Speaking of the various canons in the early councils, such as Canon 28 from Chalcedon (the Fourth Ecumenical Council) and the canon 36 of the Quinisext Council ("the Council 'in Trullo'") that appear to conflict with the bishop and/or church at Rome as having a special primacy that was dogmatised in 1870, and their reception in Rome itself, one Eastern Orthodox scholar wrote:
Some contemporary Catholic theologians and historians write that these canons, namely canon 28 of the Fourth Council and canon 36 of the Council “in Trullo,” “had never been esteemed in Rome, where they were ignored when not openly opposed.”
Certainly, it must be admitted that these canons, hardly esteemed and even ignored by Rome, were nonetheless introduced into the Latin canonical collections as early as the beginning of the sixth century. In fact, they were found in the Dyonisiana (version 2). They were later taken up again and published in the canonical collection written by another canonist among our Daco-Roman ancestors, namely, Saint Martin of Bracara (Braga, in Portugal), after 550, and also in the Hispana (Isidorian version, seventh century).
On the other hand, in the Dionysio-Hadriana (Codex canonum ecclesiasticorum, sive Codex canonum vetus Ecclesiae Romanae) (cf. PL 67:170-72)—sent by Pope Hadrian I (772-795) to Charlemagne, king of the Franks—canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (cf. PL 67:176) cannot be found, and even less so canon 36, because the ecumenicity of the Council “in Trullo” had been totally rejected from that canonical collection.
On the contrary, we find the canons of the Council of Sardica (343), which were missing in the Dionysiana (version 2) and which had been included after the canons of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (cf. PL 67:176-182)
Some Catholic historians and canonists attest that the said canons (canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council; canon 28 of the Fourth Council “in Trullo”) were known in the West. For example, Professor G.M. Diétz writes that these canons were known in Spain and in other Western countries, thanks also to the Hispana (Isidorian version), written during the second half of the fourth century, which uses the canonical sources offered in the Dionysiana. The same researcher of ancient canonical collections writes that even the council of Spain—for example, the one gathered in Barcelona in 540—cite expressly the canons of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. (Nicolae Durã, “The ‘Petrine Primacy’: The Role of the Bishop of Rome According to the Canonical Legislation of the Ecumenical Councils of the First Millennium, An Ecclesiological-Canonical Evaluation” in Walter Kasper, ed. The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue [New York: The Newman Press, 2006], 159-87, here, pp. 179-81)
