Barlaam of Calabria on the Episcopate

Barlaam of Calabria, an important Byzantine theologian of the 14th century (who, incidentally, ended his life in the [Roman] Catholic Church), writes: 'Each Orthodox bishop is the vicar of Christ and the successor of the apostles, so that if all bishops of the world were to apostasize from the true faith and only one were to remain the keeper of the correct dogmas. the faith of the divine Peter would be saved in him.' He further writes: 'The bishops ordained by Peter are the successors not only of Peter, but also of the other Apostles; to the same degree bishops ordained by others are the successors of Peter.' 

The promise given to Peter, according to this viewpoint, extends not only to the Roman Church, but also to all local Churches headed bishops: 'you have made Peter into the teacher of only Rome', an anonymous author of a Byzantine anti-Latin treatise writes, 'while the divine Fathers interpret the promise given to him by the Saviour as having a catholic meaning and concerning all believers past and present. You attempt to give it a false and narrow interpretation, applying it only to Rome. It then becomes impossible to understand how not only the Roman Church, but all Churches have a Saviour and how their foundations rest on the Stone, i.e. on the confession of Peter, according to the promise.'

How does the catholicity of a local Church relate to the catholicity of the Church throughout the world? Protopresbyter John Meyendorff defines this relationship in the following manner: 'The idea of the local Church headed by the bishop, who is usually chosen by the entire Church but is invested with the charismatic and apostolic functions as the successor of Peter, is the doctrinal foundation of catholicity as it entered the Church from the third century. For the Eucharistic ecclesiology assumes that each local Church, although possessing the fullness of catholicity, is always in unity and concord with all the other Churches, which also have part in this catholicity. The bishops not only bear moral responsibility for this community: they participate in the one episcopal ministry. Each bishop fulfils his service together with other bishops, since it is equivalent with that of the others and since the Church is one.' As St. Cyprian of Carthage writes: 'The episcopate is one, and each of the bishops fully participates in it.'

- The Orthodox Understanding of Primacy and Catholicity, by Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria

What then is the purpose of councils?

 It is true that people intoxicated by false opinions participated in the Ecumenical Councils; some of them returned to the truth, others were stubborn in their errors and as a result were finally separated from the Church. But the point is that these people, in spite of their errors, did not deny the divine principle of ecumenicity in the most fundamental dogmas of the faith. They held, or at least declared the hope of defining in clear terms, the dogma confessed by the Church, and also hoped to be worthy of the grace of testifying to the faith of their brothers. Such was the aim of the councils, such was their significance, such was the concept implied in the usual introductory formula to all their decisions: "It has pleased the Holy Spirit...." These words do not express a haughty claim, but a humble hope, justified or repudiated later by the acceptance or nonacceptance of the decisions by the whole people of the Church or, as the Eastern patriarchs put it, by the whole Body of Christ. 

There were, from time to time, heretical councils. Why were these councils rejected, when outwardly they did not differ from the Ecumenical Councils? Solely because their decisions were not acknowledged as the voice of the Church by the whole people of the Church, by that people and within that world where, in questions of faith, there is no difference between a scholar and an untutored person, between cleric and layman, between man and woman, king and subject, slaveowner and slave, and where, if in God's judgment it is needed, a youth receives the gift of knowledge, a word of infinite wisdom is given to a child, and the heresy of a learned bishop is confuted by an illiterate cowherd, so that all might be joined in that free unity of living faith which is the manifestation of the Spirit of God. Such is the dogma lying beneath the idea of the council. 

Now then, why have a council if the Western world has been deemed worthy of such a clear revelation of divine truth that it has considered itself empowered to insert its revelation into the Symbol of Faith without waiting for confirmation from the East? What might a wretched Greek or Russian helot do at a council seated alongside these chosen vessels, these representatives of people who have anointed themselves with the chrism of infallibility? A council is impossible until the Western world returns to the idea of the council and condemns its own infringement of the council principle and all the consequences stemming from this infringement. Or, to put it another way, until it returns to the original Creed and submits its opinion, by which the Creed was impaired, to the judgment of the Ecumenical Faith.

- On the Western Confessions of Faith, by Alexei Khomiakov

Eastern Patriarchs on Infallibility

The Eastern patriarchs, having assembled in council with their bishops, solemnly pronounced in their reply to the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX that "infallibility resides solely in the ecumenicity of the Church bound together by mutual love, and that the unchangeableness of dogma as well as the purity of rite are entrusted to the care not of one hierarchy but of all the people of the Church, who are the Body of Christ." Encyclical dated May 6, 1848. This formal declaration of all the Eastern clergy, which was received by the territorial Russian Church with respectful and brotherly gratitude, has acquired the moral authority of an ecumenical sanction. 

- On the Western Confessions of Faith by Alexei Khomiakov