Dr. Adam de Ville informs us of his new blog, Eastern Christian Books: “I hope to feature brief notices of new books in Eastern Christian Studies, with links to their publisher; short reviews of my own of new books; long reviews of my own; and then links to long reviews published in LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, of which I am editor.”
De Ville is a professor at St Francis University (Fort Wayne, IN), and author of The Roman Papacy and the Orthodox Churches: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity (to be published by the University of Notre Dame Press in early 2011). He received his doctorate from Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, St Paul University, Ottawa.
On this blog’s former incarnation, we featured a review by de Ville of Michael Whelton’s Popes and Patriarchs: An Orthodox Perspective on Roman Catholic Claims.
Eirenikon 
Wow, that thread from your former blog (linked above) was a real blast from the past. LOL! Thanks for the memories. :)
Without wanting to revive a three-year old thread, I really never understood efforts to make Acts 15 into some sort of charter for governance of the Church or blueprint for an ecumenical council.
There is no debate; there is no vote; there in no appeal to Tradition. Peter just essentially says “I had a dream” and James essentially wraps up the proceedings with an “Oh well, I guess that settles it then!”
Why people feel they have to milk some deeper meaning out of this episode just mystifies me. The proceedings and sequence of events strike me as rather straightforward. The Church of Jerusalem gets wind that Peter is teaching/doing something new and asks to hear about it from him first hand; Peter comes to Jerusalem and explains the revelation he received and…, that’s it.
There is nothing here about Petrine primacy, councils, pentarchy, or concilliarity. There isn’t even any suggestion that any church other than Jerusalem was formally represented as such. The only thing Acts 15 establishes in a general sense is that revelation continued as an ongoing process after Pentacost so long as the apostles were alive.
I am going to have to reread the chapter when I get home. I must be missing something. :-(
Ack! Serves me right for breaking my Golden Rule: Read first! Write after!
I seem to have unfortunately conflated several episodes. But basically my point seems to still be valid. Peter speaks, silence falls, James tells troublesome members of his own church (Jerusalem) to shove it. I still don’t see anything here relevant to primacy, pentarchy, collegiality or councils. They are all non sequitur.
BTW…went to Dr. de Ville’s new blog. Very, very interesting! I hope it receives wider publicity so that fruitful dialogue will flourish there.
Like all blogs by scholars, it is over my head, but something tells me some of the regulars here can handle it just fine. ;-)