440–461

Leo I and the "New Rome": the grounds of the Roman see's primacy

The third canon of the Council of Constantinople (381) gave the bishop of Constantinople the first place after the Roman bishop, "because Constantinople is the new Rome," and the 28th canon of Chalcedon (451) repeated this decision and extended Constantinople's rights. Leo I gathered the teachings of his predecessors into a coherent system: the pope is the "unworthy heir" of Peter, inheriting the full authority given to Peter (Matt. 16:18–19); through him Peter himself speaks, all bishops receive their authority from the pope, and his position is determined by law, not by personal holiness. Leo rejected the 28th canon: according to Hall, he could not tolerate the argument that the authority of the papacy derived from Rome's position as capital rather than from Peter. Pelikan stresses that the dispute between Old and New Rome was doctrinal: whether primacy rests on Peter or on the status of the capital.