A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

527may not be overthrown, nor metropolitan bishops be defraudedof privileges based on antiquity. The see of Alexandria maynot lose any of that dignity which it merited through St. Mark,the evangelist and disciple of the blessed Peter, nor may thesplendor of so great a church be obscured by another's clouds,when Dioscurus fell through his persistence in impiety. Thechurch of Antioch, too, in which first, at the preaching of theblessed Apostle Peter, the Christian name arose, must continuein the position assigned to it by the Fathers, and, being set inthe third place [Can. 6, Nicæa, 325, v. supra, § 72], must neverbe lowered therefrom. For the see is one thing, and those whopreside in it something different; and an individual's great honoris his own integrity.(e) Leo the Great, Ep. 6, ad Anastasium A. D. 444. (MSL,54:616.) Cf. Kirch, nn. 814 ff.The policy of centralization. The primates are representativesof the bishop of Rome. Anastasius was bishop of Thessalonica.Ch. 2. Inasmuch, dear brother, as your request has been madeknown to us through our son Nicholas, the priest, that you also,like your predecessors, might receive from us in your turn authorityover Illyricum for the observance of the rules, we giveour consent, and earnestly exhort that no concealment and nonegligence may be allowed in the management of the churchessituated throughout Illyricum, which we commit to you in our [481]stead, following the precedent of Siricius, of blessed memory,who then, for the first time acting on a fixed method, intrustedthem to your last predecessor but one, Anysius, of holy memory,who had at the time well deserved of the Apostolic See, and wasapproved by after events, that he might render assistance to thechurches situated in that province, whom he wished to keep upto the discipline.…