since the Canons forbid ecclesiastical affairs to be settled without the Pope of Rome?"[1]
Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople (784–806), writes to St. Adrian I (Pope from 772–795): "Your Holiness has inherited the see of the divine Apostle Peter. Wherefore lawfully and by the will of God, you preside over all the hierarchy of the Church."[2]
It would be tedious to go on quoting from the almost endless number of similar sayings of Byzantine theologians.[3] As a last example before the schism, we may take St. Theodore of Studium († 826). He was Hegoumenos (abbot) of the famous Monastery Studium (Studion) at Constantinople, which in his time held a thousand monks, a reformer of Greek monasticism according to St. Basil's rule, and especially a leader of the Orthodox and a heroic confessor in Iconoclast times. We keep his feast on November 12th (in the Martyrology), the Eastern Church on November 11th. No one of the Orthodox saints who were resisting Iconoclasm had more, only St. John Damascene as much influence as this St. Theodore. When he died Photius was just born (probably in the same year, 826); forty years afterwards the schism had broken out. St. Theodore Studita, then, may stand for one of the very last representatives of the old Byzantine Church before the schism. And he speaks very plainly about the Pope's Primacy. He knows that the Pope of his time (Paschal, 817–824) succeeds to St. Peter's rights: "To you (he writes) spoke Christ our Lord: And you, being converted, shall confirm your brethren. Behold, now is the time and place: help us, you who are ordained by God for this. Stretch out your hand as far as you can. You have the power from God, since you are Prince of all. Frighten, we beg of you, the heretical beasts (Iconoclasts) with the pen of your divine word. Good shepherd, lay down your life for your sheep, we pray."[4] Again: "Since Christ our God gave to the great Peter, after
6
