The Orthodox Patristic Witness Concerning Catholicism Hardcover Edition Available 3/11/24
The following is an excerpt from Section D, Chapter 23: St. Nektarios of Aegina, Metropolitan of Pentapolis (+1920) page 447:
Primacy of the Pope is the Dogmatic Difference Which Caused the Schism451
The most important dogmatic difference [between the Orthodox and Latins] is the dogma of the primacy of the Pope. In this dogma, observes Saint Nectarios, “lies the reason for the schism, which is truly the greatest, because it overturns the spirit of the Gospel, and the most important dogmatic reason, being a denial of the principles of the Gospel. The remaining dogmatic reasons, although very important, can be regarded as secondary and as a consequence of this first reason.”
Primacy of the Pope Gave Birth to So Many Heresies452
In saying that he is the head of the Church, the Pope banished Christ from the Western Church...This excessive arrogance of the Pope, this obsession of his with supreme power gave birth to so many heresies.
The Church Has Recognized Only Herself Alone in the Totality of Her Bishops as Infallible and Sinless
“His Beatitude the Pope sinned greatly when he proclaimed himself infallible and sinless.... Infallibility abrogates Synods, takes away from them significance, importance, and authority, and proclaims them in competent, disturbing the confidence of the Faithful in them. The proclamation of the infallibility of the Pope disturbed the foundations of the Western Church; because it provided ground for suspicion about the authority of the Synods, and secondly it made her depend on the intellectual and spiritual development of a single person, the Pope...Since every Pope judges concerning what is right as it seems to him, and interprets Scripture as he wills, and lays down the law as he considers right, in what respect is he different from the multifarious dogmatists of the Protestant Church? Perhaps in that in the case of Protestants each individual constitutes a Church, while in the Western Church one individual constitutes the entire Church, not always the same individual, but ever a different one.”453
“From the convocation of the Oecumenical Synods, we are taught [writes Saint Nectarios further down] that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church has recognized no one else as sinless and infallible than Herself alone in the totality of Her Bishops. In vain, then, do those around the Pope of Rome struggle to prove that he is infallible or does not err when he makes dogmatic pronouncements ex cathedra [‘from the chair’], because the Oecumenical Synods stand protesting with stentorian voices against such an impious appropriation by the Bishop of Rome. That which the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church for nineteen entire centuries believed and professed, it is impossible for Her to annul and deny, in order to accept and profess the new dogma of the Roman Church concerning infallibility. If the Bishop of Rome were infallible when he makes dogmatic pronouncements ex cathedra, this would need to have been confessed by the Church from the first centuries; but not only is it not confessed, but it is also proven false, because the local, provincial, and Oecumenical Synods confess the complete opposite. If the Church did recognize such an attribute in the Pope, she would have confessed this through deeds, seeking from him the solution of questions that were being presented, and She would not have resorted to Synods, and indeed oecumenical ones, for the solution of dogmatic questions. The convocation of the Oecumenical Synods denies the Pope such a Divine charisma. The Oecumencial Synods not only did not concede such a prerogative to the Pope, but actually fought against such an arrangement and the attempt to lay claim to such a thing, and through canons made the great Pontiff equal to the other Bishops.”454
451. Saint Nectarios [Kefalas] of Pentapolis, Historical Studies on the Causes of the Schism, Vol. 1, 2nd edition (Athens: 2000), 69. Quoted in Constantine Cavarnos, The Question of Union: A Forthright Discussion of the Possibility of Union of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholicism, trans. Hieromonk Patapios (Etna: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2006), 18.
452. St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, Historical Studies on the Causes of the Schism, 84. Quoted in Protopresbyter Anastasios K. Gotsopoulos, On Common Prayer with the Heterodox, (Uncut Mountain Press, 2022), 15
453. St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, The Seven Oecumenical Synods [in Greek] (Athens: 1892), 22-23,27. Quoted in Constantine Cavarnos, The Question of Union: A Forthright Discussion of the Possibility of Union of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholicism, trans. Hieromonk Patapios (Etna: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2006), 21.
454. St. Nectarios [Kefalas] of Pentapolis, Historical Study Concerning the Causes of the Schism, Vol. I, 2nd edition (Athens: 2000), 94. Quoted in Constantine Cavarnos, The Question of Union: A Forthright Discussion of the Possibility of Union of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholicism, trans. Hieromonk Patapios (Etna: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2006), 22.
