How alien to the whole gospel of Christ is the idea of headship, the primacy of authority, in the Church and among the Apostles, is eloquently testified by the conversation of Jesus Christ with the sons of Zebedee (Matt. XX, 21–28; Mk. X, 37–45; Lux. XXII, 24–27). This is a principle of the pagans, alien to the spirit of Christ. "When they heard, ten were indignant with the two brothers," says the Apostle Matthew; "And when they heard it, ten began to be indignant with James and John," confirms the Apostle Mark. Twelve were divided: ten were indignant at two, though not two, but ten, two were mistaken. But indignation is an atmosphere that should not exist among the twelve, and therefore the Teacher with all clarity and with all sharpness condemns the striving for the primacy of two out of the twelve, and thereby restores peace among them.

Why does Rome still continue to place the Apostle Peter in the first place among the twelve? And another question: why does Rome consider the bishop of Rome to be the successor of the Apostle Peter, and not the bishop of Jerusalem or Antioch? After all, according to the ancient reliable tradition, the Apostle Peter first played a leading role in Jerusalem, and only later did it pass to James; and the Church of Antioch, in which believers first began to be called Christians, was founded by Peter. The Latins do not give an answer to this. In Origen we read: "Ignatius, the second bishop after Peter"; in Eusebius: "Peter, the supreme Apostle, having first founded his Church in Antioch, goes to Rome, preaching the Gospel; he, after the Church in Antioch, was the first to preside over the Church in Rome until his death." And Pope Innocent, in a letter to Bishop Alexander of Antioch, calls the Church of Antioch "the first cathedra of the first Apostle."

It would be strange to deny that the Apostle Peter has a leading role in the life of the Christian community, but this role in no way provides grounds for the claims of the Romans to Peter's supremacy and infallibility.

Yes, the Apostle Peter proposes to elect a twelfth to replace the departed Judas, and he speaks in the name of the Apostles before the people and before the authorities, through him the Holy Spirit rebukes and punishes Ananias and Sapphira, he is the first to preach to the Gentiles, with his speech the opening of the Apostolic Council. The Apostle Peter enjoys a certain authority among the Apostles: he is the first among them, but not the ruler over the Apostles, not their leader, but the first among equals, and this is confirmed by the following facts: the Apostle Peter proposes, but all the Apostles elect Judas's deputy; hearing that the Samaritans had received the word of God, the Apostles who were in Jerusalem sent Peter and John to them; on the question of receiving Gentile believers into the Church, the decision is made not by Peter alone, but by the Apostolic Council; Peter opens the council with his speech, but James adds to his proposal, and it is accepted by all with the addition of James.

Nor is the Roman idea of papal infallibility successive from the Apostle Peter unfounded, for the Apostle Peter could not pass on to his "successor" that infallibility in matters of Truth, which he himself did not possess. We have precise indications from the Holy Scriptures that the Apostle Peter himself wavered in the truth: immediately after confessing Christ as the Son of God on behalf of all the disciples, Peter is confused by the words of Jesus about the impending torments and His death on the cross, and, taking Jesus aside, begins to object to Him: "Be merciful to Thyself, O Lord," for which he immediately receives a stern rebuff from the lips of Christ: "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a stumbling block unto me: for thou thinkest not of the things of God, but of the things of men," and this is said immediately after Christ blesses him: "Thou art Peter..." And after this comes his falling away, renunciation of Christ and restoration to the apostolic dignity.

In spite of a certain leading role, we see that even after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Peter does not remain infallible: in Antioch he gives rise to reproaches against him by deviating from the decision that he himself, together with the other Apostles, together with the other Apostles, deviates from the decision that he himself, together with the other Apostles, drew at the Jerusalem Council, and receives a severe rebuke from the Apostle Paul. And the Acts of the Apostles and the entire history of the Church, although they teach us to honor with reverent love the podvig and lofty ministry of the Apostle Peter, do not provide any basis for a theory that deduces from this ministry of the Apostle the claims to dominion over the Church of his "successor," the Bishop of Rome. The dominion over the Church and infallibility in matters of faith did not belong to the Apostle Peter, otherwise – how could the Apostle Paul so boldly contradict him in Antioch and reproach him with "hypocrisy"? And if the Apostle Peter had supremacy over all the eleven, then how could the Apostles, together with John, send him to Samaria? And why was the Apostolic Council needed then?

Characteristic of the Vatican's development of the theory of the supremacy of the pope is the introduction into the Roman Trebnik (about 1600) of the words according to which Christ allegedly handed over to the Apostle Peter the kingdoms of the whole world: "Thou art the shepherd of the sheep, to thee God has handed over all the kingdoms of the world." The Gospel does not know such words of Christ to Peter, these words were spoken to Christ by the tempter: "I will give Thee all the kingdoms of the world."

Horror emanates from the entire Roman theory of the supremacy and infallibility of the bishop of Rome.

Chapter IX: The Origins of the Roman Theory of the Pope's Supremacy and Infallibility The Infallibility of the Popes in the Light of Historical Facts

If the Latin theory of the primacy of the bishop of Rome has no basis either in the Gospel or in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, then where are the foundations of this theory to be found? It is rooted in Rome itself, in Roman psychology, and rests on a number of misinterpreted historical facts.

After the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of this most ancient Church, Rome, to which thousands of thousands of confessors, "witnesses of the faith," were brought and voluntarily flocked from the East and West, from the North and the South, Rome, which became the universal receptacle of the blood of Christian martyrs, occupies a particularly honorable place among the apostolic Churches that grew up on the blood of witnesses of the Word. "How blessed is this Church," exclaims Tertullian, "to which the Apostles taught all their teaching together with their blood in abundance, where Peter imitates the Lord by his suffering, where Paul is crowned with the Baptist's death, from which the Apostle John, after he was immersed in boiling oil and remained unharmed, is exiled to a deserted island." But this circumstance, although it placed the Church of Rome in the attention of the entire Christian world, giving authority to its voice, did not ascribe to it the exclusive right and exclusive privilege to care for other local Churches, to respond to what was happening in them, to take a direct part in their internal life, to advise and instruct when trials and troubles visited the local Churches. History testifies to us that Ignatius of Antioch also wrote exhortations and instructions to the Churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Tralles, Magnesia, and Philadelphia; Bishop Dionysius of Corinth "extended his zeal for God not only to his flock, but to an abundant measure to the faithful and other Churches," says the historian Eusebius, "exhorting and encouraging them in connection with the various dangers and trials in the faith that they were experiencing"; Irenaeus of Lyons considered himself obliged to intervene in the dispute over the time of the celebration of Pascha, when Pope Victor dared to make an unauthorized attempt to "excommunicate" the entire province of Asia and its neighboring Churches from ecclesiastical communion; In the era of great dogmatic disputes, the local Churches take part, in the person of their representatives, in the dogmatic life of the whole Church in general, thereby fulfilling the apostolic word: "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with him; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it." History also testifies to the fact that "the role of universal teaching fell to the lot of the great Fathers – Athanasius, Basil, Gregory, Hilary, Cyril and others, who were lamps placed high on the candlestick and shining to everyone in the house – in the Church." In all this was reflected the conciliar unity of all parts of the Church and the common consciousness of responsibility for the fate of the entire Church. This awareness of the common responsibility for the fate of the entire Church of Christ was the action of the Spirit of God, who lives in the Church as in the Body of Christ and, through chosen vessels, fills the destinies of the Church through conciliarity; this consciousness of common responsibility lived and burned in all the great lights of the Church, the fighters for the purity and integrity of the Faith throughout the entire Body of the Church.

And it would be a gross mistake in the words of Irenaeus of Lyons: "It follows that every Church should turn to this (Roman) Church, because of its primacy, i.e. the faithful who are everywhere, since in it the tradition coming from the Apostles is always faithful, who come from everywhere" – to see the recognition of the Roman Church as the guardian of the purity of the Faith. No, it is not the Roman Church, taken separately from the entire Universal Church, nor the Bishop of Rome and his community that protect the ongoing tradition from the Apostles: the matter of maintaining the purity of the faith is the result of the action of the universal Church – this is what St. Irenaeus of Lyons affirms, for it is not the children of the Roman Church and their bishop, but the "faithful who come from everywhere" who guard the tradition that comes from the Apostles here, in Rome.