Eastern Orthodox Christians, why do you not believe that the Bishop of Rome is not th

This question is addressed to Christians who are members of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I'm curious to know why you believe that the Bishop of Rome is only first among equals ... that he is not the visible supreme head of the Church.

Why is this? I'm not trying to start an argument ... just trying to understand why you believe this.

Didn't Our Lord give the keys to Peter? Don't keys symbolize authority? How does the Orthodox Church interpret the keys simply meaning first among equals and not supremacy?

And if the Bishop of Rome is only first among equals ... then how is the Church unified without a visible head?

Thank you for your time. God bless.

Lord Christ...have MERCY. I have attended all three churches, and I find nothing particularly wrong with any of them. But Jesus is far more important than anyone on Earth, even the POPE.

Because Christ is head of the church. The church is unified through Christ.

The only peace about this I've made with myself intellectually and so forth is the saying, "If they be for us then they not be against us. "

The spirit and the light goes through different colored and thicknesses of glass.

Hey, we Protestants side with the Eastern churches.

Jesus is my high priest. He is the High Priest of the entire Universal Church. Not a man.
Get it straight

Wait, people still care about this stuff? Isn't it 2011? This is so like five centuries ago ... Zzz. It's just a bunch of idiots in fancy hats. They pardoned Galileo in like 1998 for that whole "Earth goes round the Sun" debacle. Hundreds of years too late. They are just relics of a bygone time.

You have too many negatives. I don't believe that the Pope is the head of the Church. He's the head of the Church of Rome; we're happy with that. But we're not in his jurisdiction, and never have been. Constantinople has its Patriarch, as do Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem (among the ancient patriarchates of the Roman Empire), accompanied now by the patriarchs of Georgia, Moscow, Serbia, etc. -- 13 in all -- with each patriarch or archbishop of an hydrocephalus church responsible for his own territory We didn't rebel against Rome: we were never under Rome.

Rome at one time was considered the "first among equals" -- given a position of honor and respect, but not of ruler ship over the other patriarchates. All the apostles were given the the Holy Spirit, and given the power to forgive sins (or not) John 20. This power does not flow exclusively from Peter's throne. I'd have to read up on the keys...

Blessings.
/Orthodox

the head of the church is Jesus Christ!

''And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church'' (Galatians 1:22)

pope of Rome was the first among equals, but he had his jurisdiction. I mean pope of Rome couldn't spread his jurisdiction in Constantinople, or in Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem etc.
he solved universal problems, but that didn't mean that church of Rome was the full church.

the church wasn't only church of Peter. but the church was built on all 12 Apostles. yes, Jesus say ed to Peter, but these words don mean that church is bu it only on Peter:

''built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.'' (Ephesians 2:20-21)

''The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.'' (revelation 21:14)

if the Pope was in mistake, people could dint obey him Bishop of Rome's opinion was not always accepted by all. even Paul raised against Peter:

When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ?You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (Galatians 2:14)

R.C church views about Cathedra of Rome is dogmatically, but in reality it had only canonical meaning. R.C say that Pope is first because he rules Cathedra of Rome, which was built by Peter - by first apostle. and Orthodox say that Pope of Rome was the first among equals because important issues were solved in Rome (first the main Capital of Christianity was Jerusalem) and not because pope was succesor of Peter, because Peter first formed church of Antioch and not church of Rome, if we will think like that, than church of Antioch has more authority, than church of Rome. besides, church of constantinople became equal to Rome.

The Church is unified by doctrine- not any particular Bishop.
Peter's primacy of honor could be seen by the fact the apostles had the council of Jerusalem and Peter didn't simply make an exacterDRaaatement.