11.

 While none of the theological centers of the time taught wrongly, which one of them was in the best position to present the correct, Orthodox teaching concerning the nature of Christ?

            During the great doctrinal disputes of the first eight centuries of the Church's history, the see of Rome, that once-great bastion of Orthodoxy in the West, was generally noted for the soundness of its teaching and its firmness of faith. Although there were occasions when the Roman popes fell into heresy, the Patriarchate of Rome usually stood as a bulwark of the Christian faith in its struggle against heresy. For this reason, Rome was an honored center of Christian Tradition at that time.

            Protopriest Victor Potapov notes that regarding the peculiarities of the spirit of the Roman people, which defined the character of the direction of the ecclesiastical life in the West after the acceptance of Christianity, one may speak of these as tendencies, as moods, as a psychological cast. Fr. Victor continues, stating that in the first eight centuries of the existence of the Universal Church, the psychological cast between the Churches of the East and West were as a whole beneficial rather than harmful to the Church, for they promoted the fullness of the elucidation and incarnation in life of the principles of Christianity, leaving the Church as one. It was required only that they abide in mutual ecclesiastical communion between themselves and that they not depart from the one Universal Church. However, the Western Church broke this communion, and in this rift is contained the cause of its entry onto the path of heresy and its severance from Christ's Church in 1054.