Although some Protestants reject the concept of an ecumenical council establishing doctrine for the entire Christian faith, Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox all accept the authority of ecumenical councils in principle. Where they differ is in which councils they accept and what the conditions are for a council to be considered "ecumenical". The relationship of the
Papacy to the validity of ecumenical councils is a ground of controversy between Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox churches. The Catholic Church holds that recognition by the Pope is an essential element in qualifying a council as ecumenical; Eastern Orthodox view approval by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) as being roughly equivalent to that of other patriarchs. Some have held that a council is ecumenical only when all five patriarchs of the
Pentarchy are represented at it. Others reject this theory in part because there were no patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem at the time of the first ecumenical council.
Catholic Church Both the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches recognize seven councils in the early centuries of the church, but Catholics also recognize fourteen councils in later times called or confirmed by the Pope. At the urging of German King
Sigismund, who was to become Holy Roman Emperor in 1433, the
Council of Constance was convoked in 1414 by
Antipope John XXIII, one of three claimants to the papal throne, and was reconvened in 1415 by the Roman
Pope Gregory XII. The
Council of Florence is an example of a council accepted as ecumenical in spite of being rejected by the East, as the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon are accepted in spite of being rejected respectively by the
Church of the East and
Oriental Orthodoxy. The Catholic Church teaches that an ecumenical council is a gathering of the
College of Bishops (of which the
Bishop of Rome is an essential part) to exercise in a solemn manner its supreme and full power over the whole Church. It holds that "there never is an ecumenical council which is not confirmed or at least recognized as such by Peter's successor". Its present
canon law requires that an ecumenical council be convoked and presided over, either personally or through a delegate, by the Pope, who is also to decide the agenda; but the church makes no claim that all past ecumenical councils observed these present rules, declaring only that the Pope's confirmation or at least recognition has always been required, and saying that the version of the
Nicene Creed adopted at the
First Council of Constantinople (381) was accepted by the Church of Rome only seventy years later, in 451.
Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church accepts
seven ecumenical councils, with the disputed
Council in Trullo—rejected by Catholics—being incorporated into, and considered as a continuation of, the
Third Council of Constantinople. To be considered ecumenical, Orthodox accept a council that meets the condition that it was accepted by the whole church. That it was called together legally is also an important factor. A case in point is the
Third Ecumenical Council, where two groups met as duly called for by the emperor, each claiming to be the legitimate council. The Emperor had called for bishops to assemble in the city of Ephesus. Theodosius did not attend but sent his representative Candidian to preside. However, Cyril managed to open the council over Candidian's insistent demands that the bishops disperse until the delegation from Syria could arrive. Cyril was able to completely control the proceedings, completely neutralizing Candidian, who favored Cyril's antagonist, Nestorius. When the pro-Nestorius Antiochene delegation finally arrived, they decided to convene their own council, over which Candidian presided. The proceedings of both councils were reported to the emperor, who decided ultimately to depose Cyril, Memnon and Nestorius. Nonetheless, the Orthodox accept Cyril's group as being the legitimate council because it maintained the same teaching that the church has always taught. Paraphrasing a rule by St
Vincent of Lérins, Hasler states Orthodox believe that councils could over-rule or even depose popes. At the
Sixth Ecumenical Council,
Pope Honorius and
Patriarch Sergius were declared heretics. The council anathematized them and declared them tools of the devil and cast them out of the church. It is their position that, since the Seventh Ecumenical Council, there has been no synod or council of the same scope. Local meetings of hierarchs have been called "pan-Orthodox", but these have invariably been simply meetings of local hierarchs of whatever Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions are party to a specific local matter. From this point of view, there has been no fully "pan-Orthodox" (Ecumenical) council since 787. The use of the term "pan-Orthodox" is confusing to those not within Eastern Orthodoxy, and it leads to mistaken impressions that these are
ersatz ecumenical councils rather than purely local councils to which nearby Orthodox hierarchs, regardless of jurisdiction, are invited. Others, including 20th-century theologians Metropolitan
Hierotheos (Vlachos) of
Naupactus, Fr.
John S. Romanides, and Fr.
George Metallinos (all of whom refer repeatedly to the "Eighth and Ninth Ecumenical Councils"), Fr.
George Dragas, and the 1848
Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (which refers explicitly to the "Eighth Ecumenical Council" and was signed by the
patriarchs of
Constantinople,
Jerusalem,
Antioch, and
Alexandria as well as the
Holy Synods of the first three), regard other synods beyond the
Seventh Ecumenical Council as being ecumenical. From the Eastern Orthodox perspective, a council is accepted as being ecumenical if it is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox church at large—clergy, monks and assembly of believers. Teachings from councils that purport to be ecumenical, but which lack this acceptance by the church at large, are, therefore, not considered ecumenical.
Oriental Orthodoxy Oriental Orthodoxy accepts three ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople, and the Council of Ephesus. Some theologians of the Oriental Orthodox Church also recognize the
Second Council of Ephesus as ecumenical that was ratified by the principal patriarchs in the time and the people, except the Pope. The formulation of the
Chalcedonian Creed caused a schism in the Alexandrian and Syriac churches. Reconciliatory efforts between Oriental Orthodox with the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholic Church in the mid- and late 20th century have led to common
Christological declarations. The Oriental and Eastern Churches have also been working toward reconciliation as a consequence of the
ecumenical movement. The Oriental Orthodox hold that the
Dyophysite formula of two natures formulated at the
Council of Chalcedon is inferior to the
Miaphysite formula of "One Incarnate Nature of God the Word" (
Byzantine Greek:
Mia physis tou theou logou sarkousomene) and that the proceedings of Chalcedon themselves were motivated by
imperial politics.
The Alexandrian Church, the main Oriental Orthodox body, also felt unfairly underrepresented at the council following the deposition of their Pope,
Dioscorus of Alexandria at the council.
Church of the East The
Church of the East accepts two ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea and the First Council of Constantinople, as well as a series of their own national councils, starting with the
Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in 410 AD. It was the formulation of Mary as the
Theotokos which caused a schism with the Church of the East, now divided between the
Assyrian Church of the East and the
Ancient Church of the East, while the
Chaldean Catholic Church entered into
full communion with Rome in the 16th century. Meetings between
Pope John Paul II and the
Assyrian Patriarch Mar
Dinkha IV led to a common Christological declaration on 11 November 1994 that "the humanity to which the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth always was that of the Son of God himself". Both sides recognised the legitimacy and rightness, as expressions of the same faith, of the Assyrian Church's liturgical invocation of Mary as "the Mother of Christ our God and Saviour" and the Catholic Church's use of "the Mother of God" and also as "the Mother of Christ".
Protestantism Lutheran Churches The
Lutheran World Federation, in
ecumenical dialogues with the
Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, has affirmed all of the first seven councils as ecumenical and authoritative. It teaches:
Anglican Communion Article XXI of the
Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of Anglicanism teaches: "General Councils ... when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." The 19th Canon of 1571 asserted the authority of the Councils in this manner: "Let preachers take care that they never teach anything ... except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from the same doctrine." This remains the
Church of England's teaching on the subject. A modern version of this appeal to catholic consensus is found in the Canon Law of the Church of England and also in the liturgy published in
Common Worship: The 1559
Act of Supremacy made a distinction between the decisions of the
first four ecumenical councils, which were to be used as sufficient proof that something was
heresy, as opposed to those of later councils, which could only be used to that purpose if "the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the ... canonical Scriptures". As such, the Anglican tradition accepts the first four ecumenical councils, though they "considered subordinate to Scripture". While the Councils are part of the "historic formularies" of
Anglican tradition, it is difficult to locate an explicit reference in Anglicanism to the unconditional acceptance of all Seven Ecumenical Councils. There is little evidence of dogmatic or canonical acceptance beyond the statements of individual Anglican theologians and bishops. Anglican cleric of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship Bishop Chandler Holder Jones,
SSC, explains: He quotes William Tighe, Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, (another member of the Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism):
Methodist Churches Methodist theologian Charles W. Brockwell Jr wrote that the first "four ecumenical councils produced and clarified the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol (Nicene Creed), the most important document in Christian history after the Bible itself." The Manual of the
Church of the Nazarene, part of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism, states "Our denomination receives the creeds of the first five Christian centuries as expressions of its own faith," including the Christological doctrines formulated during the first four Ecumenical Councils.
Other Protestant denominations Some, including some
fundamentalist Christians, condemn the ecumenical councils for other reasons. Independency or
congregationalist polity among Protestants may involve the rejection of any governmental structure or binding authority above local congregations; conformity to the decisions of these councils is therefore considered purely voluntary and the councils are to be considered binding only insofar as those doctrines are derived from the Scriptures. Many of these churches reject the idea that anyone other than the authors of Scripture can directly lead other Christians by original divine authority; after the
New Testament, they assert, the doors of revelation were closed and councils can only give advice or guidance, but have no authority. They consider new doctrines not derived from the sealed
canon of Scripture to be both impossible and unnecessary whether proposed by church councils or by more recent
prophets. Catholic and Orthodox objections to this position point to the fact that the
Canon of Scripture itself was fixed by these councils. They conclude that this would lead to a logical inconsistency of a non-authoritative body fixing a supposedly authoritative source.
Nontrinitarian groups Ecumenical councils are not recognised by
nontrinitarian churches such as
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (and
other denominations within the
Latter Day Saint movement),
Christadelphians,
Jehovah's Witnesses,
Church of God (Seventh-Day), their descendants and
Unitarians. They view the ecumenical councils as misguided human attempts to establish doctrine, and as attempts to define dogmas by debate rather than by revelation. == See also ==