The paper outlines the Catholic and the Evangelical standpoint on the primate’s function served by the Bishop of Rome and its origin. The controversy revolves around the key phrase, iure divino and iure humano, which points to the divine or human origin of the primacy. In the Catholic perspective, Jesus Christ brought the Church into existence and provided this institution with permanent structural elements: primacy and apostolate. This thesis, considered an imperative of faith, is based on the texts of the Gospel which underscore the primacy of Saint Peter the Apostle among the Twelve and in the early Church. According to the Catholic ecclesiology, it was not only a private privilege enjoyed by Peter but a permanent element of the structure of the Church, which received the formal status of a dogma at the First Vatican Council. From the outset, the Reformation has assumed that primacy is an element shaped in the course of the historical development of the Church. The ecumenical dialogue between Catholicism and Lutheranism led to the establishment of a standpoint veering towards the consideration of the origin of primacy as a matter of lesser consequence. This step was taken in order to underscore the communal dimension of the Church, with its important function in unifying Christianity and presenting it to the world. The basic premise giving credence to this function is its foundation in the Gospel.

The pontificate of Pope Francis, both in documents and in practice, takes on a pastoral character, emphasizing the evangelizing dimension. The encyclical Veritatis gaudium likewise presents the educational and academic mission of the Church from the same perspective. This paper provides a presentation of the Pope’s postulates understood as a new paradigm for Church education, resulting from a new cultural and social context. Pope Francis’ project is set in the more than fifty-year perspective of the reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council, in particular Sapientia christiana, the document which has been governing the activities of theological faculties since 1979. Four criteria that ecclesial studies should demonstrate are indicated: a) the Christocentric kerygma building the ecclesial community, with an option for the poor, b) encounter and dialogue, characterized by authentic interaction on the level of religions and cultures, c) inter- and transdisciplinarity, which provide a tool for linking the academic achievements of all disciplines in the perspective of the transcendent Christian revelation, d) integration of academic centers which practice ecclesiastical studies and their collaboration with institutions of different religious and cultural traditions, with a view to an adequate diagnosis of global world problems and their resolution.