The Church of Rome as a Court of Appeal in the Early Fifith Century: The Evidence of Innocent I and the Illyrian Churches

In the early years of the fifth century a significant step in the development of the Roman Church's claim to a universal jurisdiction was taken as it clarified its relationship with the Churches of Eastern Illyricum. Among the letters of Innocent i, bishop of Rome from 402 to 417, there are a half dozen addressed to the churches within that prefecture, politically now in the East but ecclesiastically still looking to Rome. Yet the authority exercised by the Roman bishop was not all-encompassing, being restricted primarily to judicial matters. This article considers Innocent's epistula xviii, written to a group of Macedonian bishops, headed by Rufus, bishop of Thessaloniki, Innocent's vicar, in which Rome acts as a court of appeal in the matter of Bubalius and Taurian. What is fascinating is the role that forgery played in the appeal process. It is argued that the evidence should be considered in its own historical context and not in the light of later ecclesiological understandings.