DEVELOPMENT OF THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF PAPAL PRIMACY IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND ITS EVALUATION IN THE WORKS OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX THEOLOGIANS

Abstract

Since the second half of the XIX century, the Roman Catholic Church began to look for ways to unite all Christian traditions under the universal power of the Bishop of Rome, while recognizing that the main subject of disagreement of the Roman Church with other churches - is the doctrine of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. A serious attempt to reform the traditional Catholic doctrine of papal primacy in order to make it acceptable to Christians separated from communion with the See of Rome, was made by the Roman Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century. Vatican II (1962‒1965) has undertaken an unprecedented attempt to combine the traditional Catholic doctrine of papal primacy with elements of Orthodox ecclesiology ‒ such as the doctrine of collegiality of the episcopate, eucharistic ecclesiology and communion ecclesiology. The article considers the criticism of new Catholic doctrine in the works of Russian Orthodox theologians of different ecclesiastical jurisdictions. The author considers the development of the doctrine of papal primacy in the Catholic ecclesiology in the post-conciliar period of the 20th century, and notes that it contains new steps toward Orthodox ecclesiology, which, however, was replaced by «reverse» at the end of the century. The author notes the coincidence of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic theological thought on some issues, but concludes that in the 20th century, the Roman Catholic Church has failed to organically combine the doctrine of papal primacy to the principle of conciliarity and other elements of Orthodox ecclesiology. This is confirmed today, including some Roman Catholic writers. The point of view of a number of Russian theologians about the fundamental impossibility of such a synthesis had historically confirmed.