sapphi_snake said:
A. The term wasn't used in the sense you think it was. The term means 'all-embracing', and was originally used as an adjective to stress the universality of the Christian Church (unlike Judaism for example, anybody was welcomed to become a Christian; there were no ethnical constraints to conversion). It was later adopted by the Western Church as part of their official name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic#History_of_ecclesiastical_use_of_.22catholic.22 B. Obviously that is the Catholic POV. Non-Catholics clearly disagree with this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea#The_Role_of_the_Bishop_of_Rome The Bishop of Rome was never seen as the head of the Christian Church. Check item #41. While the bishop of Rome was seen as protos, that didn't mean that he was the head of the Church, or that he had the prerogatives that the Pope currently has in the Catholic Church. |
A) Except... it excluded christians like Gnostics. The universal church WAS the Catholic Church.
B) They may disagree with it... but they're wrong and only wish to disagree with it because they don't like the Catholics.
C) Again... that's simply splitting hairs. Heck the rest of the numbers after 41 basically admt this as it talks about the authority of the pope.
If he wasn't the head of the Christian Church... who was? The term protos is just a splitting head term to ignore the fact that Eastern Orhtodox is a branch religion. I mean it was specifically made up for that reason.








