Patriarchal and Synodical Encyclical of 1895
The reply of the patriarch of Constantinople and his synod to Leo XIII’s appeal for union with Rome. It lists the points on which it holds Rome to have departed from the faith of the first nine centuries, papal infallibility among them.
Read the text at orthodoxinfo.com ↗Leo XIII, Praeclara gratulationis, 20 June 1894 (Holy See, Italian text) ↗
Leo XIII had invited the Eastern churches to union in the apostolic letter Praeclara gratulationis, which the Holy See dates 20 June 1894; the translation of the reply used here gives the month as June 1895. The patriarch and the members of his synod answered in August 1895, addressing their own clergy and people. They say that union requires unity of faith, name the Filioque, the Immaculate Conception and other points as Western innovations, and in sections 14 to 18 deny that the early church knew the bishop of Rome as supreme or infallible.
It is a controversial letter in answer to a papal one, and its tone is polemical. It is cited as a statement by the patriarchate of Constantinople of how it judged the definitions of 1854 (section 13) and 1870.
Cited in
- 8 December 1854, firm date
- 1869 to 1870, firm date