The Church is a community made of clergy, laity, and members of religious orders and congregations. In the Vatican II dogmatic constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (“Light of Nations”), the Church is defined horizontally. It is simply the community of the faithful, of the baptised, who can be anyone. Its members merely play different parts and are called to fulfil various roles to continue the work of Jesus Christ on this planet we share. It has always been like this since the beginning with the apostles, the followers of Christ. How about the pope? Many people were called this name in early Christianity, but later this title began to be used to refer only to the bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter. Rome played a primary role in the early Church, associated as it was with the martyrdom of Peter and Paul. The primacy of the pope has been clarified over the centuries, but it has been described as primus inter pares (first among equals), which denies that the pope is a ruler. The Orthodox recognise that the Church of Rome was seen as “presiding in love” as Ignatius of Antioch has put it in the first century. The office of the pope (and not this or that human being who occupies its chair and who may not be exemplary as Christians, as we all know) is a sign of the unity of the Church.
