The Medieval Period
If the early fourth century marks the end of the period of persecutions and the Church's formative age, it also marks the dawn of the medieval period. With the fourth century we are standing on the threshold of a new civilization -- the Christian empire of medieval Byzantium. Clearly, Constantine's recognition of Christianity was decisive. Equally momentous doubtless was his decision to transfer the imperial residence -- the center of Roman government -- to Constantinople in 330. The importance of this event in the history of Eastern Christianity can hardly be exaggerated. This capital situated in the old Greek city of Byzantium, soon became the focus of the new emerging Orthodox civilization. Historical opinion remains divided on the question of Byzantium's contribution to civilization. Still, its lasting legacy lies arguably in the area of religion and art; it is these which give Byzantine culture much of its unity and cohesion. The new cultural synthesis that developed was at any rate clearly Christian, dominated by the Christian vision of life, rather than the pagan. We need only turn to Justinian's (532) "Great Church" of the Holy Wisdom -- the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople -- to understand this. But if Constantinople, the "New Rome" became the setting for this new civilization, it also became the unrivaled center of Orthodox Christianity. It is during this pivotal period in the history of the Church that the city's bishop assumed the title of "ecumenical patriarch."
The Pentarchy
To sum up, by the fifth century, a "pentarchy" or system of five sees (patriarchates), with a settled order of precedence, had been established. Rome, as the ancient center and largest city of the empire, was understandably given the presidency or primacy of honor within the pentarchy into which Christendom was now divided. Plainly, this system of patriarchs and metropolitans was exclusively the result of ecclesiastical legislation; there was nothing inherently divine in its origin. None of the five sees, in short, possessed its authority by divine right. Had this been so, Alexandria could not have been demoted to third rank in order to have Constantinople exalted to second place. The determining factor was simply their secular status as the most important cities in the empire. Typically, each of the five patriarchs was totally sovereign within his sphere of jurisdiction. The primacy of Rome, as such, did not entail universal jurisdictional power over the others. On the contrary, all bishops, whether patriarchs or not, were equal. No one bishop, however exalted his see or diocese, could claim supremacy over the others. The bishop of Rome was simply vested with the presidency, as the senior bishop - the first among equals.
History of the Orthodox Church
Pope Boniface III
Pope Boniface III, of Roman extraction and the son of John Cataadioce, was elected to succeed Sabinian after an interregnum of nearly a year; he was consecrated 19 February, 607; d. 12 November of the same year. He had been ordained a deacon of the Roman Church, and in 603 sent by Gregory the Great as apocrisiarius, or legate, to the court of Constantinople, where, by his tact and prudence, he appears to have gained the favourable regard of the Emperor Phocas. After his elevation to the See of Rome, Boniface obtained a decree from Phocas, against Cyriacus, Bishop of Constantinople, by which it was ordained, that "the See of Blessed Peter the Apostle should be the head of all the Churches", and that the title of "Universal Bishop" belonged exclusively to the Bishop of Rome–an acknowledgment somewhat similar to that made by Justinian eighty years before (Novell., 131, c. ii, tit. xiv). At Rome Boniface held a council, attended by seventy-two bishops and all the Roman clergy, wherein he enacted a decree forbidding anyone under pain of excommunication, during the lifetime of a pope or of a bishop, to treat of or to discuss the appointment of his successor, and setting forth that no steps were to be taken to provide for a successor until three days after the burial of the deceased. The acts of the council are lost, and it is not known what may have been the occasion for the decree. Pope Boniface was a man "of tried faith and character" (St. Greg., ep. xiii, 41). He died within a year of his elevation and was buried in St. Peter's. His epitaph is found in the works of Duchesne and Mann
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02660b.htm
Report on Papal Prerogatives and Titles
Our knowledge of the papacy before the year 300 is rather fragmentary, and that holds true for papal titles as well as for other matters. Before the middle of the second century, one cannot speak with confidence of there being a single pope in Rome. Two of the earliest known titles are episcopus and papa. Episcopus, from the Greek for "overseer," came to designate the leader of a Christian community. Papa, or "pope," is a title of respect meaning "father," and, like episcopus, was common to other leaders in the early church. Cyprian, for example, was addressed as papa, and the bishop of Alexandria claimed the title as well. The Greek word papas, equivalent to the Latin papa, could be (and still is) used to address any priest. (On the title papa, see also P. De Labriolle, "Papa," Bulletin du Cange 4 (1928): 65-73.)
Around the year 250, the issue of Petrine primacy was first raised in a dispute following the Decian persecution. The pope at the time argued that his position should carry greater weight because, as bishop of Rome, he was the successor of Peter. The claim of apostolic succession was not unique in itself: other bishops traced their authority back to the apostolic foundation of their sees. The bishop of Rome claimed to have special privileges on the basis of Rome being the burial place of St. Peter, as well as St. Paul. It is hard to measure the extent to which this concept was accepted, and what implications people outside of Rome would have drawn from it. Schimmelpfennig argues that the idea of the bishop of Rome being the successor of Peter was widely accepted by the fourth century, but that the popes had difficulty in drawing advantage from their position until much later (B. Schimmelpfennig, The Papacy (New York: Columbia Press, 1992), 12-14).
Throughout the 300 years that followed the conversion of Constantine, the period known as "late antiquity," the bishop of Rome coexisted and competed for authority with bishops throughout the Mediterranean world, which until the Arab conquests of the mid-seventh century, remained at least nominally unified. While Rome was always accorded a primacy of honor, in practice other bishops, particularly in the east, did not see that as impinging on their own jurisdiction. Relations between Rome and Constantinople were strained over such things as the taking of the title "ecumenical patriarch" by the bishop of Constantinople. While some popes, such as Leo I (440-461), saw it simply as meaning that the patriarch was part of the empire and even took the title for the papacy, Gregory I (590-604) took offense to that title as a sign of arrogance, and suggested servus servorum dei, "servant of the servants of God," as a proper alternative (Schimmelpfennig, 69-70; see also S. Kuttner, "Universal Pope or Servant of God’s Servants: The Canonists, Papal Titles, and Innocent III," Revue de Droit Canonique 32 (1981): 109-149.). The title pontifex, "high priest" or (literally) "bridge-builder," had been held by Roman emperors as a symbol of their authority over religious matters. Christian emperors relinquished the title Pontifex Maximus as too closely tied with the pagan past (Schimmelpfennig, 34). Bishops, including the bishop of Rome, sometime thereafter, began to make use of pontifex as a title for themselves. The earliest use of pontifex summus to refer to the pope listed in Niermeyer’s Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus is from the "Leonine Sacramentary" of the late sixth century. The title pontifex continued to be a title for both the bishop of Rome and other bishops. (Thus a pontifical is a liturgical book which contains prayers and directions for episcopal liturgies.) For much of the early middle ages, roughly 600-1000, the papacy seems largely to have turned in on itself, focusing on ecclesiastical matters in Italy and the administration of Rome and the surrounding regions. Most popes were either Italian nobles or members of Greek families prominent in the administration of Byzantine Italy. Thus we do not see much development in terms of papal prerogatives and titles until the eleventh century. During this time, however, precedents were set concerning the relation of the papacy with German imperial powers, particularly the right of the pope to crown the Holy Roman Emperor. That precedent, combined with the Donation of Constantine, led to an increase in imperial trappings at papal events in the early eleventh century. The emperor, for example, was expected to lead the pope’s white horse at ceremonies in which both appeared to reflect the emperor’s subordination to the pope. This period also saw the beginnings of the tradition that saints had to be canonized by the pope for their cults to be legal, though canonization would not become a requirement until the thirteenth century (Schimmelpfennig, 118-9, 128 ). The Gregorian Reform represented both an attempt to free the church from lay interference and an attempt to raise the standing of the papacy within the church. Popes began to assume a more active jurisdictional authority over local churches. Along with that came more exalted language to describe the papacy. Gregory VII’s (1073-1085) Register contains a document titled Dictatus pape, several of the clauses of which reflect this new emphasis: "That only the Roman bishop may rightfully be called universal," "That he alone may use imperial insignia," "That his name alone may be recited in churches," "That this name is unique in the world," "That the Roman bishop, if canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made holy by the merits of Saint Peter…." (Registrum Gregorii VII, ed. E. Caspar, MGH, Ep. sel. t. 2, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1891-9), quoting from Reg. 2.55a.) The first of these clauses especially seems to contradict the precedent set by Gregory I, who had argued against the propriety of such a title. During the twelfth century, there was a continual enlargement of the papacy’s sphere of action, and along with that a growing emphasis placed upon the universality of the pope’s jurisdiction. For example, popes tried to increase their control over the appointment of bishops. Letters emphasized the plenitudo potestatis of the papacy, and the papacy came to be seen as the chief appellate court of Christian Europe. In keeping with this image of supreme judge and lawgiver, popes began to receive a purple mantle at the time of their consecration as bishops of Rome, and eventually this consecration came to be called a coronation. It is in the same period that the papal staff came to be known as the Curia, a term taken from the sphere of secular government (Schimmelpfennig, 135-8). Innocent III (1198-1216) in many ways represents the culmination of this process. He was the first to emphasize the role of the pope as Vicar of Christ. While previous popes had been content with tracing their authority back to Peter, Innocent took the "genealogy" a step further (Schimmelpfennig, 181). Innocent also expanded papal prerogatives of appointment to include reservations for benefices, a right that would be consistently expanded by the Avignon popes. It was also in Innocent’s time that the papacy began to issue charters for universities. In the aftermath of the Great Western Schism (1378-1415), attempts were made by reformers to curtail some of the papal prerogatives, particularly those relating to appointment to benefices. Ultimately these reforms failed, for lack of political support and because once the popes re-established themselves in Rome, they regained much of their earlier strength (Schimmelpfennig, 184, 204-5, 233-6). In conclusion, the language used to describe the papacy reflects its claims to power. Before the papacy had developed its extensive jurisdiction during the high middle ages, its titles for the most part were those used by other bishops, such as papa and episcopus. Once popes had extended their jurisdiction, more exalted titles, such as Vicar of Christ, began to be used, and papal ceremony took on imperial trappings.
Catholic University of Washington