Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/103

 The Rise of the Papacy 67 become bishop without the approval of the metropolitan, this great council has ordained that such an one shall not be regarded as a bishop. . . . The council says nothing of a single head of the Distinction Church having jurisdiction over all the other bishops, ^^onof 6 And here it is necessary to notice a very important but the bishop of Rome as often neglected distinction between (i) the moral and religious and religious supremacy accorded to the bishop of Rome, ^J^head and (2) the recognition of his right to be the supreme of the director of the whole church government. As the head of the venerated church at Rome, and as the successor of the two most glorious of the apostles, who had con- firmed with their blood the teachings which they had handed down to their successors, the bishop of Rome doubtless seemed to the prelates assembled at Nicaea, as he had seemed to Irenaeus and Cyprian, chief among the bishops. Yet there is no indication in the acts of the Council of Nicaea that as an officer in the Church the bishop of Rome enjoyed any greater or wider jurisdic- tion than other metropolitans, such as the archbishop of Alexandria or of Antioch. Nevertheless, the bishop of Rome was destined to be The Council recognized in the West both as spiritual and govern- ( 343 )pe r mits mental head of the Church. The Council of Sardika, condemned bishops to eighteen years after the Council of Nicaea, decreed that appeal to should any bishop believe that he had been unjustly ^^J a condemned and deposed by a synod, he should have the privilege of appealing to the bishop of Rome. If the latter decided that the case should be reconsidered, he should order a new trial by other judges. There is evidence that the Roman church and its bishops had from the earliest times been consulted by