REVIVAL BIBLE INSTITUTE/INSTITUT BIBLIQUE DE REVEIL

MOTTO: Revival – Excellence – Intergrity

COURSE TITLE: CHURCH HISTORY Lecturer: Pst. S. ARMEL

Done by: Sado Sado Rostand

TOPIC: The Councils of the Church, their aims and decisions adopted.

Introduction
A Christian council is a meeting of bishops and other ecclesiastic leaders to consider and rule
on doctrinal questions, administration, discipline, and other matters. We can derive from here
an ecumenical council which is a meeting of bishops of the whole church; local councils
representing such areas as provinces. The Roman Catholic Church considers 21 councils as
ecumenical whereas the Eastern Orthodox churches recognize only seven councils as
ecumenical. The Roman Catholic Church adds an eighth before the Schism of 1054, which
permanently divided Eastern and Western Christianity.

In this work, we shall consider the seven councils recognized by the Eastern Orthodox
churches plus the one before the Schism of 1054.

1. First Council of Nicaea (325 AD)

This was the first ecumenical council of the Christian church, meeting in ancient Nicaea
present day İznik, Turkey. It was called by the emperor Constantine I, who was an
unbaptized catechumen. He hoped a general council of the church would solve the problem
created in the Eastern church by Arianism, a heresy first proposed by a certain Arius of
Alexandria that affirmed that Christ is not divine but a created being. Pope Sylvester I did not
attend the council but was represented by legates.

At the end, the council condemned Arius and, with reluctance on the part of some,
incorporated the nonscriptural word homoousios (“of one substance”) into a creed to signify
the absolute equality of the Son with the Father. Also called Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Creed, it is the only ecumenical creed because it is accepted as authoritative by the Roman
Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches. The emperor then
exiled Arius.

The council also attempted but failed to establish a uniform date for Easter. It issued decrees
on many other matters, including the proper method of consecrating bishops, a condemnation
of lending money at interest by clerics, and a refusal to allow bishops, priests, and deacons to
move from one church to another. It also confirmed the primacy
of Alexandria and Jerusalem over other sees in their respective areas. Socrates Scholasticus, a
5th-century Byzantine historian, said that the council tried enforcing celibacy of the clergy,
but it failed to do so when some objected.
 2. First Council of Constantinople (381 AD)

This is the second ecumenical council of the Christian church and it was summoned by the
emperor Theodosius I and held in Constantinople. The aim of this council was to rule on
issues regarding doctrine and administration.

The Council of Constantinople adopts the doctrine on the holy trinity, also declared finally the
equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. Among the council’s canons was one
giving the bishop of Constantinople and Rome precedence of honor over all other bishops.

3. The Council of Ephesus (431 AD)

It was convened by Theodosius II. The council affirms the unity of Christ from his conception
and calls his mother "Mother of God" (Mother of the One who is God by nature). It condemns
Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, who, fearing a possible confusion between the man
Jesus and the divine Logos, taught that the Virgin Mary only gave birth to a human who is
indissolubly linked to the divine Logos. Nestorius taught that the two natures coexisted in
Christ, but were separate. Cyril of Alexandria played a leading role in the deliberations of this
council. The so-called "Nestorian" churches rejected this council and separated from the
imperial church.

4. Council of Chalcedon (451)

This is the fourth ecumenical council of the church which took place in Chalcedon (modern
Kadiköy, Turkey) in 451. I was convoked by the emperor Marcian and was attended by 520
bishops. It is considered as the largest and best documented early council.

The Council affirms that Jesus Christ is both a hundred percent God and man, the two human
and divine natures in the person of Jesus Christ are consecrated. He thus reached a point of
balance in the expression of Christology, affirming (following Nicaea I and Constantinople I)
the divinity of Christ, but maintaining his humanity (against those who assumed it to be
"absorbed" by the divinity), and the unity of his person (following Ephesus). It is, however,
rejected by those who thought that this strongly affirmed duality was a challenge to the unity
proclaimed by St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus. Flavian of Constantinople and Leo I of
Rome played a leading role in this. The so-called "Monophysite" churches, which admit the
"one nature" of Christ and deny the human nature, rejected this council.

5. Second Council of Constantinople (553)

This council was held under the presidency of Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople.
Pope Vigilius of Rome, who had been summoned to Constantinople, opposed the council and
took sanctuary in a church from May to December, but he at last yielded and formally ratified
the verdicts of the council on February 23, 554.

The 14 anathemas issued by the council rejected Nestorianism by insisting yet further upon
the unity of the person of Christ in his two natures, divine and human. The only other
important act of the council was to ratify an earlier condemnation of Origen.
 6. Third Council of Constantinople (680–681)
It was summoned by the emperor Constantine IV and held in Constantinople. The council
condemned the monothelites, among them Pope Honorius I, and asserted two wills and two
operations of Christ.

Monothelites were large Eastern Christians who, forbidden to talk of the monophysite concept
of a single nature of Christ, thought to enforce the unity of the person of Christ by proposing
that Christ had one will (thelēma) and one operation (energeia) from his two natures.

7. Second Council of Nicaea (787)

It was summoned by the patriarch Tarasius and Irene the Athenian empress, it took place in
Nicaea, present day Iznik in Turkey. It attempted to resolve the Iconoclastic Controversy,
initiated in 726 when Byzantine Emperor Leo III issued a decree against the worship
of icons (religious images of Christ and the saints). The council declared that icons deserve
reverence and veneration but not adoration, which is reserved for God. It was also decreed
that every altar should contain a relic, a tradition that has been retained in both
modern Catholic and Orthodox churches.

8. Fourth Council of Constantinople (869–870)

The Roman church eventually recognized it as the eighth ecumenical council, but the Eastern
Church for the most part denied its ecumenicity and continues to recognize only the first
seven ecumenical councils.

The council confirmed a Roman sentence of excommunication against Photius, patriarch of

Constantinople, bringing to a head the so-called Photian Schism. (Photius was later reinstated
in 879–880.) The council’s canon (number 22) that prohibited lay interference in episcopal
elections assumed great importance in the Western church’s Investiture
Controversy between church and state in the 11th and early 12th centuries.