“Consulere subditis placet”: hierarchical relationships between the roman pope and bishops of ecclesiastical provinces of the patriarchate of the West according to the letters by St. Leo the Great to Anastasius, bishop of Thessaloniki

The article was written in continuation of the ecclesiological discourse begun in the previous article “Princeps apostolorum - princeps Ecclesiae. Petrine primacy and authority (auctoritas) of the Bishop of Rome in the teaching and practice of St. Leo the Great». It questioned the validity of the widespread judgment in Church history and patrolology that St. Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome from 440 to 461, was an apologist for the doctrine of monarchical primacy of the Roman Bishop in the Universal Church, which exists in the Roman Catholic Church. This article, basing on an analysis of the content of the canonical messages (decretals) sent to St. Leo to his vicar in Eastern Illyricum, Metropolitan Anastasius of Thessaloniki and the bishops subordinate to him, shows ecclesiological principles that guided St. Leo, as the Patriarch of the West, in building hierarchical relationships with the bishops who were in his patriarchal jurisdiction. It follows from them that St. Leo was convinced that his care (cura) and solicitude (sollicitudo), as the “heir of the Apostle Peter” and the first bishop of the Universal Church, was to preserve canonical order in the Church and to resolve the most important or complex legal cases and conflicts (causae majores).