THE DE SENTENTIA DIONYSII AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE BISHOP OF ROME

According to the De Sententia Dionysii written by the Father of Orthodoxy Athanasius the Great – who was bishop of Alexandria from 328 to 373 (but with various interruptions) and proclaimed a doctor of the Catholic Church in 1568 by the Bishop of Rome Pius V – in the middle of the third century Dionisio (or Diogini) bishop of Alexandria from 248 to 264, who fought the Sabellian heresy of some priests of Libya, was accused by some Egyptian presbyters to his homonymous and contemporary Bishop of Rome regarding some doctrinal inaccuracies regarding the doctrine of the Trinity . The bishop of Alexandria, in contrast with the Sebellians – who affirmed that not the Son as a distinct person, but the Father himself had suffered the passion (for the Sabellians the Son and the Holy Spirit are ways of manifesting himself of the one God, the Father [therefore they are also called “modalist monarchists” or “patripassians”]) – he emphasized too much the distinction between Father and Son to the point of compromising divine unity. Therefore the Bishop of Rome Dionysius was invited to judge such inaccuracies, since he was recognized in the whole Catholic Church, that is, universal, as the highest and most secure doctrinal authority. The bishop of Alexandria justified himself with the bishop of Rome and recognized the divine unity between the Father and the Son taught by the Church of Rome. This episode is one of many that testifies to how the Bishop of Rome exercised authority over other ecclesial communities from the earliest centuries. We see how the priests of the Egyptian Church immediately turned to the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and how the Bishop of Alexandria immediately heard and accepted the sentence and doctrine expounded by the Bishop of Rome.