ld arise again when Luther and Calvin
carried further the dispute concerning the nature of the human will,
but as regards her Lord the Church had come to a decision based upon
her knowledge of His divine life on earth.

The Council _in Trullo_ (named from the {90} dome-shaped place of
meeting), 691, called also _Quini-sextan_, summoned by Justinian II.
(685-711), was not Oecumenical, and was disciplinary rather than
dogmatic. It condemned many Roman practices, and asserted definitely
that the patriarchal throne of Constantinople should enjoy the same
privileges as that of Old Rome, should in all ecclesiastical matters be
entitled to the same pre-eminence, and should rank as second after it.
The _Liber Pontificalis_, the Roman Church history of the time, states
that the pope's legates gave assent to the decrees, which is unlikely.
But this one was no more than the repetition of many previous
statements, as emphatic in the sixth as in the seventh century. The
position was simply that claimed by the patriarch John when he signed
the formula of Catholic faith drawn up and proposed by Pope Hormisdas.
[Sidenote: Repudiation of Roman claims.] He insisted on prefixing a
repudiation of the Roman claim to supremacy over Christendom. "I
hold," he declared, "the most holy Churches of the Elder and the New
Rome to be one. I define the See of the Apostle Peter and this of the
Imperial City to be one See." By this it is clear that he designed to
assert both the unity of the Church--which, as it has always seemed to
the East, was threatened by the demand of the Roman obedience--and the
equality of the two great churches of the Old and the New Rome.

Justinian I. spoke of Constantinople as "head of all the churches"
("omnium ecclesiarum caput"), but it is clear that he did not regard
this position as conferring any supreme or exclusive jurisdiction. It
was a title of honour which he would use of other patriarchates; and
that he did not consider the power {91} of the patriarchates as
unalterable is seen by his attempted creation of the new jurisdiction
of his own city Justiniana Prima (Tauresium), a few miles south of
Sofia, over a large district. To the archbishop whom he here created
he gave authority to "hold the place of the apostolic throne" within
his province.[3]

[Sidenote: Independent attitude of Constantinople.]

This position, then, of the Byzantine patriarchate, as independent of
the other patriarchates, and equal