La collégialité dans l'Église ancienne

In the Church, the supra-episcopal institutions of province and patriarcate were ratified by Greek conciliar canons from the 4th to the 6th cent. The development of thèse two intermediary levels of episcopal collegiality in the universal Church was not the product of purely ecclesiological motives. However, the spirit offellowship among the churches which is expressed by thèse two levels implies, in principal, the practice of an organic relationship of active and mutually complementary reciprocity between the primate and the synod. It was in the ecumenical council that the East of the patristic era saw the suprême expression of episcopal collegiality. The authority of the Roman See was respected as that of a privileged witness of faith and as that of a décisive guarantor of the Churches' fellowship. But this authority was never recognized or accepted in the East as a «plenitudo potestatis» acting from outside on the Churches in fellowship and conditioning the integrity of their ecclesiality .De Halleux André. La collégialité dans l'Église ancienne. In: Revue théologique de Louvain, 24ᵉ année, fasc. 4, 1993. pp. 433-454