<P> Unlike many other Churches of the Reformation, the Anglican Church has never abandoned a possible role for the Roman primacy, so long as the ministry of the Bishop of Rome is rightly understood, interpreted, and implemented . The ministry of the Bishop of Rome should not be an obstacle, but rather should function as a possible instrument of ultimate Christian unity . Orthodox Anglicanism today acknowledges that the ministry of the papacy is evolving rapidly and could someday be received by the Anglican Church as means tending toward the reconciliation of all Churches . A de facto recognition of the historic papal ministry already exists within the Anglican Communion, which has consistently maintained throughout her history that the Roman Pontiff possesses a station of primus inter pares, "first amongst equals", a primacy of honour and reverence, though not of jurisdiction or personal infallibility . </P> <P> Communion with the bishop of Rome does not imply submission to an authority which would stifle the distinctive features of the local churches . The purpose of the episcopal function of the bishop of Rome is to promote Christian fellowship in faithfulness to the teaching of the apostles . </P> <P> At a joint service during the first official visit of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, to the Vatican, Runcie appealed to Anglicans to consider accepting papal primacy in a reunified church . At the same time, Pope John Paul II stressed that his office must be more than a figurehead . </P> <P> John Paul II invited, in Ut Unum Sint, his 1995 encyclical on commitment to ecumenism, the "pastors and theologians" of Churches and Ecclesial Communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church to suggest how to exercise papal primacy in ways that would unite rather than divide . </P>

Pope's primary church as bishop of rome