Encyclopedia of Philosophy: THE THEOLOGY OF INCARNATION

The Council of Constantinople put an end to Arianism in the Eastern Empire; Theodosius backed its decrees with persecution. The heresy survived, however, among the barbarian Goths, who had recently mounted a successful invasion across the Danube and were shortly to conquer much of the West. In addition to its doctrinal decisions the Council issued a decree that ‘the bishop of Constanti¬nople shall have rank after the bishop of Rome because it is the new Rome’.  During the second and third centuries the Bishop of Rome had come to be accepted as the senior bishop in the Church, even by such churches as Antioch and Alexandria, which had been founded by Apostles. From time to time inter¬ventions by Roman bishops in the affairs of other churches had been accepted and sometimes welcomed. This Papal authority had been strengthened when Constantine offered Pope Silvester a position of dignity and a handsome palace in Rome, though not (as later Papal forgery had it) substantial dominions through¬out Italy and the West. Silvester had sent representatives to the Council of Nicaea, and his successors remained steadfast to its doctrines. The Roman Church resented the canon which promoted Constantinople to the second place among bishoprics, because it implied that its own traditional authority derived from its location in the Empire’s capital rather than because of its claim to be the founda¬tion of the Apostles Peter and Paul.