Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, objected to the Council’s action. Does the position of the church and its bishops depend upon the status of some city in the empire? Rome’s preeminence, he insisted, does not rest upon any such historical accident, nor on the decrees of a council. At a synod in Rome the next year, bishops from the West argued: “The Holy Roman Church takes precedence over the other churches, not on the ground of any synodal decisions, but because it was given the primacy by the words of our Lord and Redeemer in the gospel, when he said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
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