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The pope (Latin: papa, from Ancient Greek: πάππας, romanized: páppas, lit. 'father') [2] [3] is the bishop of Rome and the visible head [a] of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, [b] Roman pontiff, [c] or sovereign pontiff.
The honorific "pope" was from the early 3rd century used for any bishop in the West, and is known in Greek as far back as Homer's Odyssey (6:57). In the East, "pope" is still a common form of address for clergy in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church, and is the style of the bishop of Alexandria.
In particular, the Bishop of Rome (the pope) is considered the successor to the apostle Simon Peter, a position from which he derives his supremacy over the church. [ 265 ] Catholic belief holds that the church "is the continuing presence of Jesus on earth" [ 266 ] and that it alone possesses the full means of salvation . [ 267 ]
Pope Gelasius I (492–496) stated: "The see of blessed Peter the Apostle has the right to unbind what has been bound by sentences of any pontiffs whatever, in that it has the right to judge the whole church. Neither is it lawful for anyone to judge its judgment, seeing that canons have willed that it might be appealed to from any part of the ...
There are several interpretations as to the meaning and application of the title, among them, [7] that "pope" would be a Latin acronym, where each letter would correspond to a word: Petri apostoli potestatem accipiens ("the one who receives the power of the apostle Peter"); or even Petrus apostolus princeps apostolorum ("Peter the apostle ...
Michael Ramsey, an English Anglican bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury (1961–1974), described three meanings of "apostolic succession": . One bishop succeeding another in the same see meant that there was a continuity of teaching: "while the Church as a whole is the vessel into which the truth is poured, the Bishops are an important organ in carrying out this task".
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An apostle (/ ə ˈ p ɒ s əl /), in its literal sense, is an emissary. The word is derived from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος ( apóstolos ), literally "one who is sent off", itself derived from the verb ἀποστέλλειν ( apostéllein ), "to send off".