Papal primacy: Land mine on the path to Catholic-Orthodox unity?

Published: 2004-10-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A Catholic theologian described papal primacy as a land mine on the path to Catholic-Orthodox unity, while an Orthodox theologian described it as "an object of controversy and polemics." Yet, at the invitation of Pope John Paul II, Catholic and Orthodox scholars -- officially representing their churches -- rolled up their sleeves and started to tackle the historically explosive question of the Petrine ministry and how it is exercised in the modern church. Generally, ecumenical dialogues proceed by stages, finding agreement on small differences and building on one agreement to resolve more complicated divergences. However, Metropolitan John of Pergamon, a theological consultant to the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, said that in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, "All these little steps will make no progress, because we are always stumbling over this issue." Metropolitan John was one of the Orthodox scholars who made formal presentations at a 2003 Vatican-hosted symposium on the question of primacy, and he spoke in Rome in mid-October at a conference marking the publication of the symposium papers and brief summaries of the closed-door discussions.

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