Pope Vigilius (died 555) | WEST

(Updated July 30, 2025)

This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Ecclesiastical Writer, Pope Vigilius.

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Letters

Pope Vigilius, To Profuturus of Braga (538)¹ ***

To no one well or ill informed is it doubtful that the Roman Church is the foundation and the mold of the churches (fundamentum et forma sit ecclesiarum), from which no one of right belief is ignorant that all churches have derived their beginning. Since, though the election of all the Apostles was equal, yet a pre-eminence over the rest was granted to blessed Peter, when he is called Cephas, being the head and beginning of all the Apostles: and what hath gone before in the head, must follow in the members. Wherefore the holy 193 | 194 Roman Church, through his merit consecrated by the Lord’s voice and established by the authority of the holy Fathers, holds the Primacy over all churches, to which as well the highest concerns of bishops, their causes, and complaints, as the greater questions of the churches, are ever to be referred. For he who knows himself to be set over others, should not object to one being placed over himself. For the Church itself, which is the first, has bestowed its authority on the rest of the churches with this condition, that they be called to a part of its solicitude, not to the fullness of its power. Whence the causes of all bishops who appeal to the Apostolic See, and the proceedings in all greater causes, are known to be reserved to that holy See; especially as in all these its decision must always be awaited: and if any bishops attempt to resist this course, let him know that he will give account to that holy See not without endangering his own rank.

Footnotes

1. Thomas William Allies, The See of St. Peter: The Rock of the Church, the Source of Jurisdiction, and the Center of Unity, 3rd ed. (London: Burns, Lambert, and Oates, 1866), 193-94. A history and explanation of this letter is available here: Alberto Ferreriro, Epistolae Plenae: The Correspondence of the Bishops of Hispania with the Bishops of Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 260-91. ↩︎