Roman Catholicism (RC), Eastern Orthodoxy (EO), and Oriental Orthodoxy (OO)

[choy]

I think I'd have to disagree. I can't see how a universal bishop can ever be a legitimate development. If the Pope is universal bishop then surely no other bishop is really bishop at all. I can absolutely see a single bishop as head bishop within (not over) the Church as a possibly acceptable development (which is I guess what we would say the primacy of Rome should be) but he still needs to be subject to the Church and not the other way around.

James

Sorry, I don't men universal in that way.  But universal that he is somewhat a "Patriarch of Patriarchs".  Definitely not in the current authority of the Pope of Rome, but similar to what a Patriarch is today, but over the whole Church.

[choy]

I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the idea of giving any bishop the power to unilaterally fire and appoint ruling bishops is beyond the pale of Orthodox ecclesiology. Even Metropolitans and Patriarchs can't do that.

According to Fr. John Meyendorff's book, it isn't.  Given that Metropolitans and Patriarchs did not exist in the early Church, a universal Bishop like the Pope is an acceptable development the same way we eventually developed the Metropolitan and Patriarch.  Of course it has to be in agreement with everyone and also something we admit that is a development in ecclesiology, not something divinely instituted as Rome claims.

But Metropolitans and Patriarchs are just bishops tasked with presiding at meetings of particular local synods. There have always been bishops, and there have always been synods. But the idea of a Pope, to whom all other bishops are essentially auxiliaries, is a fundamental attack on Orthodox ecclesiology. Look up the outcry when the Patriarchate of Antioch made all its bishops (not all the bishops in the world, as you seem to be advocating, just all its own bishops) essentially auxiliaries.

Then there is the ROC Patriarch.

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