Chieti Document

The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church issued Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium at Chieti, Italy, on 21 September 2016. It continues the commission's study of communion, conciliarity, and authority by reading first-millennium evidence together rather than projecting either Church's later system backward without qualification.^[2]

The text is an official product of international theological dialogue, not an ecumenical council, a papal definition, or a juridical act restoring communion. It records an important area of Catholic–Orthodox convergence and supplies a basis for further dialogue; it does not replace Catholic doctrine or settle every dispute about the universal primacy of the bishop of Rome.

Chieti describes synodality as fundamental to the Church and primacy as the service of the one who is first. At the local level the bishop presides over the eucharistic Church; regionally the metropolitan or patriarch acts with the other bishops; universally the first-millennium order of principal sees placed Rome first. At each level, the first and the many belong together rather than functioning as rival sources of ecclesial life.

The document notes that the West increasingly interpreted Roman primacy through Peter's role, while the East did not adopt that interpretation in the same form. It also records appeals from the East to Rome and other major sees, handled synodally, while stating that the bishop of Rome did not exercise canonical authority over the Eastern Churches during the period as the commission describes it.

The first millennium is presented as a necessary reference because East and West then remained in communion despite temporary ruptures and diverse canonical practices. Chieti's achievement is not a slogan that primacy has been solved, but a shared historical-theological framework in which primacy, synodality, and service must be considered together when Catholics and Orthodox discuss restored full communion.