East–West Schism
Governance

The Byzantine Empire was a theocracy; the emperor was the supreme authority in both church and state. "The king is not God among men but the Viceroy of God. He is not the logos incarnate but is in a special relation with the logos. He has been specially appointed and is continually inspired by God, the friend of God, the interpreter of the Word of God. His eyes look upward, to receive the messages of God. He must be surrounded with the reverence and glory that befits God's earthly copy; and he will 'frame his earthly government according to the pattern of the divine original, finding strength in its conformity with the monarchy of God'".

In the East, endorsement of Caesaropapism, the subordination of the church to the religious claims of the dominant political order, was most fully evident in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the first millennium, while in the West, where the decline of imperial authority left the Church relatively independent, there was the growth of the power of the papacy. As a result of the Muslim conquests of the territories of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, only two rival powerful centres of ecclesiastical authority, Constantinople and Rome, remained. Until this happened, Rome often tried to act as a neutral mediator in disputes among the Eastern Patriarchies.

In Eastern Christendom, the teaching of papal supremacy is said to be based on the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, documents attributed to early popes but actually forged, probably in the second quarter of the 9th century, with the aim of defending the position of bishops against metropolitans and secular authorities. The Orthodox East contests the teaching that Peter was the Patriarch of Rome, a title that the West too does not give him. Early sources such as St. Irenaeus can be interpreted as describing Pope Linus as the first bishop of Rome and Pope Cletus the second.

The Oxford Dictionary of Popes states: "In the late 2nd or early 3rd cent. the tradition identified Peter as the first bishop of Rome. This was a natural development once the monarchical episcopate, i.e. the government of the local church by a single bishop, as distinct from a group of presbyter-bishops, finally emerged in Rome in the mid-2nd cent. The earlier tradition, however, which placed Peter and Paul in a class apart as the pioneers who together established the Roman church and its ministry, was never lost sight of."

St. Peter was according to tradition bishop of Antioch at one point, and was then succeeded by Evodius and Ignatius. The Eastern Orthodox do not hold the primacy of the Pope of Rome over the Eastern church; they teach that the Pope of Rome is the first among equals. The first seven Ecumenical Councils were held in the East and called by the Eastern Emperors; Roman pontiffs never presided over any of them.
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