***That’s the Canonical view of the first seven Ecumenical Councils.***
And a handful of hotheads on the Latin side (and on the Orthodox side as well) notwithstanding, that is how it is.
Mark, it’s an over-simplification of the situation with that statement. That’s NOT how it is. It’s how it should be - if Rome and the East were in Communion. They’re not.
My friend Theodoris K will correct, revise, and extend my statements here, but I think that it is important to point out (at a minimum) that Orthodox theology hasn’t changed since the Great Schism. Latin theology has undergone some innovations (the Roman take on Original Sin, the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos to name but two) that the Orthodox Laity would never accept. There is historical precedent for this...I think it was the Council of Florence that the Orthodox Laity rejected flatly.
This is an overly simplifying statement, but in Orthodox Theology and Ecclesiology, it’s the Laity that are the Church and the Bride of Christ. The Clergy and Episcopacy receive their Ordinations under the Authority vested in the Apostles by Jesus Christ, but they draw their mandate from the concession of the Laity. If a large enough cry of ANAXIOS goes up, Priests and Bishops will be deposed, even defrocked.