Mutua Concordia: Leo XIV opens the removal of Eastern patriarchs, under the seal of Peter

On 29 August 2026, Pope Leo XIV promulgated an apostolic letter issued motu proprio, « Mutua Concordia », which amends canons 106 and 126 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches and takes effect at once. For the first time, the synod of bishops of a patriarchal Church may act against its own patriarch when communion is « gravely and irreparably compromised ».

The mechanism is precise. If the synod recognises a grave cause, it invites the patriarch to resign; should he refuse, it proceeds to a secret ballot, removal requiring at least two-thirds of the members with a deliberative vote. The patriarch in question keeps the full right to defend himself before his peers. But the synodal decision is never final: it remains suspended upon the assent of the pope, who verifies that the votes were cast freely, sheltered from all pressure, and who acts as guarantor.

The new rules apply to the six patriarchal Churches and, by analogy, to the four major archiepiscopal Churches: the Ukrainian, Romanian, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara. The text fills a silence in the Eastern Code that came to light in the Syro-Malabar schism, in India, which had led in 2023 to the resignation of the major archbishop, Cardinal George Alencherry.

The letter presents this mutual bond as « the soul of the communion of the Eastern ecclesiastical hierarchy »; its irreparable rupture would constitute, it writes, « a grave wound that must be healed ».

What tradition teaches

The government of the Church is not a federation of autonomous sees. The Council of Florence, where Greeks and Latins briefly sealed their union, defines that the Roman Pontiff received from Christ « the full power to feed, rule and govern the universal Church ». The Vatican Council of 1870 specifies it further: his jurisdiction is supreme, ordinary and immediate over pastors and faithful of every rite. An Eastern patriarch is a great see, but a see in communion with Peter; it is this communion that makes it Catholic. Hence the axiom that ancient law repeats: « Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur », the first see is judged by no one, for above it there is only Peter, and Peter answers only to Christ.

The measure weighed against tradition

Measured by this rule, the provision is not a rupture. Its novelty is real: never had the Eastern Code provided that a synod itself open the procedure against its head. But the keystone remains Roman. In the ancient discipline, a patriarch was judged by a council and the sentence was confirmed, or quashed, by the Apostolic See, to which appeal was made from every grave judgment. Here, no vote, even a two-thirds vote, decides by itself: it becomes effective only by the assent of the pope, who must ascertain the freedom of the votes. The guarantor is not the majority; it is Peter. In this the text stays in the line of Florence and of Vatican I.

Tradition would be wounded only if the synod became the last judge of its own patriarch, making the first see of a Church a man revocable by his subordinates. By reserving the last word to the pope, the letter closes that door. Yet the guarantee must remain real and not a mere formality: it is by the firmness of Roman oversight, and not by the text alone, that the measure will be judged.

What to take from it

For the faithful, the lesson is old. The unity of the Church rests not on the balance of synods, but on the rock on which it is built: « Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church ». Where the assent of Peter keeps the last word, the order willed by Christ is safe. We shall therefore hold what the Church has always held: communion with the Apostolic See is the measure of all things, and the government of the Eastern Churches does not escape this law.

Sources. Council of Florence, bull « Lætentur cæli » (1439), on the full power of the Roman Pontiff to feed and govern the universal Church; Ecumenical Vatican Council, constitution « Pastor æternus » (1870), on the supreme, ordinary and immediate jurisdiction of the Apostolic See; the canonical axiom « Prima Sedes a nemine iudicatur »; Gospel according to St Matthew, XVI, 18 (Vulgate).