CHAPTER II
ROME AND THE EASTERN CHURCHES
The relation of the Eastern bishops to the West means practically their relation to the Pope at Rome. With other Western bishops they had little to do; a Latin bishop was to them just a suffragan[1] of the Roman Patriarch who, if ever he did appear at a Council, would be sure to vote with his chief.
All the more important was their relation to the Pope himself. It was not always a friendly one. During the second half of these eight centuries especially, there was plenty of friction; mistakes were made by both sides, jealousies and discontent were fostered, till they became a sort of national cause, and so prepared the disaster which came in the 9th century. Nevertheless, during this period the Eastern Churches acknowledged the Primacy of the Pope, and when at last the schism came, it was they who made the change by rejecting it, not the Latins who went on maintaining it.
A chain of texts from various writers, drawn up to prove a thesis, is never very interesting to read. Moreover, the texts I have to produce now have been quoted already a number of times. They form part of the argument for the Papacy in the first centuries, a subject about which it seems that everything on either side has already been said. Nevertheless, the question is
- ↑ Suffragan is not really the right word. Metropolitans have suffragans. There is no technical name to express the relation of a bishop to his patriarch. In any case, one should never call an auxiliary bishop a suffragan.
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