Without a pope, how can the Eastern Orthodox settle disputes about the Fathers?
Robert Sungenis answers that they cannot: Catholics also treat the Fathers as applying the apostolic tradition, but when they disagreed the question went to the pope, and the Orthodox no longer have one to settle disputes. He argues that Christ made Peter head for exactly this reason, so either the Orthodox should be in communion with the pope or they never belonged to the Church.
An Eastern Orthodox viewer says they consider the Fathers heirs of apostolic tradition, infallible on doctrine and harmonized as different angles, and asks why the Catholic Church denies it.
Answer
We do not deny it; this is exactly what we do. We consider the apostolic oral tradition the only infallible tradition, and the Fathers and doctors discuss and apply that tradition to new questions in their various dioceses. Take infant baptism: the basic apostolic tradition was there, and the Fathers worked out the questions around it, and when they hit a problem, they consulted the pope, which happened all the time. But you no longer have a pope to consult. So if your theologians disagree about what the apostolic tradition was, or about how the Fathers interpreted it, and they did have many differing interpretations, who decides for you? Your bishops disagree, as history shows, and without a pope there is no last man standing to settle it. Jesus foresaw this and made Peter the head. Either that was correct, in which case you should still have a pope and be in the Catholic Church, or it was never correct, in which case you should never have been in the Church in the first place. So your present position does not pass the sniff test.