even more so – any absolutism within the Church. The supreme body for resolving religious/canonical issues had always been the council of bishops – either local or, if the need arose, – ecumenical.

Nevertheless, political circumstances conspired to aid the continued growth of the Roman bishop’s power. This was due to the invasion of the barbarians at the end of the 4th century and the migration of the European peoples. Waves of barbarians swept across the ancient Roman provinces, sweeping away all traces of Christianity. Amid the newly-formed nations Rome stood out as the carrier of apostolic faith and tradition. The growth of the Roman bishop’s authority was also promoted by religious unrest in the Byzantine Empire in the 4th – 8th centuries, when the bishops of Rome stood out as the defenders of Orthodoxy. Thus the Roman bishops gradually became convinced that they were being called upon to administer the life of the entire Christian world. Another push towards strengthening the despotic pretensions of the Roman bishops was the decree issued in the 4th century by Emperor Gratian, acknowledging the Pope as “the judge of all bishops.” (The Pope, meaning “father,” was the title used by both the bishops of Rome and Alexandria.) Already in the 5th century Pope Innocent declared that “no decisions should be made without consulting the Roman cathedra and, especially in matters of faith, all bishops should apply to Apostle Peter,” i.e. the bishop of Rome. In the 7th century Pope Agathon demanded that all decrees of the Roman Church be accepted by the entire Church as rules established by Apostle Peter. In the 8th century Pope Stephen wrote: “I – the Apostle Peter, summoned by Christ, Son of the living God, and by the will of His Divine charity, have been set up by His power to be the enlightener of the entire world.”

Initially these ever-growing pretensions of the Pope were not regarded by the eastern bishops seriously and did not divide the Church. All were united by faith, the sacraments, and an awareness of belonging to the one apostolic Church. However, to the misfortune of the Christian world, this unity was destroyed by the bishops of Rome in the 11th and subsequent centuries through distortions and innovations introduced into the teaching of the faith (dogmas) and the canons (church laws). The estrangement of the Roman Church became deeper with the introduction of new dogmas, first about the Holy Spirit issuing …”and from the Son,” with the inclusion of these words in the Creed, and subsequently about the immaculate conception of the Holy Virgin Mary, about purgatory and indulgences, about the Pope being the vicar of Christ and the head of the entire Church and all nations, and about the infallibility of the Roman Pope in matters of faith. In other words, the very teaching of the nature of the Church was being corrupted. In trying to justify the Roman bishop’s primacy, Catholic theologians refer to the Saviour’s words, said to Apostle Peter: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church (Matt. 16:18). The holy Church Fathers always under-stood these words to mean that the Church is founded upon the faith in Christ which Apostle Peter confessed, and not on Him personally. The apostles did not look upon Apostle Peter as their head, and the apostolic council that took place in Jerusalem in 51 A.D. was presided over by Apostle James. Concerning the succession of power going back to Apostle Peter, this apostle ordained bishops not only in Rome, but in many other cities, such as Alexandria, Antioch, etc. Why then are the bishops of those cities deprived of the plenary powers of Apostle Peter? A deeper study of this matter leads to only one honest conclusion: the teaching on the primacy of Peter has been artificially created by Roman bishops solely to satisfy their ambitions. This teaching was unknown in the early Church.

The Roman bishop’s increasing pretensions to primacy and the introduction of the teaching on the provenance of the Holy Spirit led to a division of the Church into an Eastern-Greek and a Western-Roman (or Catholic) Churches. The official date of the division is 1054, when Cardinal Humbert placed on the altar table of St. Sophia in Constantinople the papal epistle that anathematized all those who disagreed with the Roman Church.

In the religious life of Europe the 11th century was marked by the papacy’s triumph over civilian rule. Rome became the master of the world. The urge to gain worldly power and the participation in political struggles was not the work of individual Popes, but stemmed from the entire papal system. Pope Pius IX made it obligatory for every Catholic believer to acknowledge the Roman bishop as a worldly ruler. At the wave of the Pope’s hand entire nations, taking up the sword and the cross, went into battle against whomever the Pope named as his enemy. In the 13th century the Popes not only gave away royal crowns, settled disputes among princes, but with a single word incited or stopped wars, appointed or deposed kings and emperors, freed their subjects from fealty, etc.

The Popes never ceased their struggle for power, but used every chance to remind everyone about their “primacy” and “infallibility.” Thus, Pope Boniface VIII writes in his papal bull of 1302: “We also announce that the holy apostolic throne and the Roman high priest possess primacy over the entire world, and that this Roman high priest is the successor of Apostle Peter, who was the prince of the apostles, and is the vicar of Christ on earth, the head of the whole Church, the father and teacher of all Christians.” Similar words can be found in the decrees of the Vatican Council of 1870. The “Code of canon law,” published by Pope Benedict XV in 1917, states: “The Roman high priest is the successor to blessed Peter’s primacy, and not only possesses the honor of primacy, but also the highest and fullest legal power over the entire Church.” These growing pretensions of the Roman bishops gradually widened the gap between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. Beginning with the 11th century, the Orthodox Church was forced to repulse the ambitious importuning of the Roman bishops, and to guard the principle of the canonic independence of local churches that had been established by the apostles.

In their struggle for worldly power over the world, the bishops of Rome entered into contradiction against Christian teaching, since a sword in hand is not fitting for a “vicar” of the meek Jesus and deeply perverts the essence of a bishop’s service. Many representatives of the Church and of individual nations began to realize this. The 14th century witnesses the beginning of a religious and moral decline of the papacy. Its power becomes more and more worldly, with its intrigues, pomposity, and greed for material wealth. The majority of the populace began to groan under the despotic tyranny of papal legates. A German historian says: “The clergy despises the study of theology, scorns the Gospel and the writings of the Holy Fathers, keeps silent on the subjects of faith, piety and other virtues, never speaks about the Saviour and His miracles… And such people are entrusted with the highest positions in the Church, and are called pastors of souls!”

Results soon appeared. In the beginning of the 16th century Protestantism was born in Germany – a protest against the abuses of the Roman bishops, and particularly against the criminal Inquisition and the sale of indulgences (advance absolution of sins for money). During the centuries that followed, Protestantism splintered into a multitude of sects.