Primacy of Peter, The

In considering the issue which has divided Christians in the past and still divides them today, a group of Orthodox theologians from different theological perspectives reflect upon the scriptural passages which single out Peter among the disciples of Jesus. Koulomzine (“Peter’s Place in the Primitive Church”) and Kesich (“Peter’s Primacy in the New Testament and the Early Tradition”), as exegetes, read the passages in the light of contemporary New Testament research. John Meyendorff (“St Peter in Byzantine Theology”) looks at the history of exegesis: how were these passages read at the time when East and West split, quarrelling about the issue of authority in the Church? Finally, Schmemann (“The Idea of Primacy in Orthodox Ecclesiology”) and Afanassieff (“The Church Which Presides in Love”) look at the meaning of “primacy” as a permanent, through changing, factor of “catholic” ecclesiology.

At a time when an ecumenical reconciliation between Rome and Eastern Christianity appears possible’but when new tensions (or are they actually the old ones?) are surging again’these studies set forth the Orthodox position of the primacy of Peter.

CONTRIBUTORS: John Meyendorff is dean and professor of church history and patristics at St Vladimir’s Seminary; Alexander Schmemann (1983) was dean of St Vladimir’s Seminary and taught church history and liturgical theology (1962-1983); Nicholas Afanassieff (1966) was a professor of canon law and church history at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris; Nicholas Koulomzine is a professor of New Testament at the Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris; Veselin Kesich is professor emeritus of New Testament at St Vladimir’s Seminary.

John Meyendorff