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THE CHAIR OF ST. PETER IN ANTIOCH
Dedicated to Metropolitan SABA
s early as 311 A.D., February 22 was commemorated annually in the Church of Rome as the natale Petri de cathedra (“Feast of the Chair of St. Peter”). Sometime before 800 A.D., this phrase was added: qua sedit apud antiochiam (“where he sat at Antioch”). These words indicate two things: first, that every year the Church in Rome acknowledged and prayed for the establishment of the Church in Antioch; and second, that the Church in Rome also acknowledged that St. Peter was the first bishop of Antioch before he became the first bishop of Rome.
Why, in the earliest days of legal Christianity, would Rome acknowledge and commemorate Antioch? This was completely unprecedented. There is no similar feast for the establishment of the other great churches – in Alexandria, Jerusalem, or Constantinople. Since we have no records explaining why Antioch is granted this privilege, permit me to offer this possibility.
The Church in Rome was of mixed ethnicity, combining the efforts of both the Apostle to the Jews and the Apostle to the Gentiles. Rome, however, knew that it was not first in this effort. St. Peter and St. Paul first worked together to overcome barriers of language, culture, and ethnicity in Antioch.
Antioch was the first crossroads where the seed, sprouting in Judea, spread to non-Jewish people. It was in Antioch where this mixed ethnic assembly and mixed culture was first called “Christian.” Most importantly for us, it was in Antioch where Ss. Peter and Paul agreed that, to be Christian, one did not have to be Jewish or even Semitic; that one did not have to eat the same food or follow the same fast; and that no culture, no language, no liturgical tradition, and no custom should dominate or be foisted upon another.
This conclusion was debated and settled in the famous decision of the very First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Jerusalem, which is described in Acts 15. Jewish Christians were upset that Gentile Christians were not following the Jewish dietary restrictions: they were eating pork and shellfish – and that Gentile Christians were not following the liturgical tradition: their men were not circumcised. St. Paul declared that the Gentiles sincerely and truly accepted the Christian faith. St. Peter brought the debate to a good conclusion when he declared that “God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.” St. Peter testified that the Holy Spirit was given also to the Gentiles. Then he asked this question, which ended the matter: “Why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear”? Shortly thereafter, St. James, the bishop of Jerusalem, who was also the nephew of St. Joseph and St. Simeon – this St. James led the Council to write a letter saying that “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” to accept the Gentiles without changing their culture or traditions, provided they maintained the apostolic faith and practice.
Let us return, however, to St. Peter’s showstopping question. How do we, today, understand this “yoke upon their necks”? When I was a Lutheran, I remember reading, both in German and in English, the debates in America that the German theologians, pastors, bishops, and laity often raised. Their fear was that the faith would be lost if German ways, German language, and German traditions were not insisted upon in the United States. At that same time, in Roman Catholic circles the same fear was expressed about Italian, Irish, French or Polish customs, language, and traditions. The counter-argument was that this was not the way of the Apostles, or the way of the Church in the first millennium. Otherwise, we would not have French, Russian, Polish, German, Arabic, Egyptian, Romanian, Greek, Italian, or Irish traditions. We would all be Jewish. That counterargument made some sense; but it wasn’t entirely convincing.
Yet I saw and realized the full impact of Acts 15 when I became Orthodox. What St. Paul and St. Peter argued for and implemented was not a cynical marketing scheme, whereby we try to adopt many cultures under one big tent. What Ss. Paul and Peter saw, and what the Church in Antioch has maintained since the beginning, is that the Christian faith needs to transform cultures. This transformation is not into a homogenous, unified culture, but in a supra-culture – a Christian culture in which fears sink beneath the surface, which rises above the human differences, which binds together godly diversity. This Way, which is Jesus, transforms cultures in the same way that the Word, which is Jesus, transforms hearts and souls: by urging us into the way of true repentance without forcing us to lose our uniqueness or individuality.
Icon handwritten by Janet Jaime, eleousa@cox.net
need to be repaired. The bones may be dry and dusty. The schematics may need a second, more careful look. Yet what we have inherited from the Latin Church centuries ago does not need to be discarded. Holy relics, consecrated buildings, unreformed liturgies, and traditions rooted in the past millennia haven’t lost their grace. The Holy Spirit in them may need to be recovered and re-discovered, but they can still serve us well as we Orthodox Christians in the West work together, by prayer, by fasting, and by holy living, to transform this American culture.
If we are not reinventing the wheel, then reclaiming our Latin and Western liturgical traditions seems just and right. It seems to be exactly what Ss. Peter and Paul argued for and established in the Church in Antioch. Perhaps today they would say that we Americans, we Westerners, are the Gentiles, who can be accepted without the condition of changing the good things we have received from the Spirit.
As one lately come into the Church, I humbly and respectfully suggest that this transformation of culture is the original spirit of Antioch. As one who is proudly American, I further suggest that the framework, the bones, the schematics for this transformation are already in our American culture, influenced as it has been to a good degree by the ancient Orthodox in the West. The framework may
And if I may be so bold, that is what the Latin Church recognized and celebrated 1,700 years ago when it determined to commemorate each year the day the Church in Antioch was established by the holy Apostle Peter.
