‘Il primato del Vescovo di Roma tra principî dogmatici e forme storiche di esercizio. Elementi per una comprensione condivisa tra le Chiese d’Oriente e d’Occidente’

For many centuries the concept of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome has been one of the aspects that divide the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Churches. The experience of the undivid¬ed Church of the first millennium is an example of coexistence in the communion that today is constantly referred to in theological reflection and ecumenical dialogue. If, on the one hand, it would be anachronistic to re-propose the experience of the first millennium as a model of feasible organization in the current historical context, the very same experience nevertheless urges us to seek what concept and which form of exercise of the primacy of the Bishop of Rome can today favor the process of reconciliation and mutual understanding between the Churches. In the ecclesiological and canonical develop¬ments of the second millennium, the image of the functions and pow¬ers of the Bishop of Rome was progressively configured on the model arising from the Pope’s modalities of action within the framework of the Latin Church; in this way the distinction, concretely operating in the historical reality of the first millennium, was lost between the patriarchal dimension and the universal dimension of the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. Nevertheless, the attempts at union carried out and achieved in the second millennium relied on the confidence that it is possible to find a meeting point both as regards the concept of the functions of the bishop of Rome, and as regards the ways in which these functions can be exercised in the Universal Church. From the point of view of the Catholic Church, the experience of the Eastern Catholic Churches shows a possibility, however perfectible in its his¬torical achievements, of communion in the diversity.