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Thread: The papacy
Ryan McGee
#1
Jruzi wrote:
Hey Guys,
Just wondering if someone who is more knowledgable can debunk some of the things that I've seen online regarding papal supremacy. Thanks.
Ultimately, and in the end, Pope Stephen and the Tradition of the Church prevailed over St. Cyprian and his council of 256. The Latin Father Vincent of Lerins sums it up this way:
Agrippinus [Cyprian] of venerable memory, who was once bishop of Carthage, first of all mortals, against the divine Canon, against the rule of the Universal Church, against the opinion of all his fellow priests, against the custom and institutions of the elders, thought that rebaptism ought to be practiced... Then Pope Stephen of blessed memory, bishop of the Apostolic See, together indeed with the rest of his colleagues but more than the others, resisted, thinking it fitting, I think, that he exceed all the rest as much by the devotion of his faith as he did by the authority of his place. What happened in the end? What force was there in the African Council or decree? By God’s gift, none. Everything, as if a dream or a story, was trampled upon as if useless, abolished, superseded... [PL 50: 645-6]
Pope St. Julius[337-352] restored Athanasius to his see. In the text I provided in my opening statement Julius said it was necessary for the Eusebians[Arians] to go to Rome first “that what is just be decreed from here” If the Eusebians had a problem with Athanasius they were to go to Rome first because these were the “ordinances” of Paul and the Fathers. The Eusebian depositions had to be referred to and agreed upon by Rome according to Pope Julius not because of a Primacy of Honor but because “we have received from the blessed apostle Peter” and they were the ordinances of Paul and the Fathers. In other words, it is the Sacred Tradition of the Church to do so.
Here is the website link. http://www.americancatholictruthsociety.com/articles/primacy/jerryrebut1.htm
My spiritual fr did a sermon today on St Stephen and I was curious to read about him a little more and found this website.
Regarding the issue of \"rebaptism,\" St. Cyprian had the support of the greater number of bishops in North Africa, along with some bishops in Asia Minor. He was not the first of mortals to practice \"rebaptism\"; earlier in Tertullian the tradition already is clearly established.
While the teaching of Pope Stephen became the norm for the West (as reflected in St. Augustine and St. Vincent of Lerins) the issue was not the same for the East. St. Basil the Great, in his first canonical epistle (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xvii.xi.html), provides a reasoning similiar to that of St. Cyprian, all the while maintaining an economy that takes into account how other bishops handle the situation differently. The canonical epistles of St. Basil were adopted into the canons of the Quinisext Council (Council in Trullo) and so remain of particular significance for Eastern Orthodox.
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