Why are the early church writings (before 300 A.D.) of Eusebius, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Clement and Origen [among others] considered “no evidence whatsoever”?
No confusion at all. The Patriarch of Alexandria is known as “Pope” by English-speaking Orthodox Christians to this day. Were Rome to finally abandon schism and heresy, then her Patriarch would likewise be considered a legitimate Pope.
Two Popes, no big deal, that’s the way the Church used to do it.
The only “cheap shot” is the ignorance of Westerners who presume that their ecclesiastic history is the ONLY Christian ecclesiastic history that exists.
Of course you DO understand that a title or stlye are less important than the actual job the person has.
Despite the fact that Orthodox (Oriental or Eastern?) may call the Patriarch of Alexandria "Pope"in English, it is preposterous to think that he was asking about him. Not because he isn’t a pope or he is a bad person, but because for most people, be they Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant , Jew, Muslim; when in most countries you ask “who’s the pope?” they don’t say “His Beatitude Peter VII”, I’ll bet even Orthodox would have to go out of their way to say it.
The cheap shot was sowing confussion where there was none. You could’ve just said “Hey, this Patriarch is also called Pope”, that would’ve been the “straightdopey” thing to say, to broaden a guy’s horizons. It’s like if I ask my sister “where’s mum?” nobody can say “Wichita” because their mum is there; same title but clearly different people.
If it is ignorance, the charitable thing is to instruct no insult, because the ignorance is guiltless.
I won’t discuss the charges of heresy and schism, this thread ain’t the place.
As to the list being fictitious, St Irenaeus drew a list in 190 of the first 13 popes (bishops of Rome). There’s very little time to make a mythological list.
Sixtus was the seventh.He was also called Xystus