What do Anglicans make of this letter and its references to the Papacy etc? The Letter of Agatho, Pope of Old Rome, to the Emperor - Bible Study Tools "[T]he whole council judged that the power of God through St. Peter worked through Pope St. Agatho to utter infallible truth." Some say it implies clams of Papal supremacy etc. Normal Catholic claims.
If any of the seven Ecumenical Councils endorsed ordinary (as opposed to appellate) jurisdiction of the Papal See, or that its office conferred limited infallibility, or that the See of Rome was the sole Apostolic (or sole Petrine) See, this would have been news to the Greek Christians. All of the Ecumenical Councils were in or near Constantinople, and their creeds, definitions, canons, and decrees were promulgated in Greek, not Latin.
Yes it is a big problem for them currently. At the time these were all accepted and still are doctrinal; they accept this being said. They seemed to have retroactively rejected some content as 'hyperbole' or even 'poetry' from my reading. There's little meaningful response. What about Anglicans though?
The Church of England explicitly adopted the ‘Magisterial’ Reformation’s understanding of the Church’s Ministry, so the question is moot (our retention of episcopal polity notwithstanding):
Never heard of this before. I note that in the letter he refers to himself as a bishop, not as pope. I think it was about this time that the bishops of Rome were trying to claim preeminence over the entire church. For the first few hundred years the bishop of Rome had no higher status than any other bishop and were only retroactively awarded the title of Pope.
That's not quite right. Sure, the titles of Pope and Patriarch came later, but as far as we can observe the Bishop in Rome did hold a special place in the politics and focus of the early Chuch. Whether this is simply a product of being the bishop of the most powerful region in the empire (much like how the bishop of Constantinople became the most powerful patriarch due to their proximity to the senior emperors), or due to a specific reverence for the Petrine seats of Antioch and Rome is not agreed on and probably never will be. Put another way whether the bishop of Rome was considered important for reasons early Christians thought important or not, he most certainly was not equivalent to any other bishop.
I think you are correct, any fair examination of Church history shows the Bishop of Rome had a special place of leadership in the church. Probably even more than the "primacy of honor" admitted by the Orthodox today. However I think early church history is also clear that the Bishop of Rome did not enjoy the universal jurisdiction over the whole church claimed by the Popes in later years. Certainly there was nothing approaching the late doctrine of Papal Infallibility in the respect paid to the Bishop of Rome by bishops from various other sees in the early church. As to the quote in question above, I read it as the council recognized in this one instance the inspiration of the Pope's comments. Not that in all cases St. Peter spoke through the pope.