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kestrel9 ago

I was wondering whether the 'princes' referred to people or regions (principality) considered Princes of Rome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princes_of_the_Holy_Roman_Empire
See also the President of France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-Princes_of_Andorra

Regarding the Pope (not relating this to Q)

the Pope who holds the true authority of the Chair of Peter and serves the Master (Jesus) will be restored.

The Bishop of Rome was honored 'first' among equals in the Church, but still equal with the other Bishops. Western Catholic papacy as most know it, has come to be all that many people associate with pre 1st Reformation Christianity (especially in the United States). But the Western See of Rome was not recognized as the infallible head of the Christian Church.

While the Eastern cities of Alexandria and Antioch produced theological works, the bishops of Rome focused on what Romans admittedly did best: administration.[5]

In the early church up until the ecumenical councils, Rome was regarded as an important centre of Christianity, especially since it was the capital of the Roman Empire. The eastern and southern Mediterranean bishops generally recognized a persuasive leadership and authority of the Bishop of Rome, because the teaching of the bishop of Rome was almost invariably correct, (however, the Bishop of Rome's opinion was by no means automatically right) and the Mediterranean Church did not regard the Bishop of Rome as any sort of infallible source, nor did they acknowledge any juridical authority of Rome.

After the sole emperor of all the Roman Empire Constantine the Great built the new imperial capital on the Bosphorous, the centre of gravity in the empire was fully recognised to have completely shifted to the eastern Mediterranean. Rome lost the senate to Byzantium and lost its status and gravitas as imperial capital.

It was not until the rise of Charlemagne and his successors that the Church of Rome arose out of obscurity on the back of the military successes of the western Mediterranean adventurers. https://orthodoxwiki.org/Great_Schism (note the reference to Charlemagne and the French President in link above.)

Consider which Christians the 'Powers that be' have focused on exterminating in Syria. What happened to the Eastern Christian population in Iraq?

In Iraq, Christians numbered about 1,500,000 in 2003, representing just over 6% of the population of 26 million (down from 1.4 million or 8.5% of 16.5 million in 1987). Since then, it has been estimated that the number of Christians in Iraq have dropped to as low as 450,000 by 2013.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Vindicator ago

As I understand it (and my knowledge of escatology is not deep) the Great Schism will be mended and the Jews will recognize the Messiah at the end. Seems like we're not in much danger of that happening anytime soon!

kestrel9 ago

Regarding the Jews...You got that right! lol Regarding the mending, there has been improvement in more recent history, however for a full mending the Catholic Pope would have to give up the power he claims to be above all and the Catholic church would have to deal with the incompatible theology they made up during the hundreds of years of unchecked power they had. Like that would happen any time soon! NOT.