Papal primacy

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Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview Primacy of Peter & Papal primacy Papal supremacy Papal infallibility First Vatican Council § Papal infallibility
Patriarchs compared to popes Papal primacy Episcopal see § Catholic Church Apiarius of Sicca § Appeal to the bishop of Rome Pentarchy § After the East–West Schism Pope John XIX § Life Gregory II Youssef § First Vatican Council Ravenna Document Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
Ecumenical councils compared to popes Conciliarity Conciliarism § Modern conciliarism Ecumenical council § Acceptance of the councils To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation § The Third Wall: Authority to Call a Council Ultrajectines
Catholic episcopal councils compared to popes Febronianism Christus Dominus § Controversy The Ratzinger Report
Political rulers compared to popes Gallicanism Patronato real Josephinism Febronianism Cisalpinism Appointment of Catholic bishops § Centralization of papal power Concordat § List Papal deposing power
Existing dogma compared to popes Development of doctrine Cum ex apostolatus officio Pascendi Dominici gregis
Objections and controversy Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church § Papal authority Ignaz von Döllinger § Papal authority Ultramontanism § Position of other apostolic churches Papal infallibility § Objections Old Catholic Church § First Vatican Council, Old Catholic Union of Utrecht Sedevacantism Josip Juraj Strossmayer § Catholic diplomacy
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Papal primacy, also known as the primacy of the bishop of Rome, is an ecclesiological doctrine in the Catholic Church concerning the respect and authority that is due to the pope from other bishops and their episcopal sees. While the doctrine is accepted at a fundamental level by both the Catholic Church (Eastern and Western) and the Eastern Orthodox Church, the two disagree on the nature of primacy.

English academic and Catholic priest Aidan Nichols wrote that "at root, only one issue of substance divides the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, and that is the issue of the primacy."^[1] French Eastern Orthodox researcher Jean-Claude Larchet wrote that, together with the Filioque controversy, differences in interpretation of this doctrine have been and remain the primary causes of schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.^[2] In the Eastern Orthodox churches, some understand the primacy of the bishop of Rome to be merely one of greater honour, regarding him as primus inter pares ("first among equals"), without effective power over other churches.^[3] A prominent 20th century Eastern Orthodox Christian theologian, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, envisioned a primacy that sums up rather than rules over: "Primacy is power, but as power it is not different from the power of a bishop in each church. It is not a higher power but indeed the same power, only expressed, manifested, and realized by one." ^[4]

The Catholic Church attributes to the primacy of the pope "full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered,"^[5] a power that it attributes also to the entire body of the bishops united with the pope.^[6] The power that it attributes to the pope's primatial authority has limitations that are official, legal, dogmatic, and practical.^[7]

In the Ravenna Document, issued in 2007, representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church jointly stated that both accept the bishop of Rome's primacy at the universal level, but that differences of understanding exist about how the primacy is to be exercised and about its scriptural and theological foundations.^[8]