Part 1 — Introduction
Part 2 — The Council of Nicaea (325)
Part 3 — The Council of Constantinople (381)
Part 4 — The Council of Ephesus (431)
Part 5 — The Council of Chalcedon (451)
Part 6 — Leo
Part 7 — Conclusion
This is part 3 of our series discussing Lawrence McCready’s article “Papal Primacy in the First Councils” from the Unam Sanctam Catholicam blog. Today, we will discuss Canons 2 and 3 of the Council of Constantinople, in 381AD.
The Council of Constantinople
The Second Ecumenical Council (381) lends further credence to the Catholic position on the papacy. Here are Canon 2 and Canon 3 from this Council:
Canon 2: The bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone, the privileges of the Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nicaea, being preserved; and let the bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the Asian affairs only; and the Pontic bishops only Pontic matters; and the Thracian bishops only Thracian affairs. And let not bishops go beyond their dioceses for ordination or any other ecclesiastical ministrations, unless they be invited. And the aforesaid canon concerning dioceses being observed, it is evident that the synod of every province will administer the affairs of that particular province as was decreed at Nicaea. But the Churches of God in heathen nations must be governed according to the custom which has prevailed from the times of the Fathers.
Canon 3: The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honor after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome.
Having read this series so far, something in particular should immediately pop out at you. A red flag, if you will. I marked it in bold.
Canon 3
Constantinople officially became “New Rome” in 330AD, when Constantine moved the Capital from Rome to Constantinople. As we discussed in Part 2, Rome was part of the Diocese of Italy. But, despite being the capital city, Rome was not the chief metropolis in the Diocese. That honor went to Milan. So what about Constantinople?
In 381, during the First Council of Constantinople, the city of Constantinople was located in the Diocese of Thrace. This was during the reign of Emperor Theodosius I. But, like Old Rome, New Rome was not the chief metropolis of the Diocese of Thrace. In the Roman Empire, that honor went to Philippopolis. In ecclesiastical terms, that honor went to Heraclea, or as it would shortly become known, Heraclea Perinthus. That is why the early Bishops of Constantinople were ordained by the Metropolitan of Thrace (in Heraclea), showing his jurisdictional primacy in ecclesiastical matters within the whole of the Diocese of Thrace.
So just we saw in Nicaea with Alexandria in 325AD, we now see with Constantinople in 381AD:
The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honor after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome.
This is actually a really important ruling, because the Bishop of Constantinople had no previously established right to take jurisdiction away from the Bishop of Heraclea. The Council made its ruling that, because Rome got its own limited jurisdiction within Italy, now New Rome should, presumptively, be given its own limited jurisdiction within Thrace.
By the rights previously established, New Rome should have gotten nothing for its own, remaining entirely under the authority of the Metropolitan of the Diocese of Thrace. But, with this ruling, now New Rome could perform ordinations without consulting the Metropolitan of Thrace. New Rome also gained the right to hear certain appeals (as described in the Council of Sardica).
The “prerogative of honor” is that New Rome got something (e.g. ordinations and appeals) instead of nothing at all, just as the Bishop of Rome got something instead of nothing at all. Purportedly, this was on account of being an Apostolic See or one of the so-called Petrine Sees. The reality was that the metropolis of Rome had been the royal seat.
Canon 2
Now, let’s go back and discuss Canon 2.
This Canon is important because it establishes that Bishops must stay within their jurisdictions unless invited to do so by a Bishop in another jurisdiction. The council even cites the Nicaean precedent! But before we get to that, we have to talk about the context of Canon 2:
…and…
But the Churches of God in heathen nations must be governed according to the custom which has prevailed from the times of the Fathers.
We can see from this that two things are occuring.
First, Canon 2 is concerned with establishing jurisdictions in terms of—or as exceptions to—the Roman civil Dioceses. The “aforesaid canon” was explicitly concerned with ecclesiastical jurisdictions in terms of civil dioceses and their boundaries. It wasn’t primarily concerned about other types of jurisdictions. The topic of the “aforesaid canon” is dioceses.
Second, Canon 2 does not apply to the heathen territories. These ecclesiastical territories will continue to be governned according the previously established rules and boundaries. Thus, the topic under consideration by the council was whether or not to maintain a non-diocesan, provincial ecclesiastical structure across the whole Empire.
When one combines the first and second topics, the clear implication is that the Council of Constantinople was, at the very least, establishing at least one new diocesan boundary in the non-heathen territory that had been previously been defined by its provincial layout. There would be no sense in talking about heathen territories remaining unchanged if the non-heathen territories were also remaining unchanged.
Third, the jurisdictions of the churches in the heathen nations were the same as that established in the ancient times of the Fathers of the church. Logically, this implies that the diocesan boundaries were not ancient. This is, of course, a simple acknowledgment that the not-so-ancient Diocletian reorganization of 293AD was finally being embraced by the church in 381AD to replace what had come before it.
Fourth, if you had to sumarrize Canon 2 in one sentence, you might say something like this:
Now, let’s talk about the Nicaean precedent:
A great many people read this and conclude that Nicaea gave the Diocese of Egypt (presumably made up of the provinces of Libya, Egypt, and the Pentapolis) to Alexandria. We cited one such example in Part 2:
Second, considering the logic of the canon, an interpretation that renders the canon something to the effect, …
…is a non-sequitur fallacy. In other words, it is irrelevant if the Bishop of Rome governs Italy, since that says nothing about who should rule elsewhere and especially what land they should govern.
McCready objected to this because he saw a logical fallacy. But he completely missed that the Bishop of Alexandra was absolutely not given rule over the Diocese of Egypt. Such a thing was historically impossible.
So, where did he arrive at this framing? It’s actually quite simple. McCready had read the Canon 2 of the Council of Constantinople:
According to the Nicaean canons, Alexandria is given a separate jurisdiction from Antioch. But Nicaea did not give Alexandria the Diocese of Egypt and Antioch the Diocese of Oriens. It gave Alexandria certain provinces within the Diocese of Oriens and gave Antioch everything, by default, that was not explicitly assigned elsewhere.
(This is why we stress that Antioch was given jurisdictional primacy over Alexandria, a point that will soon become relevant and central to Papal Roman Catholicism)
Now, this is important. In its context, the council didn’t actually say anything wrong when it said that the Nicaean canons gave Alexandria the Diocese of Egypt, even though the diocese didn’t even exist at the time. That’s because (as we reasoned above), the council was clearly establishing the new diocesan jurisdictional boundaries to replace the provincial ones (excluding the heathen nations, of course). It was able to cite Nicaea (while using modern terminology), not because Nicaea knew about the Diocese of Egypt, but because within the canons of Nicaea contained the authority of an ecumenical church council to define and redefine ecclesiastical boundaries and authority to conform to the changing civil organizational structure. The ancient provincial domain of Alexandria and the new Diocese of Egypt were close enough. So too was the previous domain within the old Diocese of Oriens close enough to the new Diocese of Oriens. The church would just simplify and use the latest civil Diocesan format. It made it much easier to define ecclesiastical jurisdictional boundaries according to the current civil organization.
While the Council of Constantinople did no wrong in modernizing its language, the same thing, however, cannot be said for those who interpreted its words.
Analysis of the Council
Notice that Canon 2 clearly references Canon 6 of Nicaea in regards to the jurisdiction and prerogatives of Alexandria and Antioch, yet no mention is made of an alleged “Patriarchate” or “jurisdiction of Italy” of the Bishop of Rome. This is quite odd if, in fact, Canon 6 was meant to be interpreted in the sense the Eastern Orthodox and Protestants assign to it. If, however, we grant the Catholic interpretation of Canon 6, the omission of Rome here makes perfect sense: No jurisdiction of Italy is mentioned because one did not exist. If it did exist, surely it would have been mentioned, along with those of Pontus, Thrace, Antioch, and Alexandria. While the Bishop of Rome is properly Bishop of the Roman Diocese, as Successor of Peter he also has a final jurisdiction over all other churches as well.
Canon 2 does not clearly reference Canon 6 “in regards to the jurisdiction and prerogatives of Alexandria and Antioch.” That is simply a false statement. There is one—and only one—reference to prerogatives and it is found in Canon 3 (not Canon 2) and refers only to Rome (not Alexandria and Antioch). Read it for yourself here. This is an elementary error. I have no idea how or why McCready made such a clearly incorrect statement, especially considering he made a number of editorial changes to his article a decade later.
Of course, Canon 2 does not mention the jurisdiction of Italy with respect to the Bishop of Rome. The Bishop of Rome, even as one of the so-called Petrine Sees, did not rule over the Diocese of Italy at the Council of Nicaea.
When Diocletian divided the empire at the end of the 3rd century, he divided it into 12 different dioceses. It is likely that McCready does not know this, but at the Council of Constantinople there were 13 different dioceses in the empire:
- Diocese of Asia
- Diocese of Pontica
- Diocese of Thrace
- Diocese of Macedonia
- Diocese of Dacia
- Diocese of Pannonia/Illyricum
- Diocese of Africa
- Diocese of Gaul/Viennensis/Septem Provinciæ
- Diocese of Spain
- Diocese of Britain
- Diocese of the East (out of Antioch)
- Diocese of Egypt (out of Alexandra)
- Diocese of Italy (out of Milan)
(Around the start of the 5th century, the Empire had been further divided into 14 different dioceses)
Canon 2 only mentions five of the thirteen dicoceses (Asia, Pontica, Thrace, Oriens, and Egypt), but its rules on diocesan jurisdiction (in theory) apply to all of them. What ties the dioceses mentioned together is their proximity to Constantinople and being in the East.
Contrary to the claims of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, the Council of Constantinople was clearly not ecumenical. The Western Church largely did not send representatives and the council was heavily biased towards the membership of the Eastern Church. Canon 3 was a simple Eastern jurisdictional matter, but the perception of the Canon would soon come to be viewed as a political power play against Rome, Alexandria, and even Antioch.
McCready alleges that Rome’s jurisdiction was not mentioned in the Canon. But, as previously noted when we discussed the Council of Nicaea, the jurisdiction of Rome was, in fact, stated explicitly: Rome (the city).
But Rome, like McCready, did not take Canon 3 as a simple eastern jurisdictional matter to be resolved by a non-ecumenical council. Rome responded as if the Church in Constantinople was trying to make a political power play for primacy in the church, a truly ludicrous proposition. Nevertheless, one year later, at the similarly non-ecumenical council of Rome, Damasus would make his own political move:
“the holy Roman church is given first place by the rest of the churches”
Ultimately, Damasus’ political maneuvering would prove more effective. Rome would, in the following decades and centuries, seize “the primacy” from the other contenders, including New Rome, as it inevitably must have done. But that’s a topic for another day.
And if that wasn’t enough, Canon 3 says the Bishop of Rome is of first rank, and that Constantinople being “New Rome” is thus to receive second rank among all the Bishops. This is utterly absurd if, indeed, there was an equality among the bishops, particularly an equality among Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch (i.e. the alternate reading of Canon 6). This only makes sense if Rome truly was of first rank and that this was universally understood the entire time. In other words, Canon 3 establishes that everybody already agreed that Rome was ranked first; Canon 3 simply establishes that Constantinople would now comes second.
No, it does not say that the Bishop of Rome is of first rank. Nor does it say that “New Rome” is second rank. Here is what Canon 3 says (it’s not that long!):
The preposition “after” here is the Greek word meta (μετά) and it is in the accusative. In Koine Greek, this is a very common idiomatic and standard way to indicate the temporal or sequential sense, especially in a non-abstract sense (i.e. a chronological sequence) when outside of eschatology. It typically refers to something that follows in temporal order.
Canon 3 is clearly talking about how New Rome is—chronically speaking—following after the way things were done in Rome. Since Rome got to be its own jurisdiction within its larger diocese, so too does New Rome now also get to be in its own jurisdiction with its larger diocese.
It is common for Rome to interpret this as “rank” and that New Rome was claiming to be “second rank” over Rome’s “first rank,” but this is not justified grammatically. Meta (μετά) in the accusative implies sequence and succession, not subordination. As suggested above, New Rome was vying to be the successor of Rome, not its subordinate. New Rome came after Old Rome both chronological sequence (i.e. in a temporal sense) and in terms of a hierarchical sequence (i.e. succession).
Notice how, in the Bible, the word meta is used in various forms 473 times and is never given by the concordances as “rank.” For example:
KJV: after(-ward), X that he again, against, among, X and, + follow, hence, hereafter, in, of, (up-)on, + our, X and setting, since, (un-)to, + together, when, with (+ -out) Often used in composition, in substantially the same relations of participation or proximity, and transfer or sequence
NASB: after, later, among, against, toward, together, accompanied
…
Often used adverbially; modified variously according to the case (genitive association, or accusative succession) with which it is joined;
By definition, a prerogative is a right or privilege that is exclusive to an individual or class. In claiming the prerogative of Rome, it is placing itself in the same class (or “relations of participation”) as Rome, not in a lower class. In order to claim Rome’s prerogative, it must be at least its equal (and possibly even its full successor or inheritor).
This is borne out by the logic of the analogy. The council clearly reasoned according to imperial categories. For example, Canon 2 reflects how the imperial diocesan structure was imported into ecclesiastical structure, mirroring the administration of the church with that of empire. In the same way, Canon 3 presumes that New Rome, having become the political and imperial successor of Old Rome, also becomes its ecclesiastical successor (i.e. not its subordinate, and, quite possibly, its replacement).
The ecclesiastical prerogatives granted to the Bishop of Constantinople by the Council were—obviously—grounded in the city’s imperial status as New Rome, following the same rationale that once applied to Rome.
The belief that Constantinople was putting itself second doesn’t even pass the basic smell test. Frankly, it smells like an ancient Roman propaganda campaign trying to put a spin on a (supposed) hostile anti-Roman decision by the “ecumenical” council. Unless you are Roman Catholic, I can’t even begin to imagine why you’d side with the Roman Catholic propaganda on this.
Why would the Council have used the example of imperial New Rome succeeding Old Rome completely if it wanted to make New Rome the ecclesiastical underling of Old Rome? Obviously, it would not. The negative response by Rome—in its Council of Rome the very next year—reflects its understanding that the Council of Constantinople had marked Constantinople as the successor of Rome, not its underling. I truly find it hard to believe that anyone could take McCready’s propaganda claim…
…and actually agree with it. Without Rome’s status as the royal seat, the Bishop of Rome stood to be completely replaced and to further lose Rome’s ancient jurisdiction completely.
More problematic is that within Canon 3 we see the seeds of what would blossom into an all out attack on the papacy, with the Patriarchate of Constantinople initiating a power-grab that would throw the Church into turmoil later. (3) As will be shown shortly, Canon 3 was never accepted by the popes, and for reasons other than what Protestants and Eastern Orthodox would expect.
What!? Of course Canon 3 contains the seeds of an all out attack on Rome! This is completely and utterly obvious. New Rome very clearly wanted to replace Rome as its direct successor. And, of course the Bishops of Rome didn’t approve of Canon 3’s death sentence upon the Bishopric of Rome.
The problem isn’t with McCready’s statement here, it is with his early statement claiming that Canon 3 put Constantinple as the “second rank” to Rome’s “first rank.” It did nothing of the sort.
As is often my practice, I am writing this series in realtime as I read the article I’m responding to. I have not read the whole article in advance, so I don’t know what is coming. This gives my writing a journalistic play-by-play feel that you may not find elsewhere (at least, until I go back and do final edits). Consequently, as I write this, I don’t know what “will be shown shortly.” I’m actually kind of excited to find out what it might be. Onward we go!
About That Footnote
(3) A reluctantly admitted and generally hushed historical fact of Eastern Orthodox history is that Constantinople did not have Apostolic Roots, meaning it was not founded by an Apostle like Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, and thus never held the authority that those others did. Instead, Constantinople was a purely political concoction, which became the main metropolis of the Roman Empire after the emperor Constantine established it in the middle of the fourth century. The leading Patriarchate of orthodoxy is ultimately an invention, and only rose to its prominence due to massive political pressure.
Of course Constantinople didn’t have apostolic roots! Neither did any of the ecclesiastical Dioceses have apostolic roots, and yet the civil diocese became the key ecclesiastical organizational and pastoral unit of today’s Roman Catholic church. But, as shown above, Nicaea clearly set the precedent that an ecumenical council has the legitimate authority to establish new domains of authority. An ecumenical council is fully within its rights to create a new jurisdiction under a new bishop anywhere it so pleases.
It has never bothered the Roman Catholic church that its key organizational structures are not apostolic in origin, so why would we expect it to bother the Eastern Orthodox? I can think of no reason why it would.
The fact of the matter is, the rise of Rome in Roman Catholicism was itself a purely political concoction. If we reject Constantinople, we must also reject Rome. Both arose together as political entities in the late 4th century, but only one of them could win and the ultimate winner was unambiguously Rome (as it was destined by prophecy to be).
One must be unimaginably naive to be criticizing the East for being a political entity while not doing the same of Rome, but here we are!