I've seen a reference to an (approximate) number of papal decrees that were made in the first millennium and of those how many were actually relevant to the Christian East, with the latter number being a very small proportion.

I've come across this over a long period, numerous times. However, now that it is relevant to a discussion I'm having with a friend, I cannot seem to find it anywhere.

Anyone might be familiar with the reference and its source? I suspect it might be Fr. Taft, but I might be wrong...

Found it. It was included in one of the works of Archbishop Miller of Vancouver, who is a (Latin Rite) Basilian, which is interesting, because I went to a university founded by the Congregation of St. Basil.

"During the first centuries of the Church, the pope exercised his governing function differently in three geographical regions. Most of Italy was organized into one ecclesiastical province, where he ordained bishops and regularly intervened in the life of the churches. In the rest of the West, the pope maintained communion between the churches and unified discipline by communicating decisions of local councils to other provinces, exercising moral authority, and fostering the apostolic faith. For the most part, he intervened directly in a local church only in matters where a bishop was involved (causae maiores). In the third zone, the East, Rome intervened to safeguard the observance of major disciplinary regulations, preserve doctrinal orthodoxy, and ensure communion between the two parts of the Church...The pope intervened in the East's affairs differently from the way he did in the West. Of the more than 4300 extant papal documents from the first millennium, only 300 refer to the East; most of these touch dogmatic questions. When the bishop of Rome had reason to, and was conceded the right, he adjudicated disciplinary and doctrinal questions as a higher moderator, leaving intact the East's administrative and canonical autonomy." - J. Michael Miller, C.S.B., "The Shepherd and the Rock: Origins, Development, and Mission of the Papacy"

Works for me. Let's do that, instead of what we do now--which doesn't seem to be working very well.

It will be the most bizarre thing to bring out conclusions from the number of letters during a span of time of 500 years how the pope should or not deal with the rest of christianity, forgetting the general and the special context they were written for.
Byzantium at the same time underwent its own development.

The letter of Patriarch Eustachius to pope John XIX in 1024 speaks for itself.

I have the greek translation of Steve Runciman's "West and East in Schisma", therefore I would translate to my best effort into english.

In 1024, the patriarch of C.pole Eustachius with the support of the emperor Basil II, wrote to pope John XIX, that the hour came that relations between the two seats be settled down for ever and proposed the following: 'with the approval of bishop of Rome, the church of C.pole will be called and considered echumenical in its own sphere of influence the same as the church of Rome is in the world'.

P. 59 of the greek edition.

Essentially the solution reached at the Synod of 879-880.

Perhaps why it came to nought, and the Pope of Old Rome was not inserted back into the Orthodox diptychs of the Catholic Church at New Rome.

The fundamental issue was the German Popes of the 11th century had a radically different view of the Church than had Pope John VIII back in the 9th century. The emergence of Cluniac monasticism, with its centralizing impulses, might have had a little to do with that.

For example, what is the difference, as regarding papal universal jurisdiction claims and ecclesiology, between the german popes of 11 century and pope Nicholaos of the dispute with Photius?

The claim that papacy changed with the conversion of german franks in the 8 century from an accepted orthodox one to one centralized, a view held among others by John Romanides, is a fiasco.

Papadakis and Meyendorff make a good case for it, and they're much better scholars that Romanides.



Nicholas was still acting (by his lights) within the Serdican appellate authority. The Ignatians had appealed to him, and he responded in their favor, declaring Photios' election to be null and void.

However, we're both far too intelligent to take that as more than an excuse: the real cause of the Photian schism was jurisdiction over Bulgaria, and once that was taken off the table (by the Bulgarians falling firmly into the Orthodox (if not entirely Byzantine) sphere, it was remarkably easy for Pope John VIII to forget all about Pope Nicholas' action--in fact, ratifying an agreement that not only restored Photios as Patriarch, but declared the acts of the synod that deposed him as null and void, and declared Constantinople to be "ecumenical" within its sphere as Rome was within its own.

The important difference between the Popes of the first millennium, and those of the 11th century onward, is the former may have had universal pretensions, but placed the unity of the Church on a higher plane than their own perquisites. The Gregorian reformers, on the other hand, saw the unity of the Church growing out of their own power and perquisites.

I would like to promote Walter Ullman's "A short history of papacy in the middle ages", in that case.

It's available through Google Books, so I will give it a shot.

Totuus tuus,

http://archive.org/details/TheSourcesOfCatholicDogma

(available to download in PDF format)

The Sources Of Catholic Dogma by Denzinger

Hope this helps.