I can't become a roman catholic because the more I study church history it shows that the Bishop of Rome as a universal or supreme bishop has no historical basis in the first millennium.

It's very clear that the pentarchy being 4 churches in the east and 1 church in the west with minimal contact due to geographic distance resulted in power swelling in the Rome-centric west while the other four all equally counterbalanced one another. Tack on how the Roman Empire collapsed in the west resulting in the Papal States while the East always had a Roman Emperor until they were all conquered by Muslims, it just makes logical sense why the Papacy ended the way it did, but not for any Biblically or theologically justifiable reasons.

Eastern Catholicism just seems even more absurd when it exposes that the Roman Catholics don't care about anything except the acknowledgement of the Pope as supreme. You can larp as an Orthodox, do the Eastern Rite, say the Nicene Creed without the Filioque (as it is written in marble on the walls of the Vatican), teach against purgatory, deliver the eucharist into mouth and it isn't a problem so long as you acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. Theology doesn't matter to them. Geopolitical influence is the only thing they care about, and the Papacy is at this point too big to fail. They'll never humble themselves.

>>17790821 (OP)
For an institution that Catholics claim was supposedly “founded by Christ”, the Catholic Church did not exist for centuries. No one followed the Bishop of Rome's orders in the West at first (They deferred to Milan originally). No one followed the Pope's orders in the East at any time since the foundation of the church, The Bishop of Rome himself bowed to the Emperor in Milan, then Ravenna, and then later in Constantinople as his superior for hundreds of years, and was in fact appointed to his position by them, not the other way around. Am I really just supposed to believe some Medieval degenerate who wanted to use Charlemagne as a cudgel against the Byzantines when he says "Actually I just remembered Rome’s local bishop was the supreme authority in Christianity this whole time."?

>>17790821 (OP)
Cool copypasta.
Next time you want to talk about something why not take the extra minute to refraze things, or is that just too much effort?
Oh who am I kidding, no one wants to talk here, just score points for whatever ideology they champion.