Orthodox-Catholic Talks on Pope’s Authority Continue

Pope Leo xiv and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew are preparing to meet later this year to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. In the meantime, a group of theologians is trying to resolve a long-standing dispute between the Catholic and Orthodox churches over papal infallibility. The Coordinating Committee of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue met from September 8 to 12 in Rethymno, Crete, to tackle this issue and announced it will have a draft ready to review next year.

Papal infallibility has been a thorny issue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches because the Catholic position on the issue has evolved over the centuries. When the Roman emperor Constantine i called the First Council of Nicaea in a.d. 325, only three patriarchs were recognized as having authority over wider areas: the patriarch of Alexandria, the patriarch of Antioch and the patriarch of Rome. A patriarch of Constantinople was recognized in a.d. 381, and a patriarch of Jerusalem was recognized in a.d. 451. The laws of Emperor Justinian (a.d. 527–565) recognized the bishop of Rome as having primacy over the four Eastern patriarchs, but disputes over exactly what powers such “primacy” allowed the bishop of Rome to wield continued for centuries.

These disputes culminated in a Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054. Rather than recognizing the authority of Eastern patriarchs, the Catholic Church declared that when a pope speaks ex cathedra, his teaching is infallible. This doctrine of “papal infallibility” was not formalized until the First Vatican Council in 1870, which was not recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Now that 1,700 years have passed since the Council of Nicaea, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church want to reunify. Doing so requires both churches to agree on the role the bishop of Rome plays in the church, so Cardinal Kurt Koch and Metropolitan Job of Pisidia have been tasked with generating ideas on how to handle papal infallibility and other divisive issues. The late Pope Francis made a lot of progress toward healing the Great Schism, and Pope Leo xiv wants to continue his work.

There is a lot of skepticism about whether Cardinal Koch and Metropolitan Job can create proposals acceptable to both churches. Yet one reliable source dogmatically says Rome and Constantinople will reunite. It’s a source that both Catholic and Orthodox Christians claim as their heritage: the Holy Bible.

“Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate” (Isaiah 47:1). A woman is used in the Bible as symbolism for a church (Ephesians 5:22-23, 32; 2 Corinthians 11:2). This “woman” is a “daughter of Babylon.”

Babylon was the political and spiritual capital of the ancient world. This church fulfills a similar role in the modern day. Isaiah 47:5 calls this woman the “lady of kingdoms.” She has enough power to rule from her own throne.

This woman is clearly the Roman Catholic Church.

Now notice verse 8: “Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.” If the Catholic Church is the mother, then who would be the children? The churches that left her authority long ago and have since grown up, churches like the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The November 1963 Plain Truth made this prediction based on prophecies like Isaiah 47:

The final—albeit short-lived—triumph of Catholicism is recorded in literally dozens of Bible prophecies. Right now—whether we want to believe it or not—the stage is being set for the greatest revolution in religion the world has witnessed. … The mighty problem of achieving unity is twofold. First, it involves reconciliation of the Orthodox Schism that officially commenced in 1054 and divided the churches in the East …. Second, it involves restoration to the Roman Communion all Protestantism which developed from 1517 onward.

This may have seemed unlikely in 1963. But today, we’re seeing leaders of the Orthodox world openly speak about unity with the Catholic Church. To learn more about the Bible-based predictions made by the Plain Truth and its editor in chief, Herbert W. Armstrong, request our free booklet He Was Right. Chapter 3, “Returning to the Fold,” is especially relevant regarding Catholic and Orthodox reunion.