The work is from his French original Le Siège apostolique, but I obtained an English citation from Fr. Yves Congar, OP in his “The First Nine Hundred Years”
I believe that the East had a very poor conception of the Roman primacy. The East did not see in it what Rome herself saw and what the West saw in Rome, that is to say, a continuation of the primacy of St. Peter. The Bishop of Rome was more than the successor of Peter on his cathedra, he was Peter perpetuated, invested with Peter’s responsibility and power. The East never understood this perpetuity. St. Basil ignored it, as did St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom. In the writings of the great Eastern Fathers, the authority of the Bishop of Rome is an authority of singular grandeur, but in these writings it is not considered so by divine right. It is regrettable that so fundamental an issue was not settled by full discussion and by an ecumenical council during the centuries when there was still union.
Yves Congar, O.P., After Nine Hundred Years: The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches (Chevetogne: Fordham University Press, 1959), 62
Could you provide the reference to the work of Msgr. Pierre Battifoe (spelling?)? Thanks.
On Msgr. Batiffol:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Batiffol
The work is from his French original Le Siège apostolique, but I obtained an English citation from Fr. Yves Congar, OP in his “The First Nine Hundred Years”
I believe that the East had a very poor conception of the Roman primacy. The East did not see in it what Rome herself saw and what the West saw in Rome, that is to say, a continuation of the primacy of St. Peter. The Bishop of Rome was more than the successor of Peter on his cathedra, he was Peter perpetuated, invested with Peter’s responsibility and power. The East never understood this perpetuity. St. Basil ignored it, as did St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. John Chrysostom. In the writings of the great Eastern Fathers, the authority of the Bishop of Rome is an authority of singular grandeur, but in these writings it is not considered so by divine right. It is regrettable that so fundamental an issue was not settled by full discussion and by an ecumenical council during the centuries when there was still union.
Yves Congar, O.P., After Nine Hundred Years: The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches (Chevetogne: Fordham University Press, 1959), 62