CONCILIARITY AND PRIMACY:

From the New Testament to the Present Orthodox-Catholic Theological Dialogue

Dedicated to the bishops of the Old and New Rome,
Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Petros Vassiliadis*
Conciliarity and primacy are two important aspects of Christian ecclesiology.1 The
concept of conciliarity is understood both in the broadest sense of the term
(inclusiveness, participation, universal consultation on theological and practical aspects of
church life, etc.), and in its narrow meaning, namely that of the order of ecclesiastical
administration. Conciliarity, in other words, is more or less an expression of the Church's
charismatic nature. By the same logic, the concept of primacy for centuries now - mainly in
Protestant theology, but in the recent past also in a major part of modern Orthodox
theology - is associated only with the institutional expression of the Church. Nevertheless,
it is to be found both in the New Testament and in patristic theology of the undivided
Church, where it acquired not only a canonical status, but also a theological foundation.2
This seemingly contradictory understanding of these two important aspects of
Christian ecclesiology, developed earlier in almost all traditional doctrinal manuals of
academic theology, including the Orthodox ones, is mainly based on the scholastic
perception of dogmatic theology, in which ecclesiology erroneously starts with a
definition, which generally described the Church exclusively as a divine institution of the
earthly society of believers, which has its origin in Jesus Christ and his apostles, who
delegated their authority to the bishops.3
This article will briefly examine the biblical foundation of this perennial issue, so
important for the present day Orthodox-Catholic theological Dialogue, with the help of
the inclusive Eucharistic theology of St. Paul. In the last decade I have strongly argued
for a more profound biblical documentation of this dialogue in two of my presentations
in Thessaloniki; the first in 2003 under the auspices of the late Archbishop of the
(Orthodox) Church of Greece,4 and the second in 2009 at a symposium in the presence
of the two co-chairmen of this dialogue, Metropolitan of Pergamon John Zizioulas and
Cardinal Walter Kasper.5 By biblical documentation I mean the scholarly endevour in the
Holy Scripture, at least to the extent this was presented by the bishop of the Old

1 The official theological dialogue between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches rightly focus on

this issue.
2 More on this in (Metropolitan of Pergamon) Joannis Zizioulas, Recent Discussions on Primacy in
Orthodox Theology, in Walter Kasper (ed.), Il ministero petrino. Cattolici e Orodossi in dialogo, Citta nuova:
Roma 2004, pp. 249-264. Also Maximos Vgenopoulos, Primacy in the Church from Vatican I to Vatican II: A
Greek Orthodox Perspective, Ph.D. dissertation at Heythrop College, London 2008.
3 Cf. from the Orthodox side Chr. Androutsos, Dogmatics of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Athens 19562,
p. 262 (in Greek, italics mine), among so many others early in the last century.
4 Published under the title The Prospects of the Dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman
Catholic Churches, in P. Vassiliadis (ed.), (Orthodox Theology and
Ecumenical Dialogue, Apostoliki Diakonia: Athens 2005, pp. 156ff.
5 Currently only in digital form (http://www.amen.gr/index.php?mod=news&op=article&aid=129)
under the title Problems and Prospects of the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and the
Roman Catholic Church.

Petros Vassiliadis

Rome, His Holliness Pope Benedict XVI in his personal treatise Jesus of Nazareth.6 In
this short article I propose to go even further, and touch the biblical foundation of the
Eucharistic ecclesiology.
As an introductory remark at the outset of my presentation it is necessary to
underline an important discovery of modern biblical scholarship. And this is the
eschatological (not the paschal) understanding of the Last Supper. There is an almost
universal recognition that this last meal Jesus ate with his disciples before his passion was
a messianic one, a meal that was celebrated as a foretaste of the expected messianic age, a
meal of the Kingdom of God.7 Consequently, the Eucharist the early Church started
thereafter celebrating on the eight day was not a simple religious ceremony in
remembrance of the Jewish Passover, but a living expression of the eschatological
character of the ecclesiological identity of the Christian community.8
In order, therefore, to fully understand the authentic understanding of the above
eccleciological parameters, it is of utmost importance to recall the Eucharistic
understanding and practice of the early Church. In particular, one should pay proper
attention to the radical contribution of St. Paul. Only then can one grasp the deeper
significance and historical configuration of conciliarity (and indirectly of primacy) as
expressed officially in early Christianity at the Apostolic Synod. In fact, St. Pauls
inclusive Eucharistic theology was the cause and presupposition of conciliarity.
***

In the last decades the social and anthropological sciences, and in particular the
Cultural or Social Anthropology, gave new impetus to biblical, theological and
ecumenical research and unexpectedly shed new light to the understanding of the
Christian origins, and consequently to the inclusive character of the Eucharist, the
sacrament par excellence of the Church. In my view, the affirmation of the importance of
common meals (i.e. the Eucharist) in dealing with Christian identity was the result, to a
certain extent, of the recent developments in the field of Cultural Anthropology. The
combination of biblical and cultural anthropological studies has enormously contributed
to the predominance within Christian circles and to a certain degree in theological
scholarship, but also in missiological and ecumenical reflections of the assumption that
the Eucharist determines the esse and the identity of the Church right from the beginning.9
As Fr. Ion Bria wrote in his last article, there is an almost unanimous conviction
among Orthodox (and to a certain degree also Catholic) theologians that the church

6 Of equal importance for the future of ecclesiastical practice was the bold decision of the bishop of
the New Rome, His All-Holliness, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, to
convene an international biblical symposium on St. Paul within the framework of such high ranking
ecclesiastical body as the 2008 Synod of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches (published In the Footsteps
of St. Paul: An Academic Symposium, Papers Presented at the Pauline Symposium, Oct 11-6, 2008, HC Press: Boston
2009.
7 This is the final conclusion of the very informative entry Last Supper in The Anchor Bible
Dictionary, Doubleday: New York 1997, written by R. F. O Toole.
8 A more detailed presentation in my studies: A Biblical Approach to the Sacrament of the Divine
Eucharist, Lex Orandi. Liturgical Theology and Liturgical Renewal, Indiktos Press: Athens 2005, pp. 153ff (in
Greek); also Eucharist as a Unifying and Inclusive Element in N.T. Ecclesiology, in A.A.AlexeevCh.Karakolis-U.Luz (eds.), Einheit der Kirche im Neuen Testament, Mohr Siebeck: Tbingen 2008, pp. 121-145.
9 More in my my Eucharist as a Unifying and Inclusive Element in N.T. Ecclesiology (see previous
note).

Conciliarity and Primacy

must be defined in the framework of a Eucharistic ecclesiology.10 It was, nevertheless,

on this very theological articulation rather the narrow interpretation of the Eucharist
that so many problems have emerged in the contemporary ecumenical dialogue,
especially with our brothers and sisters from the Protestant tradition.
In my opinion, one of the major issues in contemporary theological reflections is
whether one should attach a soteriological or an ecclesial dimension to the Church. In other
words, whether a privileged priority should be given to its personal and salvation-by-faith
dimension (influenced more or less by individualism, the pillar of modernism), or to its
communal one (influenced by the traditional Eucharistic self-understanding). In biblical
terms, the question is whether the emphasis is to be placed exclusively on the Pauline
version of the Christian kerygma, as well as to St. Pauls interpretation of Jesus of
Nazareth (with the climax in the famous theologia crucis), or at the same toime on the
Johannine Eucharistic expression of the Churchs identity.
A theologian and at the same time anthropologist, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, has
convincingly shown that food was an important language in which Jews of the time of
Jesus expressed relations among human beings and especially between human beings and
God. Violation of dietary rules and inclusion in religious tables of non-Jews or unclean
people became equivalent to apostasy.11 The problem of who eats what with
whom and why was of extreme importance, the anthropologists insist,12 since
anyone familiar with Jewish religious observance will notice that food plays a
considerable part throughout, as Jacob Neusner, a specialist in the field has stated. 13
Mary Douglas, on the other hand, has beyond any doubt proved the strong association
between table and alter, as well as the boundaries the Israelites erected at meals.14 In
addition to these observation Bruce Chilton has rightly argued, that what distinguished
Jesus among many of his rabbinic contemporaries was his practice of fellowship at
meals.15
This open table fellowship is clearly evidenced in the Epistle to Galatians, where
St. Paul defended St. Peters dining (before the arrival of St. James people) with the
Gentiles (cf. Gal 2:12 ).16 Finally, a renowned biblical scholar of
our days, J. G. D. Dunn, argues that open table fellowship and the absence of
10 Ion Bria, Widening the Ecclesiological Basis of the Ecumenical Fellowship, The Ecumenical Review

56 (2004), pp. 199ff (the parenthesis mine). Fr. Bria was working on this unfinished article at the time of
his death in 2002 (more in my The Missionary Implications of St. Pauls Eucharistic Inclusiveness, N.
Mooiu (ed.), The Relevance of Reverand Professor Ion Brias Work for Contemporary Society and for the Life of the
Church. New Directions in the Research of Church Doctrine, Mission and Unity, Editura Universitii Lucian Blaga:
Sibiu 2010, pp. 123-134 (in English and Romanian).
11 G. Feeley-Harnik, The Lords Table. Eucharist and Passover in Early Christianity, UPP: Philadelphia
1981, especially ch. 4.
12 Ibid, p. 6.
13 J. Neusner, Invitation to Talmud: A Teaching Book, Harper and Row: New York 1973, p. 18.
14 More on this in Mary Douglas, Deciphering a Meal, in C. Geertz, (ed.), Myth, Symbol and Culture,
Norton: New York 1971, pp. 61-81.
15 B. Chilton, Inclusion and Noninclusion: The Practice of the Kingdom in Formative Christianity,
in J. Neusner (ed.), Religion and the Political Order, Scholars Press: Atlanta, 133-172, p. 137; also his Pure
Kingdom: Jesus Vision of God, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids 1996.
16 More in D. Passakos, .., Theology and Society in Dialogue, Pournaras Press:
Thessaloniki 2001, pp. 96ff (in Greek).

Petros Vassiliadis

boundaries at meals are characteristic and distinctive of the social-self-understanding

that Jesus encouraged in his disciples.17
With all these findings in mind modern biblical scholarship has reached some
significant conclusions with regard to the original meaning of the Divine Eucharist,
analyzing it from various angles and using different approaches, which can be
conventionally divided into three periods. These periods in fact characterize three distinct
paradigms in contemporary eucharistology: the Mystery paradigm, the Jewish paradigm,
and finally the Eschatological paradigm.18 This last paradigm is in full agreement with the
Orthodox theology, although its consequences have not applied to todays Eucharistic
praxis. This is due to the fact that the soteriological element and interpretation of the
Divine Eucharist, based on an erroneous understanding of the St. Paul s theologia crucis,
surpassed and nearly overshadowed the original and by all means primary and
theologically more important eschatological one.19 To this end the rediscovery in recent
years of the theology of St. Maximus the Confessor, who by the way has eschatologically
reinterpreted the Ps-Dionysian interpretation of the Holy Eucharist, has also played a
decisive role.
On the basis, therefore, of a fresh interpretation of the biblical and post-biblical data
(mainly those of the Didache), which were brought into the fore by the Eschatological
paradigm in the Eucharistic understanding, the older linear historical development of the
Divine Economy, which had as a starting point the words of institution or the
institutional act itself has today been replaced by an eschatological one. None can deny
today that the only reliable starting point is the open table fellowship and the
inclusiveness underlined in Jesus teaching of the coming Kingdom of God and the
common meals, which he used to bless, and participate in, during his earthly ministry.
More and more serious eucharistologists are now convinced that the original, and by
all means authentic, understanding of the Eucharist stems from the awareness of the
early Christian community that they were Gods eschatological people, who represented in their
Eucharistic gatherings the expected Kingdom of God. As with the understanding of their mission,
according to which the apostles were commissioned to proclaim not a set of given
religious convictions, doctrines, moral commands etc., but the coming Kingdom and
their resurrected Lord center and sovereign of it, so also with the Eucharist they actually
expressed in deeds, i.e. around a common table, the Good News of a new eschatological
reality.20 That is why they were all called holy, royal priesthood, because in the
eschatological era all of them (not just some special cast, such as the priests or Levites)
believed to have priestly and spiritual authority to practice in the diaspora the work of the

17 J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 2003, p. 599.

18 More in my Eucharist as a Unifying and Inclusive Element in N.T. Ecclesiology.
19 See my Paul's theologia crucis as an Intermediate Stage of the Trajectory from Q to Mark, in L.

Padovese (ed.), Atti del VI Simposio Di Tarso Su S. Paolo Apostolo, Rome 2002, pp. 43-52.
20 Ion Bria extended this belief to the Trinity, defining the mission on the basis of Jn 21 in terms of a
missio dei, namely that God in Gods own self is a life of communion and that Gods involvement in
history aims at drawing humanity and creation in general into this communion with Gods very life, which
implies that this must also be the goal of mission (Ion Bria [ed.], Go Forth in Peace, WCC Publications:
Geneva 1987, p. 3).

Conciliarity and Primacy

priestly class, reminded at the same time to be worthy of their election through their
exemplary life and works.21
Using the findings of social sciences biblical scholarship nowadays seriously consider
the social and religious significance of the Jewish regulations about cleanness, in order
to better understand the N.T. data. Thus it became quite clear, that in numerous cases
the Historical Jesus was actually challenging the social and religious validity of some
Torah regulations on clean and unclean. Most of his healings were directed toward
people who were considered unclean: lepers (k 1:40-45; t 8:1-4; cf. Lk 17:11-19), the
woman in bloodshed (k 5:25-34; t 9:20-22; Lk 8:43-48), people possessed by
daemons, blind, cripple etc.22 Whereas for the Jews the most important issue was how
and on what conditions can people approach God in order to be saved, the early
Christians put more emphasis on how God approaches people and offers salvation. To
the former approaching God was accomplished only through the Law ( ),
whereas to the latter through Christ ( ).23
The issue of inclusion within the community of faith of all people (clean and
unclean one can expand it in todays terms mutatis mutandis also to: faithful
andheretics?) and therefore accepting them at the common meals, received quite
dangerous consequences for the emerging new Christian religion once it expanded
beyond the boundaries of Judaism. Receiving new converts, of course, has never been an
actual problem throughout the early Church. Even Judeo-Christians could accept and
endorse it. The problem arose on the practical consequences of such a move: at the
common (Eucharistic/eschatological/messianic or otherwise) meals between circumcised
Jews and former uncircumcised Gentiles.
Till quite recently Pauls letter to the Galatians, especially its first autobiographical
chapters, were almost exclusively read as an anti-authoritarian (and to a certain extent
anti-Jewish) appeal. Viewed, however, through the above angle the so-called Antioch
incident seems to be better explained as an appeal to the inclusive character of the
new religion, embracing all people of faith regardless of their past. At the heart of the
incident lays the problem of receiving former Gentiles and accepting them to the
Eucharistic table with or without the Jewish legal conditions. The expression that before
the arrival of representa-tives of the Jerusalem group Peter ate with the Gentiles (Gal
21J. H. Elliott, The Elect and the Holy, 1966, has re-determined on the part of the Protestant biblical
theology the real meaning of the term royal priesthood, which has so vigorously discussed since the time
of Luther. Cf. R. Brown, Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections, New York 1971. In my article Holiness from
the Perspective of a Eucharistic Theology, (S. T. Kimbrough, Jr [ed.], Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality,
SVS Press: Crestwood 2002, pp. 101-116) on this basis I explained why the early Christians were called to
walk towards unity (so that they may become perfectly one, Jn 17:23), to abandon all deeds of darkness and to
perfect themselves. They are to become holy because the one, who called them out of darkness into light,
from non existence into being, who took them as non-members of the people of God and made them
into genuine members of the new eschatological community (Once you were no people, now you are God's
people, I Pe 2:10), is holy (you shall be holy, for I am holy, I Pe 1:16; cf. Lev 11:44f, 19:2, 20:7) and perfect:
(I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified in truth, Jn 17:19; see also Mt 5:48 and par., You, therefore, must
be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect).
22B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, John Knox: tlanta 1981.
Also his Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology. Practical Models for Biblical Interpretation, John Knox: tlanta
1986, pp. 143-146.
23Cf. L. W. Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex. Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and their Implications for
Today, Fortress Press: Philadelphia 1989, pp. 103-104; . J. alina, The ew Testament World, p. 150.

Petros Vassiliadis

2:12) is quite characteristic. Obviously in the early Church there were leaders insisting on
separate Eucharistic celebrations, so that the basic rules of cleanness are kept. This
tendency followed the line of a Eucharistic exclusiveness. Pauls line, on the contrary,
understood the fundamental issue of salvation in Christ in a quite inclusive way. He
considered the separate Eucharistic tables as an inconceivable practice, and he insisted
on a common Eucharistic table for both Jews and Gentiles. In other words his view
was that of a Eucharistic inclusiveness. For Paul there was no other way; any compromise
would destroy the basis of his faith and the legacy of Jesus of Nazareth.
Despite the compromise adopted at the Apostolic Council, the early Church up to
the Constantinean era was an open society for all who believed in Christ, with open
table fellowship, and with unconditional participation in all Eucharistic meals. As J. G.
D. Dunn has rightly stated, the Antioch incident where Paul vigorously insisted on
the unconditional participation of the Gentiles in the Eucharistic table convinced Paul
of the need to assert his apostolic status and reinforced the importance of justification
by faith as central to the gospel and the ongoing relations between Jewish and Gentile
believers.24
In the third millennium, therefore, and particularly in the bilateral theological
dialogues, one can fairly argue that biblical research has proved (with the help of other
disciplines) beyond any doubt that Jesus, St. Pauls (and the early Churchs thereafter),
open fellowship, as well as their inclusive theology, constitute a characteristic
element of the Christian identity, with obvious ecclesiological, missiological and
ecumenical implications for today.25
***

No doubt this inclusive Eucharistic ecclesiology and practice was the catalyst for the
convening of the Apostolic Synod, which resulted in the decision and somehow the
formulation of the principle of conciliarity in all decision-making processes of the
Church. Therefore, all hitherto considerations and fragmented approaches to the
relationship between conciliarity and primacy can hardly lead to a conclusive settlement
and a much desired end, without a reference to the theology of the open society and
the inclusive ecclesiology of the early Church, especially of St. Paul. So far the
Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue has correctly focused on the mystery par excellence
of the Church, namely the Eucharist. The theological dialogue between these two major
parts of traditional Christianity has been correctly based on the Eucharistic ecclesiology.
The problem is how deeply in our biblical foundations this Eucharistic ecclesiology can
be formulated. The official dialogue has also correctly taken into account, although not
as strongly emphasized as it should, the eschatological dimension of the Church. But even
this can hardly be effective in the future, unless the above briefly analyzed primary

19.

24 J. G. D. Dunn, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, Blacks T. &T .Clark: Edinburgh 1993, p.

25 Having presented, of course in a sketchy way, St. Pauls inclusive Eucharistic theology, I do not
by any means question the theological foundation of modern Orthodox and Catholic theology of the
difficulty in accepting the idea of intercommunion, at least in the form it is generally presented by some of
our Protestant brothers and sisters. The Eucharist is, and will remain, an expression of, not a means toward,
Church unity. What I wanted to emphasize was that Jesus of Nazareths inclusive kerygma, and St. Pauls
foundational teaching and praxis of a Eucharistic inclusiveness, remind us all that the original open,
inclusive and above all unifying character of the Eucharist somewhat challenge our contemporary
views and demands a radical reconsideration of our Eucharistic ecclesiology.

Conciliarity and Primacy

characteristics of the Church as an inclusive and open society be seriously taken into
consideration.
* Petros Vassiliadis is Professor of N.T. at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
and Honorary President of WOCATI