The Modern Papacy: From John XXIII to Leo XIV

In October 1958 Angelo Roncalli was elected pope as John XXIII and soon called a council that would change the face of Roman Catholicism. In May 2025 the cardinals elected Robert Prevost of Chicago, who took the name Leo XIV. Counting both, seven men have held the see of Rome, and several of them have met the Ecumenical Patriarch and spoken of healing the division between East and West.

Has the papacy changed? This article reviews the modern popes and the dialogue documents and gives the Orthodox answer.

In brief

The modern popes have changed the papacy's tone toward the Orthodox. Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras removed the excommunications of 1054 "from memory" in 1965. John Paul II opened a theological dialogue in 1979 and in Ut Unum Sint (1995) sought a way of exercising the primacy "open to a new situation." The Ravenna (2007) and Chieti (2016) documents agree that in the first millennium Rome held the first place among the patriarchal sees; Chieti calls it a "primacy of honour." "Patriarch of the West" was dropped from the papal titles in 2006 and restored in 2024. In 2025 Leo XIV marked the 1,700th anniversary of Nicaea with Patriarch Bartholomew, and the Creed was professed without the Filioque. Yet the doctrine has not changed: Vatican II repeated that the pope has "full, supreme and universal power over the Church" and that his definitions are irreformable of themselves. The Orthodox Church rejects both universal papal jurisdiction and papal infallibility.

Thesis: The modern papacy has changed its style and its titles, and those changes are welcome, but it has not changed the dogmas that divide Rome from the Orthodox Church, and unity in faith will require more than a new way of exercising them.

The starting point: what Rome teaches

Every modern pope inherited the First Vatican Council's definitions (1870) of papal primacy of jurisdiction and papal infallibility (see Vatican I and Ultramontanism and Papal Infallibility: Ancient Doctrine or Later Development?). The Second Vatican Council set them inside a fuller teaching on bishops, but repeated them. Lumen Gentium (1964) says that "the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power." It says the pope's definitions, "of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly styled irreformable."¹ {{very-strong: The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed, rather than softened, Vatican I's dogmas of universal papal jurisdiction and papal infallibility.}} On Vatican II more broadly, see Vatican II: Did the Catholic Church Change Its Doctrine?.

Seven popes in brief

The dates below are from the Holy See's own pages for each pontiff.²

Pope	Pontificate	For relations with the Orthodox
John XXIII	28 Oct 1958 to 3 June 1963	Called Vatican II; created the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity (1960)
Paul VI	21 June 1963 to 6 Aug 1978	Met Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem (1964); lifting of the 1054 excommunications (1965)
John Paul I	26 Aug to 28 Sept 1978	Died after 33 days
John Paul II	16 Oct 1978 to 2 Apr 2005	Opened the theological dialogue (1979); Ut Unum Sint (1995)
Benedict XVI	19 Apr 2005 to 28 Feb 2013	"Patriarch of the West" dropped (2006); Ravenna (2007); resigned
Francis	13 Mar 2013 to 21 Apr 2025	Stressed "Bishop of Rome"; Chieti (2016), Alexandria (2023); 2024 study document
Leo XIV	8 May 2025 to the present	Nicaea anniversary with Patriarch Bartholomew (2025)

Benedict XVI renounced "the ministry of Bishop of Rome" in 2013 and died as pope emeritus on 31 December 2022.³ Francis introduced himself on the night of his election by saying that "it was the duty of the Conclave to give Rome a Bishop," and spoke of "the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches," a phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch that the Orthodox also cherish.⁴ He died on Easter Monday, 21 April 2025, aged 88.⁵ On 8 May 2025 the conclave elected Cardinal Robert Prevost, an Augustinian born in Chicago in 1955 who had served for years in Peru; he took the name Leo XIV.⁶

1960 to 1965: from observers to the lifting of the anathemas

On 5 June 1960 John XXIII set up the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, whose first task was to invite other churches "to send observers to the Second Vatican Council."⁷ In January 1964 Paul VI met Patriarch Athenagoras on the Mount of Olives, and on 7 December 1965, the penultimate day of the council, the two sees acted together in simultaneous ceremonies in Rome and at the Phanar.⁸

Their joint declaration recalled the excommunication of Patriarch Michael Cerularius by the papal legates in 1054 and the patriarchal synod's sentence on the legates. Both sides regretted "the offensive words, the reproaches without foundation, and the reprehensible gestures" of that period, and they "remove both from memory and from the midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication." It admitted that this "gesture of justice and mutual pardon is not sufficient to end both old and more recent differences." Its goal was "full communion of faith, fraternal accord and sacramental life" as in "the first thousand years of the life of the Church."⁹

It removed personal censures. It did not restore communion or settle the questions of faith behind the schism, above all the Filioque and the papal claims (see The Filioque: Why One Phrase Helped Divide East and West).

1979 to 1995: the dialogue and Ut Unum Sint

On the feast of St Andrew, 30 November 1979, John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I announced at the Phanar that the theological dialogue would begin and published the membership of the joint commission charged with it.¹⁰

In Ut Unum Sint (1995) John Paul II repeated his words to Patriarch Dimitrios that "for a great variety of reasons, and against the will of all concerned, what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light." He spoke of "the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation," and prayed that they might seek together "the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned."¹¹

The invitation was sincere, but the encyclical also says what is not negotiable: "the communion of the particular Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome" is, "in God's plan," "an essential requisite of full and visible communion."¹² "In no way renouncing what is essential" means, in Catholic terms, that the dogmas of 1870 stay. What was offered was a new manner of exercising a power the Orthodox have never accepted.

Ravenna (2007): agreement on the first millennium, and an empty chair

The Ravenna document took up primacy directly. Its preface says it "should not be understood as an official declaration of the Church's teaching." Both sides "agree that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch (To the Romans, Prologue), occupied the first place in the taxis, and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the protos among the patriarchs," but "disagree, however, on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as protos." A note records the Orthodox participants' insistence that the document's use of terms such as "the universal Church" in no way "undermines the self-understanding of the Orthodox Church as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, of which the Nicene Creed speaks."¹³

The Russian Orthodox Church was not at the table. Its official position of December 2013 says the text was adopted "in the absence of a delegation of the Russian Church and without consideration for her opinion," and that Moscow "disagreed with it in the part that refers to synodality and primacy on the level of the Universal Church." It teaches that universal primacy "represents primacy in honour," that in the first millennium "the primacy of honour used to belong to the chair of Rome," and that a universal jurisdiction is "never mentioned either in holy canons or patristic tradition." It states: "The Orthodox Church rejected the doctrine of the Roman Church on papal primacy and the divine origin of the power of the first bishop in the Universal Church."¹⁴ It quotes Patriarch Bartholomew (2007): Rome's first-millennium primacy was an "honorary primacy, in love, without being legal dominion over the whole Christian Church."

Chieti (2016) and Alexandria (2023)

The Chieti document says that between the fourth and seventh centuries the patriarchal sees were ordered "with the see of Rome occupying the first place, exercising a primacy of honour (presbeia tes times), followed by the sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem." It then names the divide: in the West, Rome's primacy "was gradually interpreted as a prerogative that was his because he was successor of Peter," but "This understanding was not adopted in the East, which had a different interpretation of the Scriptures and the Fathers on this point." The Georgian delegation disagreed with some paragraphs.¹⁵ {{very-strong: Catholic and Orthodox members of the official dialogue agree that in the first millennium the bishop of Rome held the first place among the patriarchs, a primacy of honour, and that the East did not adopt the Western Petrine interpretation of it.}} On the patristic evidence, see Did the Early Church Believe in Papal Supremacy?.

The Alexandria document (2023) reached Vatican I and spoke plainly: "Vatican I's teaching on the papal primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church and papal infallibility was considered unacceptable by the Orthodox Church. Such an ecclesiology is for the Orthodox a serious departure from the canonical tradition of the Fathers and the ecumenical councils, because it obscures the catholicity of each local Church." It records the Orthodox reply that "the head of the whole Church is not a mortal, sinful man, but the sinless and immortal God-man Christ" and that "infallibility belongs to the Church as a whole, as expressed by councils received by the entire people of God." Georgia again disagreed with some paragraphs, and Moscow was not among the ten Orthodox churches represented. It adds that "for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific."¹⁶ That is fair: in Moscow's words, Constantinople's primate may speak for the whole Orthodox Church only "provided he has been empowered to do so by all the Local Orthodox Churches."¹⁷ The first see has real tasks, not jurisdiction.

"Patriarch of the West": dropped in 2006, back in 2024

In 2006 "Patriarch of the West" disappeared from the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity explained that it "was adopted in the year 642 by Pope Theodore," first appeared in the yearbook in 1863, and was "never very clear," a title that "over history has become obsolete and practically unusable."¹⁸ The chief secretary of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's synod said in June 2006 that dropping it while keeping "Vicar of Jesus Christ" and "Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church" was "perceived as implying a universal jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome over the entire church, which is something the Orthodox have never accepted." Under Francis every title except "Bishop of Rome" was moved to another page, listed from 2020 as "historic titles." The 2024 yearbook inserted "Patriarch of the West" among them after "Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church." As of 11 April 2024 the Vatican press office said it had no explanation for the change.¹⁹

For the Orthodox the title is familiar: the bishops of Rome, "from the point of view of Eastern Churches, have always been patriarchs of the West, that is, primates of the Western Local Church."²⁰ But "Vicar of Jesus Christ" and "Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church" stand on the same list, and the dogma behind them is unchanged.

2024: "The Bishop of Rome"

In June 2024 the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity published The Bishop of Rome, a study document approved by Pope Francis that gathers some thirty responses to Ut Unum Sint and fifty dialogue documents. It does not claim "to summarize the Catholic magisterium on the subject." Among its proposals are "a 'rereading' or official commentary on Vatican I" and "a clearer distinction between the different responsibilities of the Pope." Cardinal Kurt Koch said the documents "agree on the need for a service of unity at the universal level, even if the foundations of this service and the ways in which it is exercised are subject to different interpretations."²¹ But a "rereading" is still a reading of a text Rome holds irreformable. The Orthodox Church does not ask for Vatican I to be explained more gently; it holds that the dogmas are not the faith of the Church.

2025 and 2026: Leo XIV at Nicaea, and the infallibility draft

Leo XIV's first journey abroad, in late 2025, included a pilgrimage to İznik, ancient Nicaea, for the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council.²² At the ecumenical prayer on 28 November, Patriarch Bartholomew invited all to profess the faith "In remembrance of what was proclaimed by the Fathers of the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople." The text in the Vatican's own booklet, said "All together," confesses the Holy Spirit "who proceeds from the Father," without the Filioque.²³ The next day the pope and the patriarch signed a joint declaration at the Phanar confessing the Son as "homoousios with the Father," recalling the 1965 declaration and backing the joint commission's work.²⁴

The Orthodox can be glad that the Creed of 381 was professed as it was written. But nothing here withdraws the Filioque from Catholic teaching. The Catechism still teaches it and says its insertion into the Creed "constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches."²⁵ The dialogue is now working on infallibility. In June 2026 its coordinating committee met in Hungary on a draft "dealing with the topic of infallibility from theological and historical perspectives" and decided that "the text needs further revision and clarification before it can be submitted to a Plenary Meeting of the Commission"; it plans to meet again in June 2027.²⁶

The Orthodox verdict

The Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church confessed in the Creed, not half of a broken whole waiting for Rome to complete it. Its judgement rests on the faith it has kept, not on the personalities of popes.

• The primacy of honour was real. In the undivided Church the bishop of Rome held the first place among the patriarchs. The canons say so.
• Universal jurisdiction is an error. No bishop has by divine right "full, supreme and universal power over the Church." Christ is the Head of the Church. Each local Church gathered around its bishop in the Eucharist is fully the Church; bishops are brothers, not subjects.
• Papal infallibility is an error. The faith is guarded by the whole Church, expressed in councils and received by the people of God. A pope's definitions are not irreformable "of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church."
• Gestures are not unity. The meetings and shared prayers are acts of charity to be welcomed. But communion is communion in one faith; while Rome teaches the Filioque, universal jurisdiction and infallibility as dogma, Eucharistic communion cannot be restored.

Roman Catholics are fellow Christians, and these popes have treated the Orthodox with real courtesy. But the papal dogmas depart from the apostolic faith, and the Orthodox must say so.

Objections and replies

"The popes have changed. Now the Orthodox are blocking unity."

The manner has changed; the binding texts have not. Lumen Gentium 22 and 25 and Ut Unum Sint 97 remain the official position. Declining a dogma one believes false is not obstruction but fidelity.

"Ravenna shows the Orthodox accept a universal primacy."

Ravenna says "the fact of primacy at the universal level is accepted by both East and West," but in the same breath records "differences of understanding" about its exercise and "its scriptural and theological foundations." It is not "an official declaration of the Church's teaching," and the Russian Orthodox Church was absent and later rejected its section on universal primacy. A first among equals, ranked by the canons, is not a universal jurisdiction held by divine right.

"Without a pope, the Orthodox are divided."

The Orthodox have painful quarrels, including the Russian Church's decision in October 2018 to break Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople over Ukraine (see Why Are There So Many Orthodox Jurisdictions?).²⁷ These are failures of charity and order, and the Orthodox should own them, but they are not divisions in the faith. A universal jurisdiction did not prevent the sixteenth-century divisions in the West.

"Why not accept the primacy in the form Ut Unum Sint offers?"

Because the offer keeps "what is essential to its mission," and Rome defines that by Vatican I. The Eastern Catholic churches show what union on those terms means: they keep their rites, but they "ultimately accepted" Vatican I's teaching (see Uniatism).²⁸

What we can say confidently

• Paul VI and Athenagoras removed the 1054 excommunications from memory on 7 December 1965 and said this did not end the differences.
• Ravenna (2007) and Chieti (2016) agree that Rome held the first place among the patriarchal sees in the first millennium; Chieti calls it a "primacy of honour" and says the East did not adopt the Petrine interpretation of it.
• Vatican II reaffirmed universal papal jurisdiction and infallibility, and Ut Unum Sint calls communion with Rome "an essential requisite" of full communion.
• The Orthodox Church rejects universal papal jurisdiction and papal infallibility.

What remains disputed

• {{debated: What the 2024 restoration of "Patriarch of the West" signals; the Vatican gave no explanation when it appeared.}}
• What practical prerogatives the first-millennium "primacy of honour" carried; the dialogue texts say Catholics and Orthodox read the evidence differently.
• Whether the dialogue's draft on infallibility will produce an agreed text.
• How Orthodox churches should take part in the dialogue: Moscow was absent at Ravenna and Alexandria, and Georgia dissented from parts of Chieti and Alexandria.

Conclusion

Churches that once exchanged anathemas now exchange visits, and in 2025 a bishop of Rome stood at Nicaea while the Creed of 381 was professed as the Fathers wrote it. Orthodox Christians should be grateful for every step taken in charity, and should pray for the bishop of Rome and for all who seek the unity Christ prayed for.

Charity, though, is not yet unity in faith. The Orthodox Church honors the place Rome held when East and West shared one faith, and it awaits the day when that faith is shared again. That day will come when Rome's teaching agrees with the faith of the undivided Church, not merely when the papacy finds a gentler style. Until then it keeps the faith once delivered to the saints, trusting Christ, the only Head of the Church, to gather His people into one.

Notes

1. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (21 November 1964), 22 and 25, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html.
2. The Holy See, pontiff pages (beginning and end of pontificate, secular name): https://www.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en.html, /paul-vi/en.html, /john-paul-i/en.html, /john-paul-ii/en.html, /benedict-xvi/en.html, /francesco/en.html; Leo XIV: see note 6.
3. Benedict XVI, Declaratio (dated 10 February 2013, read 11 February 2013), https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2013/february/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20130211_declaratio.html; Holy See Press Office, declaration of Matteo Bruni (31 December 2022), https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2022/12/31/221231a.html.
4. Francis, first greeting and Apostolic Blessing Urbi et Orbi (13 March 2013), https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2013/march/documents/papa-francesco_20130313_benedizione-urbi-et-orbi.html.
5. "Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday aged 88," Vatican News (21 April 2025), https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-dies-on-easter-monday-aged-88.html.
6. The Holy See, "Biography of Leo XIV," https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/biography/documents/biografia_leone-xiv.html.
7. Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, "Presentation" (history of the Dicastery), https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dicastero/presentazione/presentazione.html.
8. Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, Synodality and Primacy in the Second Millennium and Today (Alexandria, 7 June 2023), 4.8, https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/document-d-alexandrie---synodalite-et-primaute-au-deuxieme-mille.html.
9. Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I (7 December 1965), https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration.html.
10. Joint Declaration of Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Dimitrios I (Phanar, 30 November 1979), French text, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/fr/speeches/1979/november/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19791130_dichiarazione-jpii-dimitrios.html (paraphrasing "le dialogue théologique va commencer").
11. John Paul II, encyclical Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995), 95, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint.html.
12. Ut Unum Sint 97 (see note 11).
13. Joint International Commission, Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church (Ravenna, 13 October 2007), preface, 41, 43 and note 1, https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese.html.
14. Moscow Patriarchate, "Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church" (26 December 2013), introduction, sections 2 to 4, and note 10 (Patriarch Bartholomew, address to the Bulgarian media, November 2007), https://old.mospat.ru/en/2013/12/26/news96344/.
15. Joint International Commission, Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium (Chieti, 21 September 2016), 15-16, https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese1.html; Communiqué of the 14th plenary session (Chieti, 21 September 2016), https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/sessioni-plenarie/2016-sessione-plenaria-della-commissione--chieti---comunicato-st.html.
16. Alexandria document (see note 8), 3.10 and 5.1; on the Georgian delegation's disagreement, Communiqué of the 15th plenary session (2023), reproduced at https://ecumenism.net/?p=13725.
17. Moscow Patriarchate, "Position" (see note 14), section 5.
18. Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, communiqué on the title "Patriarch of the West," as published by the Vatican Information Service (22 March 2006), https://visnews-en.blogspot.com/2006_03_22_archive.html.
19. Cindy Wooden, "An ancient papal title returns to the Vatican yearbook," Catholic News Service, published by Our Sunday Visitor (11 April 2024), https://www.oursundayvisitor.com/patriarch-of-the-west-reappears-as-papal-title-in-vatican-yearbook/; corroborated by Matthew Santucci, "Pope Francis reinstates papal title 'Patriarch of the West' in Pontifical Yearbook," Catholic News Agency (12 April 2024), https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/257360.
20. Moscow Patriarchate, "Position" (see note 14), section 4.
21. Holy See Press Office, "Press Conference to present the document of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, 'The Bishop of Rome'" (13 June 2024), https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2024/06/13/240613f.html.
22. Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, "Apostolic Journey to Turkey and Lebanon" (1 December 2025), https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/news/2025/2025-12-01-viaggio-apostolico-in-turchia-e-libano.html.
23. Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, Ecumenical Prayer for the Commemoration of the 1700th Anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea (İznik, 28 November 2025), booklet, https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/libretti/2025/20251128-libretto-preghiera-ecumenica-iznik.pdf. That the joint recitation omitted the Filioque is confirmed by Cindy Wooden, "Though Nicaea is a ruin, its creed stands and unites Christians, pope says," Catholic News Service (28 November 2025), https://catholicreview.org/though-nicaea-is-a-ruin-its-creed-stands-and-unites-christians-pope-says/.
24. Joint Declaration of Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Phanar, 29 November 2025), https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/travels/2025/documents/20251129-dichiarazione-congiunta.html.
25. Catechism of the Catholic Church 246-247, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM.
26. Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, "Coordinating Committee of the International Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue" (19 June 2026), https://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/news/2026/2026-06-19-comitato-di-coordinamento-del-dialogo-internazionale-.html.
27. "Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church has considered it impossible to remain in the Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople" (Minsk, 15 October 2018), Patriarchal Parishes in the USA, https://mospatusa.com/news_181015_7.
28. Alexandria document (see note 8), 3.9.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 21 November 1964.
• Paul VI and Athenagoras I. Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration, 7 December 1965.
• John Paul II and Dimitrios I. Joint Declaration, Phanar, 30 November 1979.
• John Paul II. Ut Unum Sint. Encyclical letter, 25 May 1995.
• Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. Ravenna Document (2007); Chieti Document (2016) and communiqué; Alexandria Document (2023).
• Leo XIV and Bartholomew I. Joint Declaration, Phanar, 29 November 2025; booklet of the Ecumenical Prayer at İznik, 28 November 2025.
• The Holy See. Pontiff pages and biography of Leo XIV; Benedict XVI, Declaratio (2013); Francis, first greeting (13 March 2013).

Orthodox sources

• Moscow Patriarchate. "Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church." 26 December 2013 (including its quotation of Patriarch Bartholomew, 2007).
• Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Statement on Eucharistic communion with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Minsk, 15 October 2018.
• Ecumenical Patriarchate, statement of the chief secretary of the Holy Synod on the title "Patriarch of the West" (June 2006), as quoted by Catholic News Service (2024).

Reporting and reference

• Wooden, Cindy. "An ancient papal title returns to the Vatican yearbook." Catholic News Service, 11 April 2024.
• Vatican News. "Pope Francis has died on Easter Monday aged 88." 21 April 2025.
• Holy See Press Office. Declaration on the death of Benedict XVI, 31 December 2022.

Sources from the Roman Catholic tradition

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed., paragraphs 246-248.
• Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Communiqué on the title "Patriarch of the West." Vatican Information Service, 22 March 2006.
• Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in the Ecumenical Dialogues and in the Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint. Study document, 2024 (cited from the Holy See Press Office presentation, 13 June 2024); history page of the Dicastery; news items of 1 December 2025 and 19 June 2026.