Gregory III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, has joked that if the Apostle Peter had just stayed put, he himself would be the earthly head of the Catholic Church today. For tradition has it that St. Peter headed the Church of Antioch, where “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26), for seven years before sojourning on to Rome. The Patriarchs of Antioch, therefore, have from the beginning considered themselves to be successors of Peter, albeit without the universal prerogatives of the apostle’s ultimate successor in Rome.
Ironically, the See of Peter at Antioch is more hotly contested than the See of Peter in Rome: there are today no fewer than five Patriarchs of Antioch, including a hat-trick of three Catholic Patriarchs. This proliferation is a consequence of the wild and wonderful days of the Christological controversies of the First Millennium.
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