Page "Pope" Paragraph 13

During the 1st century of the Church ( ca.

30 – 130 ), the Roman capital became recognized as a Christian center of exceptional importance.

Clement I at the end of the 1st century wrote an epistle to the Church in Corinth intervening in a major dispute, and apologizing for not having taken action earlier.

However, there are only a few other references of that time to recognition of the authoritative primacy of the Roman See outside of Rome.

In the Ravenna Document of 13 October 2007, theologians chosen by the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches stated: " 41.

Both sides agree ... that Rome, as the Church that ' presides in love ' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch ( To the Romans, Prologue ), occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs.

They disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the Bishop of Rome as protos, a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium.