The Eastern Orthodox churches consider that the Bishop of Rome had a mere primacy of honor.

According to this view, Peter has a weak symbolic primacy or primacy of honor (in the sense of a purely honorary primacy).

Rome, as the ancient center and largest city of the empire, was given the presidency or primacy of honor within the pentarchy into which Christendom was now divided.

The primacy of honour of the Catholicossate of Etchmiadzin has always been recognized by the Catholicossate of Cilicia.

Many Christian denominations reject the claims of Petrine primacy of honor, Petrine primacy of jurisdiction, and papal infallibility.

Though both acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy understands this as a primacy of honour with limited or no ecclesiastical authority in other dioceses.

Therefore, since 1441, there have been two Catholicosates in the Armenian Apostolic Church with the primacy of honor of the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin recognized by the Catholicosate of Cilicia.

Runcie advocated the Papacy as having a "primacy of honour" rather than "primacy of jurisdiction" over the Anglican churches, a proposal consistent with the report of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.

The Orthodox believe that among the original five Patriarchs and ancient Patriarchates (i.e., Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem), a "primacy of honor", not of supremacy, waits for Rome.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, however, no Roman pontiff ever recognised this Orthodox equalization of the sees or accepted that only a primacy of honor be accorded to the See of Rome.

In 381, the First Council of Constantinople declared that "The Bishop of Constantinople shall have the primacy of honour after the Bishop of Rome, because it is New Rome" (canon iii).

This primacy of honor, he would insist, as Wills does again and again, did not by any means constitute infallible authority in either doctrine or discipline: authority resided in the faithful and was made known through councils of the church as a whole.

At this same Council, an attempt at compromise was made when the bishop of Constantinople was given a primacy of honour only second to that of the Bishop of Rome, because "Constantinople is the New Rome."

The Orthodox insist that it should be a "primacy of honor", as in the ancient church and not a "primacy of authority", whereas the Catholics see the pontiff's role as requiring for its exercise power and authority the exact form of which is open to discussion with other Christians.

Both West and East agreed that the patriarch of Rome was owed a "primacy of honour" by the other patriarchs (those of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem), but the West also contended that this primacy extended to jurisdiction, a position rejected by the Eastern patriarchs.

This time events gave Acacius the opportunity he seems to have been long waiting for - to claim a primacy of honour and jurisdiction over the entire East, which would emancipate the bishops of the capital not only from all responsibility to the sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, but to the Roman Pontiff as well.