It was, of course, Constantine himself
who had moved the seat of his government from Rome to Byzantium, which city he
then re-named in his own honor. He seems himself to have referred to his newly
named Constantinople also as New Rome. If the previous canon made no
mention of prerogatives, patriarchal in nature, of the Bishop of Rome,
certainly it is because the Council was concerning itself only with the East.
As noted in the introduction to the present section, First Constantinople was
not intended to be an Ecumenical Council, and was purely Eastern in its
convocation and its sessions.
However, it is also a fact that by the
time of First Constantinople there was a certain amount of jealousy of Rome
among the Bishops of the East. The present canon claims only a primacy of
honor, and after that of Rome. Nevertheless, the reasoning behind the canon is
political in nature, and suggests in some way that ecclesiastical authority can
be gained or lost with empires. Certainly this is a canon which Rome must look
upon with a jaundiced eye. Moreover, the canon is prejudicial to Alexandria and
Antioch, which by the sixth canon of Nicaea, were ranked in second and third
place after Rome. Of course, Rome, when it recognized Constantinople as an
Ecumenical Council, accepted only its dogmatic pronouncement that the Creed of
Nicaea must remain, an otherwise rejected the canons. The 28th canon of
Chalcedon, which affirmed the 3rd Canon of Constantinople and declared that it
meant the Bishop of New Rome held an honor equal to that of the Bishop of Old
Rome was likewise rejected in Old Rome.
When in 869 A.D., the 21st Canon of
the Eighty Ecumenical Council, the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople,
again reiterated the list of those sees which by that time was patriarchal in
the proper sense, and again placed Constantinople immediately after Rome and
ahead of Alexandira, Antioch, and Jerusalem, the papal legates made no
objection. This was the first time Rome had accepted in theory that
Constantinople was second to Rome. This same canon, however, treated the matter
in a much different context, and was directed to protecting Rome and the other
Patriarchates from civil encroachments. But even though Rome accepted in theory
in 869 A.D. that the Bishop of Constantinople was second in honor to the Bishop
of Rome, it was not until the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 A.D. that
the second place was ever actually given to a Bishop of Constantinople,--and
then it was given to the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople! Only in 1439 A.D.,
at the Council of Florence, was a second place of honor given to the Greek
Patriarch of Constantinople. (William A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early
Fathers, 3 vols. [Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1970], 1:400-1
n. 12)
