St Peter and the Church of Rome

The meeting of His Holiness Pope Tawadros with the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, was an historic event, which generated some unnecessary controversy. Certainly, the Orthodox Church of Alexandria has never accepted the sweeping claims of the Pope of Rome to a universal jurisdiction over the whole Church. But this does not require us to dismiss everything the Roman Catholic Church, and our own Tradition, teaches about the origins of the Church of Rome, and the presence and martyrdom of St Peter there in the first century.

We celebrated recently the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul. It would seem that this feast originated in Rome in the earliest times. Certainly in the second or third centuries after Christ some of the relics of these two Apostles, both associated with Rome in their Apostolic ministries, came to be deposited together in a Christian cemetery on the Via Appia, where a basilica was raised over their shrine by the Emperor Constantine, the first of his monumental Christian buildings in Rome. It seems very likely that this early shrine was created with a definite desire to prevent the party feeling which had been criticised at Corinth from being able to develop in Rome.

If the two Apostles were venerated together at the same shrine, and if they were celebrated on the same Feast Day, then it would not be possible to divide their theology and spiritual emphases and create parties who could say ‘I am of Paul’ or ‘I am of Peter’. In time this feast day spread throughout much of the Church and it is now celebrated in Cairo and Constantinople as well as in Rome. It is early evidence that St Peter was in Rome, and was martyred there as the Tradition describes.

Another important documentary reference is found in the writings of St Irenaeus of Lyons, one of the great Fathers of the first centuries. He was born early in the second century in Smyrna, and had been taught by St Polycarp. He found his way to Lyons, in modern France, and visited Rome in 177 A.D., where he was consecrated as the second bishop of Lyons after the martyrdom of St Pothinus, the first bishop. He describes the succession of bishops in Rome, as proof of the truth of the Apostolic teachings preserved in the Church, and says…

Since, however, it would be very tedious, … to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, … we do this, I say, by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also by pointing out the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops… The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed it into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.

St Irenaeus lived in the second century, and he had known the Church in Asia Minor, and in Gaul, and in Rome. Having visited the city at least in 177 A.D., and very likely on his journey from the East, he would have been very well placed to learn all of the traditions of the Church of Rome concerning its establishment by the Apostles St Peter and St Paul. Of course this does not mean that the first Christians in Rome had been evangelised by either of these Apostles, but their presence in the city established the Church there as an Apostolic one.

Eusebius, the first and great Church Historian, writing in about 303 A.D. also speaks of St Peter being in Rome. He says…

Peter appears to have preached in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia to the Jews of the dispersion. And at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way.

And he adds…

Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle which they say that he wrote in Rome itself, as is indicated by him, when he calls the city, by a figure, Babylon, as he does in the following words: The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you; and so does Marcus my son.

This is interesting, both because he again insists that St Peter had been in Rome, and indeed wrote his first epistle in Rome, but also because he quotes from the New Testament, 1 Peter 5, to show that St Peter spoke of Rome when he used the figurative name of Babylon. Other early Christian commentators also make this same connection. The Catena of Andreas says…

Peter calls Rome Babylon in a metaphorical sense. The woman who is chosen along with us is the church of Christ established in that city. He also mentions Mark the Evangelist, whom he calls his son in Christ and to whom he entrusted the task of writing the Gospel.

And Bede says…

Peter refers to Rome as Babylon, probably because of the enormous amount of idolatry which existed in both cities.

And Isho’Dad of Merv says…

Peter calls Rome Babylon [Babel] because of the many languages spoken there.

Indeed, it was not until Protestant writers wished to deny any connection between St Peter and Rome, in order to undermine the Roman Catholic Church, more than 16oo years after the time of St Peter, that anyone imagined that St Peter had not travelled to Rome, and had not referred to Rome in his own letter as Babylon. Some Protestants, determined to deny that St Peter had served in Rome, suggested that Babylon referred to the great city of the Babylonian Empire that had flourished. In the first century, the ancient city of Babylon in the East had virtually ceased to exist. At the time it was no more than a small settlement in Persia. There was no flourishing city there, and at the time of St Peter there was no church. A tablet dated 275 BC states that the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia. With this deportation, Babylon became insignificant as a city.

Other Protestants, aware that this first argument held no weight, suggested that St Peter had written from the fortress of Babylon at the site where Cairo would later be established by the Islamic invaders in the 7th century. There is indeed a Roman fortress on which much of Old Cairo sits, and there was an older Persian settlement a little distance away. But the Emperor Trajan did not build the fortress until about 100 A.D., long after the time of St Peter. And there is no record of a church or bishop there until much later, also well after the time of St Peter.

An early text, a letter from Clement of Rome to James the Bishop of Jerusalem, though undoubtedly written later than the time of St Peter, represents the tradition that was prevalent in the first and second century after Christ. It says…

Be it known to you, my Lord, that Simon, who, for the sake of the true faith, and the most sure foundation of his doctrine, was set apart to be the foundation of the Church, and for this end was by Jesus Himself, with His truthful mouth, named Peter… he himself, by reason of his immense love towards men, having come as far as Rome, clearly and publicly testifying, in opposition to the wicked one who withstood him, that there is to be a good King over all the world, while saving men by his God-inspired doctrine, himself, by violence, exchanged this present existence for life.

Even if this was not written by St Clement of Rome himself, nevertheless it represents the history of Rome, and the tradition of the Church about St Peter being present with the Church there, and experiencing martyrdom for Christ in that city. We find that Tertullian, the North African writer, in about 200 A.D. says about Rome…

How happy is that church . . . where Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like John’s [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being beheaded].”

And St Dionysius of Corinth, writing in 171 A.D. to Soter, the Bishop of Rome, says…

You [Pope Soter] have also, by your very admonition, brought together the planting that was made by Peter and Paul at Rome and at Corinth; for both of them alike planted in our Corinth and taught us; and both alike, teaching similarly in Italy, suffered martyrdom at the same time.

And of Gaius, a Roman writer himself, in 198 A.D. Eusebius the Church Historian says…

It is recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and Peter, likewise, was crucified, during the reign [of the Emperor Nero]. The account is confirmed by the names of Peter and Paul over the cemeteries there, which remain to the present time. And it is confirmed also by a stalwart man of the Church, Gaius by name, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. This Gaius, in a written disputation with Proclus, the leader of the sect of Cataphrygians, says this of the places in which the remains of the aforementioned apostles were deposited: ‘I can point out the trophies of the apostles. For if you are willing to go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find the trophies of those who founded this Church’.

Even Clement of Alexandria, writing in 200 A.D. says…

The circumstances which occasioned . . . [the writing] of Mark were these: When Peter preached the Word publicly at Rome and declared the gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had been a long time his follower and who remembered his sayings, should write down what had been proclaimed.

There are many more references which could be produced to show that the early Church had no doubt that St Peter had preached in Rome, established the Church there on an Apostolic basis with St Paul, and was martyred there. The Coptic Synaxarium which we read on the occasion of their joint feast reminds us each year…

When Peter came to the city of Rome, he found there St. Paul the Apostle. Through their preaching, most of the people of Rome believed, so Nero seized Peter and commanded to crucify him. Peter asked them to crucify him head downwards, and he delivered up his soul into the hand of the Lord.

If we wish to be critical of certain developments in the Roman Catholic Church, then this is permitted to us in generosity and love. But we must not give any credence at all to those who suggest that St Peter was not in Rome and did not establish the Church there with St Peter. Those who say such a thing are not speaking according to our ancient Orthodox Tradition, and are doing no more than repeating the falsehoods introduced by Protestants in recent centuries.