Pope Leo XIII

The pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903) was marked by a flurry of encyclicals addressing the Christian East, which naturally received a great variety of Orthodox responses. Here on Orthodox History we have already published a response to Urbanitatis Veteris published by the official journal of the Russian Orthodox in America in 1901, and a response to Orientalium Dignitas, written by St Raphael Hawaweeny in 1898.

We now present a translation from Arabic of St Raphael’s lengthy response to Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, which he wrote in 1904, at the end of his time in Russia as a professor at the Kazan Theological Academy, shortly before he left for America.

Praeclara  (available in English here and Latin here) is something of a bizarre document. Written on the occasion of the anniversary of Leo XIII’s episcopal consecration, it is addressed “to all rulers and peoples” (ad principes populosque universos), rather than to clergy, and makes an appeal for Christian unity (understood as submission to the See of Rome) based largely on the purported social and material benefits of such a union. As St Raphael is quick to point out, this is extremely strange, given that during the period following the dissolution of the Papal States in 1870, the pope was often referred to in the Catholic press as the “prisoner of the Vatican,” a situation that would only change after Mussolini’s creation of the Vatican City-state in 1929, and many Western European countries, especially France and Italy, were successfully pursuing policies of reducing the social role of the Roman Catholic Church. It is perhaps because of, rather than in spite of, the political weakness of the papacy, that in this encyclical Pope Leo makes an especially shocking — and to the ears of many readers, including St Raphael, outrageously blasphemous — claim: “We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty” (Dei omnipotentis vices in terris geramus).

While the tone of St Raphael’s response is by and large typical of Orthodox responses to papal claims in that era, it is of note for a number of reasons. Within the polemic, there is a consistent insistence on the positive ecclesiology that is traditional within the Patriarchate of Antioch, recognizing the absolute equality and mutual responsibility of patriarchs. Additionally, despite St Raphael’s trenchant hostility to the papacy and the Roman Catholic religious orders active in Syria, he is broadly sympathetic to the Eastern Catholics of his homeland, seeing them as victims of their situation as well as a cautionary example for the Orthodox.  Perhaps of greatest interest, however, is the indications this text provides for St Raphael’s intellectual background during his time in Russia: he cites not only contemporary Russian, Greek and Arabic writings, but also Western scholarly works, including in English.

The translation below is made from a handwritten transcription of the text printed in Kazan by the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society in 1895, manuscript TA 13 at the library of the University of Notre Dame de Louaizé in Lebanon, digitized by the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library under the project number NDU 00332.

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Archimandrite Raphael Hawaweeny in Kazan, 1893

Taking a Look at Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical

There is no doubt that our age, more than any other age, is in need of uniting and consolidating the scattered powers of the Christian world so that, united under the banner of the venerable cross, Christians may be able to neutralize the enemies of the Christian faith, by which I mean the wicked unbelievers—materialists, socialists, nihilists, anarchists and those like them among members of the papist church and all the Protestant sects who have started to spread teachings and opinions not authorized by God, not basing themselves on current scientific truths, but on weak and fanciful assumptions. In this way, with these absurd teachings of theirs, they have started to confuse the consciences of simple believers, and by their outrageous actions they are disturbing the serenity of the knowledgeable, especially in the Western countries where the papist church, because of its isolation from the rest of the Eastern churches, has become unable to repel from itself the enemies of Christianity. Indeed, to the contrary, through its numerous inventions, many innovations and the broad claims of its leaders, which are contrary to the spirit of Christian doctrines and explicit apostolic traditions, it has brought upon itself hatred and loathing even from many of its own members, as well as from all non-papist Christians. The enemies of faith and religion have increased in ferocity and numbers, and it was on the verge of doom.

And so supporters of the papacy, in their various forms and factions, have tried to show the public that their church, by the mercy of its visible head, is still fresh and vibrant, while it rather resembles an autumn tree whose leaves fall at the slightest gust of wind. Hundreds, indeed, thousands and millions have separated from the papist church since its schism from the Orthodox Church of Christ until now. And what is the reason for the separation of these millions other than its strange inventions and numerous innovations in most ancient Christian dogmas, rituals and customs? Was not the heresy of indulgences one of the greatest causes of the separation of the Protestants? Is not the heresy of the popes’ infallibility what recently drove thousands away from the papist church? Is not the broad claim of authority, primacy and power over the entire church how it deprived itself of the grace of unity with all the Orthodox Churches of Christ, bringing it into a state of decline and fall? But from all this, instead of the papist church rejecting all the novel teachings that have become a reason, first of all for its separation from the Eastern Church and, secondly, for driving many millions away from it in Western countries, and returning to the situation before the schism, joining the rest of the Orthodox Churches of Christ and joining to itself all the Protestant and Catholic sects, we see it on the contrary continuing to insist on those perverse teachings, in addition to inventing, time and again, other, new teachings even more perverse than the first. In such a case, are we not right to say that any hope of the Eastern Churches uniting with the papist church are in vain, no matter how many expressions of love and flattering statements the popes of Rome make toward the Easterners in their hymns and entreaties, while they again and again insist on the innovations they have made to the foundations of faith and religion with doctrines contrary to the spirit of Scripture and tradition.

But let us take a look at the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, in which he calls in particular for our Eastern Orthodox Churches to unite with the papist church. Perhaps he will at least pledge in it to cast aside the papist doctrines that were innovated after the schism which are, as we have said, the greatest impediment to union.

Before all else, after what we are constantly reading and come across in accounts of current events and Catholic newspapers about the sad state of the “Prisoner of the Vatican,” we expected to hear in this encyclical the voice of a man who is truly a sad, poor, weak, unfortunate prisoner. These hopes of ours were immediately dashed, however, by the title of this encyclical, which the pope begins with the following phrase, full of arrogance and presumption: “From our most holy master, with God’s help Pope, greetings and peace in the Lord to the rulers and all peoples.” These are not the words of a bound prisoner, but of an absolute master who does not consider it daring to address the rulers and all peoples and to call on them to listen to his words and pronouncements. Moreover, a strange thing about this expression is that it shows to the reader that the encyclical is not written by the pope himself, but by someone else in his voice, since the following statements from the encyclical give the impression that the author is the pope himself. Perhaps this is also one of the strange customs of the popes, however — even stranger than this is the pope’s statement about himself at the beginning of the encyclical that he is “representative of God almighty on earth.”

But if we ignore the heinous blasphemy contained in this phrase, since it indicates that the pope is the partner of God Almighty in His divine power, do you note that, when God appointed the Pope of Rome as His representative on earth, that God Almighty, if he wanted to appoint a representative for Himself on earth, He would have revealed to His holy Church in His holy Scripture about such an important event, at least in order to preserve her from the evil of the disagreements and divisions that resulted from the claims of the Popes of Rome that they were appointed by God to be heads over the entire Church, as Pope Leo XIII himself states in his encyclical where he says that “the Principal subject of their contention (that is, the contention of the Christians of the Orthodox East) is the primacy of the Roman Pontiff”? If this is the case, then what expression in Holy Scripture testifies, or at least implies that the bishops of Rome were given the right of primacy over the entire Church, upon which the Westerners built towering edifices, to the point of making the pope the visible head of the Church, Christ’s representative and God’s vicar on earth, who holds the keys of heaven and hell and is infallible? If we scoured the Scriptures, we would exhaust ourselves without finding a single word that supports the claim of the popes of Rome to the right of primacy over the entire Church. Pope Leo XIII has, however, spared us the trouble, since he indicates to us in his encyclical the expression from Holy Scripture which, according to him, supports his claim to the right of primacy over the entire Church. That is, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church.”

But let us see if the Lord Christ by this statement really made Peter “the sole foundation of the Church” and consequently leader over the rest of the Apostles, head of the entire Church, and His vicar on earth, as the papists claim. And then, if we assume that Peter received these privileges and special rights from the Lord Christ, then by what right do the popes of Rome arrogate them to themselves?

As for the papists’ primary claim, let us say that no reasonable person can read that verse of the Gospel along with what comes before and after it without understanding it as the greatest holy fathers of the Church understood it. That is, the Lord’s saying this is simply a response to the Apostle Peter’s confession that the Lord Christ is the Son of the Living God and consequently, that this expression refers to the confession and faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, and not to the person of Peter himself. Thus, Saint John Chrysostom says, in his Homily 54 on Matthew, “On this rock, that is, on this faith and this confession.” Likewise, the Blessed Augustine, whom the Latins hold to be the greatest defenders of all the Roman dogmas, says the following in his commentary on the Lord’s statement to Peter: “He says, ‘You are Peter; and upon this Rock,’ which you have confessed, ‘upon this Rock,’ which you have acknowledged, saying, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ will I build My Church; that is upon Myself, the Son of the living God, will I build My Church. I will build you upon Myself, not Myself upon you. Or men who wished to be built upon men, said, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas, who is Peter” (1 Corinthians 1:12). All the holy fathers of the Church, her illustrious teachers, East and West, understood and explained this verse in this way.

But even if we were to understand this verse literally and regard it as indicating the person of Peter, the Builder is nevertheless Christ (1 Corinthians 3:9), not Peter, and the Church is Christ’s Church, not Peter’s church, because the Lord did not say, “You shall build your church,” but rather, “I shall build My Church.” In this sense, we see that Holy Scripture calls all the Apostles — and indeed, all true believers in Jesus Christ — “rocks”, “stones” and “foundations” upon which the Church of Christ, who is the honorable, chosen Cornerstone, is built. That is, her primary and sole foundation. Thus, the Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians, “you have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:20-21). Likewise, the Apostle Peter himself says in his first epistle, “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in the Scripture, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.’ Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone’” (1 Peter 2:5-7). The Book of Revelation says, “the wall of the city” — that is, the Church — “had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:14). Thus it is manifestly clear that the Church of Christ is not built on the foundation of Peter alone, but on the foundation of all the Twelve Apostles and that the foundation of all these foundations is the Lord Jesus Christ alone, as the Apostle Paul testifies in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he explicitly says, “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).

Consequently, the sole head of the Church is not Peter or any other apostle, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, as the Apostle Paul also confirms to us when he says, “God put all things under His feet (that is, the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ), and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body (which is His body, not the body of Peter), the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22-23, cf. 5:23).

Besides all that, the papists’ claim that Jesus Christ gave the Apostle Peter a certain special authority over the rest of the Apostles is harmful to the spirit of Christian doctrines and contrary to all the statements of the Gospel, since if we browse the Holy Gospel, we see that in all His teachings, commandments and inunctions to His Apostles, the Lord Christ always warned them against the spirit of authority and the love of primacy and He makes it clear to them that there should not be first and last, leaders and followers, heads and those headed, great and small, among them, nor should any of them be called teacher and master, but rather they must all be equal among themselves as brothers and serve each other in humility and love in accordance with the great example that He Himself, their divine Teacher, showed them (Matthew 20:20-28, Mark 10:40-42, Luke 22:23-27, John 13-13-16). Indeed, we see that in all their words and deeds, the pure Apostles conformed to the example of their Master and divine Teacher, Our Lord and God Jesus Christ. They did not perform any important act or issue any command without agreeing among themselves, as when they chose Matthias to be an apostle in place of Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:23-26), elected the seven deacons (Acts 6:2-6), resolved the issue of circumcision (Acts 15), etc. While Peter was present at all these gatherings with the rest of the Apostles, he was considered as one of them, not as the leader over them. In short, we do not see in the Acts of the Apostles any trace whatsoever of the Apostle Peter having a certain special authority over the rest of the Apostles.

To the contrary, we see that when the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem to discuss the issue of circumcision, they considered the correct opinion belongs not to Peter, but to the Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord, and they recognized his opinion as being inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself. For this reason, in their conciliar decision they said, “it seems good to the Holy Spirit” and added, “and to us” (Acts 15:28), explicitly confirming that they listened to each other in governance and authority. Likewise, when it became necessary to send one of the Apostles to Samaria to confirm those who accepted the word of salvation there, the Apostles present in Jerusalem sent Peter and John to them (Acts 8:14). If Peter had been leader of the Apostles as the papists claim, would they have dared to prefer the opinion of the Apostle James over his opinion? And would they have sent him with John to Samaria? Indeed, how could Peter himself have accepted that?

Likewise, if we browse the Apostles’ epistles, we do not see in them the slightest trace of the Apostle Peter having any primacy over his fellow Apostles. On the contrary, we see that when the Apostle Paul came to Jerusalem for the first time after accepting the apostolic calling in Damascus, he submitted the Gospel that he was preaching among the nations not to Peter alone, but to all the Apostles who were present at that time in Jerusalem: James, Cephas (Peter) and John (the three of them, with James, the Brother of the Lord, first among them), who were considered the pillars of the Church (Galatians 2:2-9). Then, when Peter came to Antioch and started to behave hypocritically with the Jewish believers, the Apostle Paul did not at all hesitate to rebuke him openly in front of everyone for his not acting correctly according to the truth of the Gospel (Galatians 2:11-31).

This explicitly shows, first of all, that Peter was not at all a leader over the rest of the Apostles. Otherwise, the Apostle Paul, who was more recent than him and the rest of the Apostles in his apostolic calling, would not have dared to rebuke him, let alone openly in front of everyone. Secondly, he was not infallible or without error, because infallibility belongs to God alone. If what the Apostle Peter wrote and taught was infallible, it is because it was inspired by the Holy Spirit and nothing else. Apart from that, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, who had come to be divided among themselves, with some attributing themselves to Paul, some to Apollos and some to Peter, as though this apostle or that had more authority or prestige than the rest of his fellow Apostles, we see Paul rebuking them for this and explaining to them that all the Apostles are equal to each other in service, teaching, authority and prestige and that the Master of all, the Head of all, and the foundation of the Church is the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs all honor, prestige and boasting (see 1 Corinthians Chapters 1 and 3). Indeed, in all his epistles, the Apostle Peter only calls himself a brother and a companion of the other Apostles and a contributor to the service of the rest of the Church’s pastors and elders, warns all those pastors and elders not to grasp after authority and power, and says that the sole chief shepherd is the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 5:1-4, cf. 1 Peter 2:25 and 2 Peter 3:15).

The statements that we have presented from the holy fathers and the explicit scriptural testimonies are sufficient to demonstrate the falsehood of the papists’ primary claim, that the Apostle Peter was leader over the Apostles, head of the Church, or the Church’s sole foundation.

Despite all this, if we assume that the Apostle Peter had certain rights distinct from those of his fellow Apostles, then by what right do the popes of Rome arrogate them to themselves? Pope Leo XIII answers this question for us in his encyclical with the following passage: If the Eastern Orthodox “consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ’s Divine Utterance, ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church,’ has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.” As for the meaning of this statement of the pope, as it appears from the gist of everything he says in the entire encyclical and what the papists claim, in short, it is that by saying to Peter, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church,” the Lord Christ made him the sole foundation of the Church and, consequently, leader over the rest of the Apostles, head of the entire Church, and His vicar on earth, and by virtue of the fact that Peter founded the Church of Rome, remained bishop over it for about twenty-five years, and finally received the crown of martyrdom in Rome, all these special rights of his passed to his successors, the bishops of Rome through succession and inheritance. However, this second claim of the papists is flimsier than a spider’s web and contrary to the texts of Scripture, the Apostolic traditions, the testimonies of history, and the teachings of the ancient and modern fathers and teachers of the Church, because:

1) As we have seen above, there is not the slightest testimony in Holy Scripture or in the sacred tradition that would support the papists’ claim that Peter is the sole foundation of the Church, that he was the leader of the rest of his fellow Apostles, or that he was head of the entire Church.

2) There is likewise not the slightest testimony or suggestion in Holy Scripture that the Apostle Peter resided in Rome or at least went there, although there is explicit testimony in Holy Scripture that the Apostle Peter resided in Antioch (see Galatians 2:11). Yes, the sacred tradition says that the Apostle Peter was worthy of the death of martyrdom in Rome. However, the papists’ claim that he also lived there for around twenty-five years, on the basis of what was narrated imprecisely and without careful examination by the fourth-century historians Eusebius and Irenaeus is untrue, because if we closely examine the life and journeys of this Apostle, we realize that it is impossible for him to have lived in Rome for more than the one year at the end of which he was worthy of the death of martyrdom. In addition to Orthodox and Protestant historians, there are also many reliable Western historians and writers who admit that the Apostle Peter did not live in Rome for more than one year, such as Valesius, Pagi, Baluz, Hug, Klee, Döllinger, Waterworth, Arnatt and others (see the book The Early Days of Christianity, Book 2, Chapter 6, by the reliable English theologian and precise historian Farrar). But verify, O Orthodox reader, the truth of what we say about the Apostle Peter not living in Rome for more than one year. Ponder what the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles of this Apostle mention, and you will find first that from the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (AD 33) until the Apostles’ meeting in Jerusalem to examine the issue of circumcision (AD 50), Peter remained in Jerusalem and the area of Judea and Samaria, and second, when the Apostle Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans (AD 57), Peter was not in Rome. Otherwise, Paul would have written at least a greeting to him. Third, when the Apostle Paul went to Rome and resided there for two full years (from AD 60 until 62), Peter was not yet in Rome to welcome Paul along with the brethren, or he would have at least sent someone to welcome him on his behalf, or before he summoned and addressed the Jewish notables in Rome, he would have first visited Peter. If Peter had at least arrived in Rome before Paul arrived, then the Jewish notables would not have told Paul that “none of the brethren who came reported or spoke any evil about you.” If Peter had been sitting on the See of Rome for even a year or less before Paul arrived there, then the Jewish notables there would not have told Paul, “we desire to hear from you what you think; for concerning this (Christian) sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere” (see Acts 28:21-22). If you add to all these years that Peter was not in Rome the seven years he spent in Antioch, the two or more years he spent preaching in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia and Bithynia, then what remains is the one year that Peter spent in Rome at the end of his life.

3) In addition to its lacking any basis in Holy Scripture and sacred tradition, the papists’ claim that Peter was the first bishop of Rome is contrary to Peter’s role as an apostle since, as is well known, the duties of an apostle, according to the testimony of scripture are to spread the Christian faith throughout the inhabited world (Mark 16:15) and preaching the truths of the gospel to all nations (Matthew 28:19 and Luke 24:27), not residing as a simple bishop in a single place and for a single nation. Not to mention, if Peter really lived in Rome for twenty-five years as the bishop of its church, would the Apostle Paul have dared to write to the members of this church, while the Apostle Peter was their bishop, a specific epistle to teach them and confirm them in the faith? Indeed, how could the Apostle Paul in this Epistle to the Romans not at least greet its bishop, the Apostle Peter, given that in it he makes many greetings to many individuals, both men and women (see Romans Chapter 16)? Moreover, we see that the Apostle Paul, in his many epistles where he wrote about Rome, did not make the slightest mention or indication of the Apostle Peter’s presence there, either as its bishop or even as an evangelist among its people.

4) If we closely search in Holy Scripture, we will also learn that the founder of the Church of Rome is not the Apostle Peter, but rather the Apostle Paul or, more precisely, it is said to be disciples of the Apostle Paul (see Romans Chapter 16). Therefore, when the Apostle Paul came to Rome, he confirmed the church that his disciples had founded and stayed there himself to preach the words of God and to teach its people about the Lord Jesus Christ for two whole years (see Acts 28:16-31). Some writers of the Fourth Century attribute the founding of the Church of Rome to the Apostle Peter, however the correct tradition that matches the scriptural evidence confirms to us that the founder of the Church of Rome is the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter together, who while they were both still alive appointed three bishops for Rome: Paul appointed the first and second of them, Linus and Anacletus, and Peter appointed the third, Clement. So, the papists’ claim that the Apostle Peter was the first bishop of Rome also appears to be false.

5) Even if we conceded the truth of the tradition which says that the founder of the Church of Rome is Peter alone, this nevertheless does not give the slightest right to the bishops of Rome to consider themselves to be the successors of the Apostle Peter because Holy Scripture testifies and sacred tradition affirms that the Apostle Peter, alone or in collaboration with the Apostle Paul, established other churches before establishing the Church of Rome, such as the Church of Antioch, which was established and confirmed by the Apostles Matthew, Peter and Paul, and the Church of Alexandria, which was established by Peter alone, who appointed as its first bishop his beloved disciple the Evangelist Mark. So this being the case, the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria are more rightly called and considered the successors of the Apostle Peter, especially the former, because at least there is literal testimony in Holy Scripture, as we have seen above (see Acts 2:11), regarding the Apostle Peter’s going to Antioch and residing there, while there is not the slightest literal testimony in Holy Scripture about his residing in Rome or going there. Thus, if the Apostle Peter had special rights, as the papists claim, how could it be hidden from Leo XIII’s abundant insight that those who are most deserving of these special rights of Peter are not the bishops of Rome, but rather the bishops of Antioch who, since ancient times, were recognized by all the Christian churches, even the Church of Rome, as being the legitimate successors of the Apostle Peter?

6) There is no doubt that the most ancient of the Christian churches and the most prestigious of them is the Church of Jerusalem, which was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and is therefore rightly called the “Mother of the Churches.” It was there that the Holy Spirit rested upon the pure Apostles. It was there from which the Christian faith began to spread to all cities and it was to there that the Apostles returned from their travels and gathered to discuss the most important religious and ecclesiastical issues. According to the testimony of sacred tradition, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appointed as its bishop the Apostle James, who is called “the Brother of the Lord.” Moreover, it was there that the great work of redemption was achieved through the birth of the Son of God and His teaching, passion, crucifixion, death, resurrection, appearance [to the disciples] and ascension. It was there too that the John the Baptist, the Forerunner of Christ, was beheaded and there that the Righteous Joseph, the betrothed of the Virgin Mary, reposed. It was there that the Exceedingly-Holy Mother of God spent all the days of her earthly life and there that the crown of martyrdom was merited by the Apostle James, Symeon of the Seventy Apostles, and Stephen, who was filled with faith and the Holy Spirit. It is there that are found the cave [where Christ was born], Golgotha, the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, the Upper Room, Mounts Tabor and Hermon, the River Jordan, and the other wondrous events and holy places at whose mention every knee bends, every head bows, every intellect is astonished, and every heart beats… If the claim of the bishops of Rome to the right of authority and primacy over all the churches were true, would it not be more fitting for the bishops of Jerusalem to have this right? Or if the Lord Christ truly wanted to make the Apostle Peter leader over the rest of the Apostles, head of the entire Church, and His vicar on earth, would He not at least have made Peter bishop of Jerusalem, the Mother of the Churches?

7) Even if we suppose that the Apostle Peter had authority over the rest of his fellow Apostles and that the bishops of Rome inherited from him this authority over the entire Christian Church, is it really reasonable to suppose also that those of the Apostles who remained alive after the Apostle Peter’s death submitted to the authority of the bishops of Rome? We think that no reasonable person could accept that the Beloved Disciple of Jesus Christ, the Apostle John, who remained alive for some thirty-five years after the death of the Apostle Peter, submitted to the bishop of Rome, considering him to be the head of the entire Christian Church, as the papists claim, contrary to Holy Scripture, sacred tradition and sound reason. What has been said until now on the basis of explicit testimonies from Holy Scripture and relying on current evidence and compelling arguments, makes it abundantly clear, first of all, that the Apostle Peter was not, nor could have been, leader of the rest of his fellow Apostles because their Leader, their Teacher and their Master was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Nor was he head of the entire Church, because the Church’s sole head is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Nor was he Christ’s vicar or God’s representative on earth because no human can be a vicar or representative of God Almighty. For this reason, before His salvific death, the Lord Christ did not say to His disciples that He appointed or would appoint Peter or any other apostle as His vicar or representative. Rather, He told them that He would send them the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, that is, the Holy Spirit, who “proceeds from God” and will teach them everything and remind them of everything that the Lord Jesus Christ told them (see Luke 14:26 and 15:6). Likewise, before His ascension into heaven, He did not tell His disciples that He had handed over or would hand over all authority in heaven and on earth to Peter or to any of the Apostles. Rather, He told them, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth,” and He promised them that He Himself would be with them, that is, with the Church, “always, even to the end of the age” (see Matthew 28:18-20). Second, [it makes it clear that] the bishops of Rome are not the successors of the Apostle Peter, he did not establish the Church of Rome, even through representatives, and the Apostle Peter did not bequeath to them any special rights: first of all, because Peter did not in any way have such special rights, but rather was no more and no less than an apostle and a servant of the Word, like the rest of his fellow Apostles, and secondly, because if he had such rights, then the bishops of Alexandria and especially the bishops of Antioch would be more deserving of them, not the bishops of Rome.

In addition to drawing our attention to what our fathers and forefathers thought and believed, Pope Leo XIII also reminds us in his encyclical about distorted and falsified historical events, thinking that they will support his claim that, from ancient times until the time of the schism, the Eastern Orthodox Church recognized the primacy of the popes of Rome over the entire Church. Here is what he says about this: “The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known. Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See (meaning, the See of Rome, as though there was no other apostolic see) was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.”

Then, in order to support this statement of his, he turns to fabrication and subterfuge, presenting to us an event that he embellishes with distortion and sprinkles with falsification. He says: “If we refer to the cause of the dissension, we shall see that it is Photius himself” — that is, Photius was the reason that the Eastern Church recognized, according to the author of the encyclical’s claim, the primacy of the popes of Rome over the entire Church. “He was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition.” If you delve into the books of Eastern and Western historians, you will not find any sign of Photius sending delegates or intermediaries to Rome, apart from his irenic letter to Pope Nicholas via emissaries of the Emperor Michael, not his own emissaries. Likewise, the Supreme Roman Pontiff Nicholas I did not incur the slightest harm in sending his delegates from Rome to Constantinople. How could he have, when the popes, like the other Eastern patriarchs, still sent delegates at the invitation of the emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople to represent them at the councils to examine the issue of the Patriarch Ignatius and to issue a full and fair report to the See of Rome?

However, what do you think, O successor of Pius IX, about the behavior of your predecessor Pope Nicholas’ representatives? That is, Radoald and Zacharia, who ignored the vain command of their master to leave to him the final judgment about the issue of Ignatius. Instead, they followed the requirement of the canons of the Church and ancient customs, which require leaving final judgment to a council of bishops, not to the bishop of Rome alone. Therefore, contrary to what Nicholas, author of the heresy of primacy, commanded them, they recognized along with the other members of the council the deposition of Ignatius and the election of Photius as patriarch in his place. The whole history of this affair appropriately supports the precedence of the See of Rome and that, because of this very affair, Pope Nicholas’ absurd claim to a right of primacy over the entire Church created at that time the disagreement between the Eastern Church and the Western Church. [The Arabic in the previous sentence is a little unclear here, so this is translated literally. – ed.]

Anyone with the least insight into the true history of the Church, upon reading these passages of the encyclical, cannot but fall into a great bewilderment, not knowing what is more bizarre in it. Is it the author of the encyclical’s boldness in fabricating historical events that are well known to all? Or is it the shabbiness of papist arguments in general in defense of their heresy of primacy? If this papal encyclical was composed for the benefit of students in the papist schools, then no one would be surprised by the boldness of falsifying historical events or the shabbiness of the arguments and proofs, since papist students are forced to accept every word that issues forth from the mouth of the pope as an axiomatic truth. However, this encyclical is for rulers and all peoples, and any lover of truth would have hoped to find in it a precise historical investigation of the true reasons for the disagreements between the Christian churches and a fair, impartial examination, free of any contentiousness in its presentation of historical events. But what a disappointment! The author of the encyclical thought that presenting a mangled piece of those papist fables, embellished with distortion, would suffice to convince the rulers and great men of the world and all its peoples and scholars of the truth of his broad claim to primacy over the entire Church. Has the Vatican’s financial poverty deprived him of true testimonies, clear evidence, shining proofs, and decisive facts? Pope Leo XIII still, at the end of our 19^th century, cannot find any stronger proof or greater evidence to support his broad claim than to repeat to us what supporters of papism have been accustomed to saying and writing in the dark, barbaric centuries of the Middle Ages about the affair of the Patriarchs Photius and Ignatius and their relations with the pope of Rome at the time, Nicholas I. But it is enough for us to glance at the pages of true history to confirm the falsehood of everything that the author of the encyclical says above.

First, with regard to the author of the encyclical’s statement that before the schism all the Christians of the East, like the Christians of the West, recognized the primacy of the pope, let us say, on the basis of true history, that, from the first appearance of the broad claim of the bishops of Rome of the right to authority, power and primacy over the entire Church, the Christians of the East, and also many of the Christians of the West, rejected it as a claim contrary to Christian doctrines, damaging to the Apostolic traditions, and against the local and ecumenical councils. Thus we see in the second century that the bishops of the churches of Asia, led by the bishop of Smyrna, Saint Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, refused the request of the bishop of Rome at the time, Anicetus, to change their custom regarding the time for celebrating Easter, which they had received from the Apostle John, without the pope or his successors being able to rule on this issue until the First Ecumenical Council met and resolved the issue with the accord of the entire Church.

Likewise, in the third century, when the pope sharply rejected the decision of two local councils in Africa about the baptism of heretics returning to Orthodoxy and threatened to excommunicate anyone who did not agree with his opinion, claiming that he was “bishop over the bishops,” Saint Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, called a council of African bishops in the year 256, where he pronounced before them, “Let none of us count himself as a bishop over the bishops or to demand by terrible threats, like a despotic master, the submission of the rest of his fellow bishops because each bishop is free, by authority granted to him by his belief and his will, and no one can judge him, just as he cannot judge anyone.” Then, in his Letter 71, he says, “Neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose … when Paul disputed with him afterwards about circumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly assume anything; so as to say that he held the primacy, and that he ought rather to be obeyed by novices and those lately come.” Without embellishment, we say that there are a number of incidents like this in history which explicitly bear witness to the fact that the Church in no way recognized any authority or primacy of the bishops of Rome over all the Christian churches. On the contrary, they always rejected the claim that some of them made to exclusive authority or primacy and they only recognized for them the right of precedence in honor, which was granted to them by the Second and Fourth Ecumenical Councils, not regarding them as the successors of Peter, but regarding them as bishops of the City of Rome, capital of the Roman Empire at the time, just as they also granted the right of this precedence in honor to the bishops of Constantinople, the new capital of the empire (see Canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council and Canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council).

On this basis, the right of precedence in honor that the Church granted to the bishops of Rome, the old capital of the empire, as well as to the bishops of Constantinople, the new capital of the empire, is a temporal right, based not on Christian doctrines or apostolic traditions, but on political considerations and nothing else. If circumstances have sometimes forced some bishops and patriarchs of the East to resort to the fraternal assistance of the bishop of Rome to resolve certain issues and problems, this in no way indicates that they recognized him as having any primacy over them, as Pope Leo XIII claims against us in his encyclical, because they resorted to him as a brother resorts to his brother, first of all on account of his distance from the intrigues of the imperial court in Constantinople and secondly because he is foremost among them in honor, just as the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in our present era, for example, when there is a disturbance in the churches over an important issue, each resort to the assistance of the patriarch of Constantinople, who is foremost among them in honor, without the patriarch of Constantinople regarding their doing this as a sign of their recognizing any sort of authority over them.

If the bishops of Rome had preserved the dignity of their honorary precedence among their fellow bishops, then the Eastern Church would have always recognized their right of honorary precedence and regarded them as first among Christian bishops. When that sorrowful schism occurred between East and West, the bishops of Rome unfortunately started to transform the right of honorary precedence that the Church had granted it out of consideration for its central political position into that broad claim of authority, power and primacy over all the Christian churches. In doing so, they harmed themselves and the entire Church because, on the one hand, in order to support their claims to the right of primacy, they were forced to distort the words of Scripture, falsify historical events, and to invent false proofs known as the Isidorian Decretals.

On the other hand, he became the primary cause of the schism of the Church into East and West, and this is the reason that the Patriarch Photius, after initially resorting to the fraternal assistance of the pope of Rome, afterwards rejected with all his might the pope’s intervention in the affairs of the Eastern Church, because his great intellect had shown him the great danger that this uncanonical intervention might pose to the freedom of the Church. This is especially the case because sitting on the See of Rome at that time was Pope Nicholas I, who, as contemporary historians both Eastern and Western attest, was a stubborn man, quick to anger, ill-tempered, rude, contentious, tyrannical, a lover of glory and grandeur, and eager for primacy and power, not only over all the Christian churches, but also over all the kings of the world, as evidenced by his own words and deeds. Among the things he said was what he wrote in one of his letters to the bishop of [Auvergne??], where he tells him, “You submit to the ruler, following the apostolic commandment, and this is right. But pay heed that those kings and rulers are true. Discern whether they govern themselves and their followers well, because one who is evil cannot of himself be beneficial. Otherwise, you must flee them and resist them instead of submitting to them.  So submit to the king who surpasses you in virtues, not in vices, for the sake of God, as the Apostle commanded, not against God.” The famous Western historian, the Abbé Fleury, rightly said about this statement of Pope Nicholas, “The pope does not know that the emperor to whom the Apostle commanded obedience was at the time Nero and the Apostle himself commanded slaves to obey their masters, not only good ones, but also wicked ones. The pope made the bishops judges over kings to rule whether they were virtuous or wicked. Indeed, he also made the entire flock judges over kings because the reason that the pope mentions covers all who are obliged to obey kings” (see Fleury [Histoire du christianisme, vol. 3] 50:24).

We ourselves say that the bishop of Rome forgot the Apostle’s words to the Romans, that “there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1-2). The deeds of this tyrannical pope were no gentler than his words. At every moment of his papacy, he sometimes cast the kings of Europe into quarrels, unrest and wars with each other, sometimes excommunicated kings, bishops and councils. What he did through his legates he sometimes rejected and sometimes accepted, according to his interest. Indeed, his pride reached such a point that he forced the Emperor Louis II to get down from his horse and to walk in front of him, leading his horse. (See, among Western historians, Regino, Chronicon for the year 858; the Jesuit father Maimburg, Histoire du schisme des grecs, Paris, 1776; and among the Easterners, Amphilo. 2, note 4; the history of Meletius, 9:11, no. 3; Dositheus, 7:13, no. 3, and many others).

How do the words and deeds of this tyrannical pope, whom Pope Leo XIII calls the “supreme Roman pontiff,” compare to the remarkable words and praiseworthy deeds of the Patriarch Photius, to which all historians and writers, Eastern and Western, attest? For the Westerners, see Fleury, 50:3 and Pitzipios, L’église orientale 1:4, Paris, 1855. It is enough to mention his second letter to Pope Nicholas I, which is filled with evangelical love, Christian gentleness, divine trust, and love for peace between the churches. Even his enemies continue to be amazed at it and call it a wonder. This being the case, what was the reason for the schism of the Church of Christ? Was it the meekness and humility of the Patriarch Photius or the pride and demonic arrogance of Pope Nicholas? We address this question to you, O “great representative of God on earth,” Leo XIII, hoping that you will judge justly and fairly, not hypocritically and narrowly.

But let us see whether Pope Leo XIII is able to judge in this manner differently than how his predecessors judged, without trampling the dogma of “infallibility” that his predecessor, Pope Piux IX, established. Of course not. In fact, we see that Pope Leo XIII does not distinguish himself from his predecessors in the slightest in his discussion of this issue in his encyclical.[1] Indeed, we see that he makes the same effort to distort the true history in order to tell us that the Greeks (that is, the Eastern Orthodox), who were the cause of the schism according to his claim, were quick to admit their error and recognized the authority of the Roman pontiffs at two councils.

Here is what the text of the encyclical says: “Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.” What need would you have, O “successor of the Apostle Peter,” to remind us of these two false councils, if your broad claim to the right of primacy over the entire Church had the slightest trace in Holy Scripture or in the canons of the Ecumenical Councils? Are you perhaps ignorant or feigning ignorance of the reasons that led to the convocation of these two “great” councils, as you claim? If the Greeks — that is, the Eastern Christians — as you claim, and not only some of them, as is the truth, foremost among them the Eastern patriarchs and Byzantine emperors, hoping to obtain assistance from the West to defend their empire from the attacks of outside enemies, not genuinely confessing the primacy of the Roman pontiffs, then they would have truly recognized the primacy of the pope and united with the papist church.

So who are those Eastern Christians that you are now inviting in your encyclical to unite and to recognize your authority, power and primacy? But the Eastern Christians continue even now to reject the primacy of the popes of Rome and to refuse any communion with the papist church, which is filled with heresies and innovations. Is this not manifest evidence and clear proof that that recognition of the primacy of the pope as dogma by some Eastern clergy and laity at those two councils was, on the part of the former, out of low-mindedness or greed for bribes and, on the part of the latter, in hopes of obtaining assistance from the West through the pope against the enemies of the Byzantine state? It was merely a coerced, outward recognition based on personal interest, not a willing, inner recognition based on a confession of the heart.

Consequently, that union was merely a false union based on falsification and subterfuge, not on a basis of honesty and truth. Perhaps Pope Leo XIII thinks that the Easterners are so ignorant and illiterate that they do not know the history of their Church and the injustice, oppression, various assaults and different licit and illicit means that the popes of Rome have time and again exercised so that they would submit to their tyrannical authority. If His Holiness is ignorant or is feigning ignorance of this true history, we Eastern Orthodox are not ignorant of the fact that that false union that took place at those two councils did not take place with the knowledge of the entire Church.

Therefore, none of the Easterners paid any heed to the decision of the first council in Lyon. Even the Emperor Michael Palaeologus himself, who had been a defender of that council’s decision out of eagerness to obtain assistance from the West, did not hesitate, after his hopes of gaining that assistance were dashed, to openly reject the council’s decision in church before all the people and to prevent the deacon from commemorating the name of the pope. As for the second council in Florence, only some of the Easterners who attended it recognized its decision, and only after great effort and the use of all sorts of tricks, promises and threats against them. It was not “without the slightest opposition,” as the author of the encyclical claims, either out of ignorance or feigned ignorance of the facts of history. As for the rest of the Easterners who attended that accursed council, foremost among them, as is well known, the Champion of Orthodoxy Mark of Ephesus, they did not recognize the council’s decision at all and did not sign it. The words of the pope at that time, Eugenius, when the Latins informed him that Mark of Ephesus did not sign the council’s decision, are a sufficient testimony to the invalidity of the council’s decision. He said, “Woe to us, dear brothers, for we have achieved nothing.” Indeed, the Latins did not achieve anything, despite the various tricks, deceits, promises and threats that they employed. Rather, their hopes were dashed, especially the hopes of “Peter’s successor” to submit the Eastern Church to his authority by means of that false council. This is because as soon as opposition to this council spread in the East, the Orthodox rose up all as one against the council. Even the Easterners who signed it, upon their return to Constantinople regretted what they had done and started themselves to say, “May the hand that signed be cut off and may the tongue that confessed be cut out!”

Following that, several Orthodox councils were held — in Jerusalem in 1443, in the presence of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, in Trabzon, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and three in Constantinople, the last of which was in 1450, in the time of the last Byzantine emperors, Constantine Palaeologus — which all rejected the false Bull of Union and judged the Council of Florence to be a false robber-council. So why does the author of the encyclical attempt to transform these historical facts? Would it not have been better for Pope Leo XIII if he had not reminded us of these sorrowful events, which hardly support the efforts and various tricks of the popes of Rome to place their heavy yoke upon the necks of the Easterners, just as they placed it on the necks of the Westerners? Mentioning them only increases the Easterners’ disgust and aversion toward the papist church. Perhaps he thinks that by merely telling the Orthodox, imitating the words of the Lord Jesus — “Come all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest” — “Bear my yoke upon yourselves and you will find rest,” that the Orthodox will immediately cast aside their ecclesiastical freedom and their Apostolic doctrines that they received from their fathers and forefathers and have continued to preserve fiercely for nineteen whole centuries and will rush to bear upon their necks the yoke of papist slavery.

By no means! We shall not heed this call of yours, O father of the Vatican, no matter how haughtily and vaingloriously you act, no matter how much you elevate yourself and prance about, claiming to be the “vicar of Christ and representative of God on earth,” because we Eastern Orthodox are in no way accustomed to bearing any spiritual yoke apart from the yoke of Christ, our heavenly Father, and the sole Head of our Church, who alone is able to grant us patience and consolation in our noble toils to uproot the tares of false teachings and wicked intrigues that are sown among the wheat of our correct Orthodox doctrines by hirelings of various stripes — Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, Capuchins, Lazarists and… and… and… who grow up in the West like cumin then quickly sprout in the East like tarragon… but let us return to the encyclical.

It is enough for Pope Leo XIII to realize that the distorted arguments, fabricated proofs and falsified events that he presented in his encyclical in support of his broad claim to the right of primacy over the entire Church cannot win over the minds of the Orthodox. You see him setting aside proofs and argumentation and turning to inviting them to union promises and pledges. Here is what Pope Leo XIII pledges to them in his encyclical, not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of his successors. He says: “Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches. It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.”

I wonder whether history would confirm this statement of Pope Leo for us. If we browse through history, we will unfortunately learn that this statement of the pope is no more truthful than his broad claim to the right of primacy over the entire Church. It is enough to recall the decrees of his predecessors and the efforts of his hirelings, the Jesuits in Syria right now, to force our brothers, the Greek Catholics, the Maronites and the Syriacs to change the rituals of their churches and their local customs and to replace them gradually with Latin rituals and customs. Here is what a theology professor at the Theological Academy of Saint Petersburg wrote about this, responding to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical. He said, “No one can read these promises in the encyclical without crying out, ‘Let anyone who wants, believe them, but not I!’” For history offers us so much firm evidence of the falsehood of these promises that we cannot give them the slightest importance. It is enough for us to mention the rapacious activities of the Latins in Western Russia toward those Russians living in Poland who united with them in order not to permit the slightest trace of their Eastern rituals or even of their Russian nationality. Indeed, supporters of the pope even now still spare no effort to transform those Russians in Galicia (a region under Austrian rule) into Latins. The Jesuits treat the promises of the encyclical with sarcasm and derision, and you see them seizing Russian monasteries and churches in Galicia and turning them into Latin monasteries and Polish churches. Is it through these events that are taking place before our eyes and the eyes of the world that the “great representative of God on earth” thinks he can assure us of the truth of his promises? (see the Russian journal Tserkovny Vestnik, no. 29-31, 1894).

But if — indeed, if — we trusted and believed in the sincerity of the author of the encyclical’s intention, and we presumed the truth of his promises, which history and experience have repeatedly shown to be false, why do you think Pope Leo XIII limited himself to the issue of rituals and customs and was silent about the most important thing, which is doctrine? The truth is that we see the leader of the Catholic world openly admitting in his encyclical the truth of the doctrines of our right-believing Orthodox Church, since he says, “in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.” Good. But why does he not mention anything in his encyclical about the novel doctrines of his papist church, such as the addition to the Creed, the sale of indulgences, the fire of Purgatory, papal infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, and many other beliefs and doctrines contrary to the spirit of our Orthodox Church? Thus, by remaining silent about these papist doctrines in his encyclical in which he calls us to union, he thinks that if we accepted his sole demand of us — that is, the dogma of primacy — we would gradually be forced to accept the rest of the papist dogmas, which are simply the natural result of the dogma of primacy, the source of all the heresies and innovations of the Western Church.

But we declare to him that his thoughts will be disappointed, for if we Orthodox do not consent to the slightest change or modification to rituals and customs, then we all the more so do not consent and shall never consent to the smallest change or modification in dogma. Even if we were to suppose that the pope would leave us not only our rituals and customs, but also our teachings and doctrines, apart from our accepting his primacy, we nevertheless cannot accept union with a church full of heresies and innovations that go against the teachings of our Orthodox Church. No matter how much His Holiness addresses us with flattery and paternal talk, it is unlikely that he will be able to obtain the hidden desires of his heart, especially since the history of some of the Eastern communities that have united with the papist church has made it manifestly clear that the filial obedience that the “father of the Vatican” is asking of us is more heinous than any slavery, because he seeks to enslave not our bodies, but our souls and to deprive them of religious freedom. Is any slavery more loathsome than this slavery?

But what do you see Pope Leo XIII promising us in exchange for his great demand from us? That is, in exchange for our submission to his papal authority, he promises us every earthly and heavenly benefit. Here’s what he says: if you restore your communion with us—that is, if we recognize the primacy of the pope and unite with the papist church—how much dignity and order your churches would gain. Then, when he addresses the Slavic Orthodox peoples, he promises them other, greater benefits, since he tells them that the papist church “is anxious to welcome you also to her arms, that she may give you manifold aids to salvation, prosperity, and grandeur.” As you see, dear reader, the pope promises great benefits of every shape and color, as the colloquial saying goes.

What dignity, order, salvation, prosperity and grandeur is this? We cannot hide our amazement at the arrogance of “God’s representative on earth” who promises the Slavic peoples all earthly and heavenly benefits and turns to the other Orthodox peoples and only promises them some earthly benefits. Perhaps he thinks that compared to the Slavs we are merely peasants, and peasants — God pardon them — will be content with this insult, whether willingly or unwillingly. But unfortunately, he does not offer us the slightest assurance or guarantee that we will actually obtain these benefits. We know and do not deny that Pope Leo XIII possess great power in most of the Catholic world, the abundant wealth in his Vatican treasuries, and the great number of his missionaries who travel land and sea to make one proselyte, and when he is won, they make him twice as much a son of hell as themselves. Despite all this, how can the pope grant us the benefits he promises us when, despite all these great powers, we see that he cannot even grant a part of them to members of his own papist church in the West, most of whom are groaning from the injustice and oppression of their revolting brothers?

Moreover, he himself complains and weeps over his poor situation and over the assaults of his own children against his rights and authority. So where is his royal ascendency, when his closest Catholic children, the Italians and French, have seized his possessions and stripped him of his temporal authority, that is, his papal authority, when the greatest Catholic country, France, has removed his name and the name of the papacy from its secular schools? Where is his ecclesiastical power or his spiritual primacy when the ministry of a Catholic nation like Hungary has trampled his papal rights and turned the great sacrament of matrimony into a political plaything? What is there for us to say about the Freemasons, Mormons, materialists, socialists, anarchists and nihilists whose numbers increase by the day in most Catholic kingdoms and countries? Are we to hope for benefit or salvation from someone who has no ability to ameliorate his own situation or improve the state of the members of his church? Indeed, what need do we have of union with the papist church so long as this union will not bring us the slightest spiritual or moral benefit and moreover threatens our religious freedom, our correct Orthodox dogmas, the venerable rituals of our Church, and our ancient local customs? No, we do not need the pope’s assistance. Rather, he is in need of our assistance because his sense that his power is collapsing in the West has caused him to seek a slave in the guise of an ally in the East. (See the response to the encyclical by the brilliant writer Mssr Kireev, p. 25, St Petersburg, 1895.)

Let no one imagine that we are animated by the spirit of chauvinism and a lack of love of the peace and unity of the divided churches. Just the opposite. The spirit of peace and love of unity is none other than the spirit that our Orthodox Church has spread in the hearts and minds of her children from their infancy through her Christian teachings and prayers day and night. However, we cannot accept such a concocted union like the one that Pope Leo XIII is offering us, because history has taught us and experience has confirmed to us the falsehood of any union with the papist church which insists on its heresies and innovations that are contrary to the spirit of our Orthodox Church, especially the heresy of papal primacy, which is the wellspring of all evils, the source of all heresies and the root cause of the schism.

Even if we were to suppose that the pope would promise us to cast aside all the novel papist teachings and dogmas apart from the dogma of primacy, it would nevertheless not be possible for us to unite with the papist church under this burdensome condition, that is, recognizing the pope’s absolute primacy over all the Christian churches, because, in addition to the fact that, as we have seen it has no basis in Holy Scripture, sacred tradition, the canons of the Ecumenical Councils, or the writings of the Holy Fathers, this primacy is directly harmful to the internal and external administrative order in our Orthodox Church, which is based on the principles of freedom, equality and evangelical brotherhood that have been respected since the early centuries of Christianity.

In fact, if we contemplate the system of organization of our Orthodox churches, we see that despite the fact that they are made up of different peoples and various languages — that is, Arabs, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Russians, Romanians, Georgians, Albanians, Mongols, Japanese, Indians, Americans — each people nevertheless constitutes a local church independent of her sisters in tongue, race and internal administration, and each of them is bound to them by the bonds of the one true faith and by unity in rites and customs, closely bound since ancient times without the slightest division or difference. They all constitute members of the body whose sole head is our Lord and God, Jesus Christ.

Because of the distance of the Orthodox Church from any worldly spirit, applying the commandment of her divine Head that to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s, we see that she is capable of living in full harmony and unity with holders of authority and rulers in any kingdom and under any system of governance she finds herself under, whether a monarchy or absolute republicanism, whether Christian or non-Christian, Orthodox or non-Orthodox, while the papacy, which seeks to be over every spiritual and temporal authority, cannot live in comfort and harmony even under Catholic kingdoms, as is currently the situation in Western countries.

This being the case, if the Orthodox Churches wanted to submit to papal authority, then they would lose their wonderful order and remarkable system, and each would become merely a lowly diocese dependent on the See of Rome and subject to the whims of the pontiff of the Vatican. Moreover, their patriarchs, synods and hierarchs would become playthings in the hands of the pope and his Latin missionaries—Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and Capuchins, as is currently happening to the patriarchs and bishops of our [Greek] Catholic, Maronite, Syriac, Armenian and Chaldean brothers, who cannot make a move or stay at rest without the Latin monks, especially the Jesuits, who, as is well known to anyone with two eyes, have practically monopolized the education of boys, girls and the local clergy who submit to the papal see.

If there was even a speck of sincerity in the statements of the “successor of the Blessed Peter” about the papist Apostolic See always permitting those who submit to it to preserve their ecclesiastical rites and local customs, then what is the purpose of his sending to the East groups of Western monks of foreign language and origins, who spare no effort and use every means to instill the teachings of the Latin Church and its strange customs to the churches that are united to, or rather, taken over by the papist church? What we are saying here is likewise confirmed by the patriarchs of these churches themselves, who submitted a complaint against those monks at the council that was held in Rome to discuss the issue of the union. And if the tricks that the Prisoner of the Vatican played against those non-Orthodox patriarchs of the East, when he issued a decision at that council preventing those Latin monks from intervening in the affairs of the Eastern churches that submit to the papal see, permitting them only the right to operate schools, does he think to play them against us Orthodox, who have been taught by history and experience that our countrymen who are educated in the schools of the Latin monks come out more Latin than the Latins themselves?

Not to mention that if the pope considers a patriarch to be a patriarch and a bishop to be a bishop among those communities united to the papist church, then what need is there for him to appoint bishops, especially patriarchs who are not from among those Eastern Catholic communities? If he says that appointing those Latin bishops is necessary for meeting the needs of its Western members who have settled in the East, Austrians, French, Italians and others, and not to command and forbid the locals or to restrict the freedom of the local patriarchs, then we say that if those Latin laypeople, who do not number more than a thousand souls in all of Syria and Palestine, do not wish to be ecclesiastically subject to the local Catholic clergy, despite this being contrary to the sense of union, then they can have their needs met according to their Latin rites with the Jesuit, Franciscan, Dominican or Capuchin fathers who greatly outnumber them.

Or if the monastic rules of those fathers who “practice asceticism in the world” do not permit to fulfill the spiritual needs of laypeople, would it not be more just for the pope to send Latin priests for this purpose and not patriarchs or bishops, at least taking into consideration the station of the local patriarchs and bishops or respecting the Apostolic Canons and the Ecumenical Councils, which do not permit there two be two bishops of a single diocese? What is the meaning of there being a Latin patriarch in Jerusalem while the local Catholics there have their own local patriarch? Indeed, what is the meaning of the union that exists between him and the Eastern Catholic Churches in Syria and between them and the papist church, when each of these churches has a patriarch of its own and each of those patriarchs calls himself the Patriarch of Antioch? Which of those patriarchs of Antioch do you think should be considered the true successor of the Apostle Peter on the See of Antioch? Is it the patriarch of the Maronites, the patriarch of the Greek Catholics, the patriarch of the Syriac Catholics, the patriarch of the Chaldean Catholics, the patriarch of the Armenian Catholics, or the patriarch of the Latins, who lives in the Vatican Palace?

One of the strange things about the situation of those patriarchs is that some of them, for example the patriarch of the Greek Catholics, counts among his titles patriarch not only of the See of Antioch, but also of the See of Alexandria and the See of Jerusalem, contrary to the Apostolic Canons, which do not permit there to be one bishop over two dioceses. So how can he sit on three Apostolic sees? Even more bizarre, this patriarch who sits on three Apostolic sees is subject, along with his three sees, to the See of Rome.

And what surpasses all bizarreness is that love of power has so clouded the vision of the Roman pontiffs that they do not consider the issue of fundamental Christian dogmas to be as important as the dogma of primacy, so you see them accepting into papist ecclesiastical communion any group whatsoever, even if it is heretical, so long as that group accepts the primacy of the Roman pontiff. So many Eastern groups and churches united to the papist church contradict each other in the most important Christian dogmas, in addition to their differences in rites and ecclesiastical customs. Some of them believe in two natures and some of them believe in one nature. Some of them believe in one will and some of them believe in two wills. Some of them confess the addition to the Creed and some of them reject this addition. Some of them permit the use of azymes and some of them eschew their use. Some of them permit the marriage of priests and some of them forbid it. Some of them build their temples toward the east and some build them toward the west, in addition to other dogmatic contradictions and differences in ritual practices contrary to the spirit of true Christian unity. It is not, however, for us to explain this at great length. What we have mentioned is sufficient as a just witness to the truth of our saying that accepting papal primacy, which Pope Leo XIII considers in his encyclical to be the most important condition for union, is more heinous and repugnant than any bondage and slavery.

Pope Leo XIII could have spared us the trouble of this response and also spared himself, since he is elderly, the toil of writing, the pains of composition, and the difficulty of repeating sophistic claims that have often been refuted by Easterners and Westerners if he had just recalled what one of his predecessors, Saint Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, wrote in his letters to the patriarchs of Constantinople, the emperor of Byzantium and others against love of primacy and authority. It is useful for us to quote here some of what this holy pope said about this in his letters. Perhaps Pope Leo XIII too will pay heed, draw benefit and correct his attachment to the heresy of primacy, which is the wellspring of all the papist errors. First, in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople John the Faster, who was the first to dub himself “ecumenical,” he tells him that because of this title, “Pay heed that the peace of the Church is disturbed because of this rash presumption that is contrary to the truth.” What would this holy pope say if he saw the true rash presumption of his successors? Indeed, what would he write if he read the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, in which he calls himself “God’s great representative on earth”? “With all your heart, love the humility through which the concord of all the brethren and the unity of the holy, universal Church may be preserved. When the Apostle Paul heard that some were saying ‘I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of John,’ he was disturbed by this rending of the Lord’s body and at their joining its members to strange heads and cried out, ‘Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?’ and in this way the Apostle avoided subjecting the members of the Lord’s body to anyone other than Christ, even to the Apostles themselves.” What do the words of this holy pope have to do with the words of Pope Leo XIII? “What will you say to Christ the head of the universal Church?” Indeed, what will you say, O father of the Vatican, in the words of this predecessor of yours? Are they true, or…?

“In the scrutiny of the last judgment, having attempted to put all his members under yourself by the appellation of Universal? Who, I ask, is proposed for imitation in this wrongful title but he who, despising the legions of angels constituted socially with himself, attempted to start up to an eminence of singularity, that he might seem to be under none and to be alone above all?” This terrible rebuke can now be addressed in full to the popes of Rome, who claim the right of primacy and authority over all their fellow bishops. “Certainly Peter, the first of the Apostles, himself a member of the holy and universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, — what were they but heads of particular communities? And yet all were members under one Head. And (to bind all together in a short girth of speech) the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the Lord’s Body, were constituted as members of the Church, and not one of them has wished himself to be called universal. Now let Your Holiness acknowledge to what extent you swell within yourself in desiring to be called by that name by which no one presumed to be called who was truly holy. Was it not the case, as Your Fraternity knows, that the prelates of this Apostolic See which by the providence of God I serve, were offered to be called universal by the venerable Council of Chalcedon, purely honorifically?” (Here, Saint Gregory, Pope of Rome, permits use of the title “Ecumenical” if it is not with regard to authority and real primacy over the universal Church, but rather honorifically, as the Eastern Orthodox Church uses it when calling the patriarchs of Constantinople “Ecumenical.)

“The Church is now dividing over this vainglorious title and the hearts of all the brethren are disturbed by doubts.” Then, in his letter to Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria, he says the following about this title: “Though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places is the See of one. For he himself exalted the See in which he deigned even to rest and end the present life. He himself adorned the See to which he sent his disciple as evangelist. He himself established the See in which, though he was to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since then it is the See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you, this I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your merits, since we are one in Him Who says, ‘That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee that they also may be one in Us’” (John 17. See Book 7, Letter 37).

And in his letter to the Emperor Maurice, “Now I boldly say that whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Bishop, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist.” These are indeed bold words, but they apply perfectly to the popes of Rome now, who by word and deed seek to make themselves universal bishops and in addition claim something even more heinous, that they are representatives of Christ and vicars of God on earth (see Book 6, Letter 30). This is what Saint Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, believed and taught, although he was no less zealous than his predecessors and successors for the grandeur and importance of the See of Rome. We have merely quoted him here to remind his current successor, Pope Leo XIII. We also address to him these words of this same holy predecessor of his and say to him: “I write this not against you, but for your sake, because I cannot prefer anyone over the commandments of the Gospel and the canons of the Church” (see Book 4, Letter 38).

This is what has occurred to us to present publicly about that part of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical in which he addresses our Eastern Orthodox Church. While we admit its inadequacy relative to what the excellent scholars and illustrious writers of our Church have written and will write in this regard, we think it is sufficient for anyone who sets aside prejudice and glances at the claim of Pope Leo XIII. Therefore, we will close in the same way that the professor of theology that the University of Athens Diomedes Kyriakos closed his letter that he wrote last year — that is, before the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical — which was almost prescient about the vacuous claims that this letter would bring to us, which have been known for a long time.

He said, “The end of the story is that wherever papism reigns, there reigns spiritual, ethical and intellectual corruption. True history bears witness and daily experience confirms that in fact, the place where the greatest enemies of the Christian religion have appeared is the Catholic country of France, home to the chief of unbelievers, Voltaire. Yes, we do not deny the existence of corruption also in Protestant countries like England, Germany, Switzerland and Holland, as well as in Orthodox countries such as Greece, since it is natural that wherever there are humans, there is corruption. No matter how great the strength of the Christian religion, it cannot transform groups of humans into groups of angels. Whatever the case may be, the corruption of the Catholic peoples such as the French, the Italians, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the South Americans, especially in Paris, Rome, Madrid and Naples, surpasses the level of exaggeration and excess. This is also one of the reasons that causes the peoples of the East constantly to reject any submission to papal authority. In such a case, it is necessary for the bishops of Rome to understand this matter very well and, from now on, cease taking the trouble of their numerous publications, various appeals, broad claims and their inciting us to the union of the churches — that is, the submission of the Eastern Church to the Western Church. We have repeatedly discussed this issue, so now let us also say that so long as the peoples of the East are of sound mind, it is impossible for them to follow the path that leads to Rome, nor shall they, so long as the sun rises and night follows day.”

Is the passage of time but a night and its day…

The rising of the sun and its setting?

Written in the God-protected city of Kazan, December, 1894.

[1] Those Orthodox Arabs who wish to know the true causes of the schism in detail should consult the History of the Schism by the Rev Archimandrite Gerasimus Masarra. I mentioned the reasons in brief in our translation of the booklet of the Rev Vasily Mikhailovsky, under the title A Historical Glance at the Errors of the Papist Church, Kazan, 1894.