Pope Leo considered null and void
the hijacking of Ephesus in 449, but he was aware that he could not annul his
council on his own authority. This is why he proposed that the emperor convoke
a new council (which he would have liked to have seen held in Italy, but failed
to achieve). It is clear that Leo, despite his trenchant assertions, was not an
autocrat. He took his decisions in agreement with the Roman synod. In his
letter of confirmation of Chalcedon he called the members of the Council “his
brothers and co-bishops.” (Leo the Great, Epistula 69, PL 54, 892) He always
sought a consensus from the college of bishops and from the universal Church.
His representatives certainly affirmed that the church of Rome “is the head of
all the churches” (A[cta]C[onciliorum]O[ecumenicorum] II/I, 65) and its bishop
the ”archbishop of all the churches”—in Latin: “Pope of the universal Church.”
(ACO II/I, 2, 93) But this title is easily misunderstood, for Leo never claimed
the right to govern as bishop each of the individual churches. Rather he
understood his authority as bearing an essential witness to the truth, which he
himself said, did not belong to him: it was the faith of the Church as the
apostle Peter first proclaimed it. (Leo the Great, Epistula 69, PL 54, 892)
That is why he was pleased that his “Tome” was acknowledged by the council,
“confirmed,” he wrote, “by the undisputed accord of the entire assembly of
brethren.” (Leo the Great, Epistula 120, PL 54, 1046-1047) (Olivier Clément, You
Are Peter: An Orthodox Theologian’s Reflection on the Exercise of Papal Primacy
[trans. M. S. Laird; Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2003], 46-47)
