Councils and Their Canons
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EssentialCouncils and Their CanonsFirst Ecumenical Council: Nicaea I (325)Convened by Emperor Constantine to address the Arian heresy (Christ is a created being). Affirmed the Son is 'homoousios' (consubstantial) with the Father. Produced the first part of the Nicene Creed. Established the date of Pascha (Easter). 318 bishops attended.EssentialCouncils and Their CanonsFourth Ecumenical Council: Chalcedon (451)Defined the two natures of Christ, divine and human, in one Person, "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." Condemned the one-nature teaching of Eutyches. Canon 28 gave the see of Constantinople privileges equal to those of older Rome while ranking it second in order after her; Rome refused to ratify that canon, though it received the definition of faith. 630 bishops attended, the largest of the ancient councils.EssentialCouncils and Their CanonsSecond Ecumenical Council: Constantinople I (381)Affirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomachians (Spirit-fighters). Completed the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Declared Constantinople second in honor after Rome (Canon 3). 150 bishops attended.EssentialCouncils and Their CanonsSeventh Ecumenical Council: Nicaea II (787)Vindicated the veneration of holy icons against Iconoclasm. Distinguished between 'latreia' (worship, due to God alone) and 'proskynesis' (veneration, given to icons, saints, and relics). Icons are 'windows to heaven': the honor paid to the image passes to the prototype. Empress Irene convened it.EssentialCouncils and Their CanonsThird Ecumenical Council: Ephesus (431)Condemned Nestorianism (which implied two persons in Christ) and affirmed 'Theotokos' as a title for the Virgin Mary. St. Cyril of Alexandria presided against Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. Affirmed the unity of Christ's person.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsSixth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople III (680-681)Condemned Monothelitism (Christ has only one will) and affirmed Dyothelitism: Christ has two wills, divine and human, in perfect harmony. Condemned Pope Honorius I for supporting Monothelitism. Completed Christological definitions.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsThe Palamite Councils (1341-1351)A series of councils at Constantinople, principally in 1341, 1347 and 1351, which judged the hesychast controversy in favour of St Gregory Palamas against Barlaam of Calabria and his successors. The council of 1351, at Blachernae, issued the Synodal Tomos that states the doctrine: there is in God a real distinction between the unknowable essence and the uncreated energies, both are truly God, and the light seen by the hesychasts is that uncreated energy and not a created sign. A further council in 1368 numbered Palamas among the saints. Orthodox writers commonly treat these councils as carrying ecumenical authority, without a settled number.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsFifth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople II (553)Condemned the 'Three Chapters' (writings sympathetic to Nestorianism). Sought to reconcile Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians. Reaffirmed Christological teaching. Convened by Emperor Justinian.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsThe Council of Constantinople (879-880)Held under St Photios the Great, with legates sent by Pope John VIII. It restored Photios to his see, annulled the council of 869-870 that had deposed him, and anathematised anyone who should add to or take from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is a condemnation of the Filioque before the Filioque had become a quarrel. John VIII accepted its decisions; Rome repudiated it in the eleventh century and now counts the council of 869-870 as its eighth. Many Orthodox reckon this council the Eighth Ecumenical Council, and that reckoning is not universally settled among them.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsThe Quinisext Council (Trullo, 692)Called Penthekte, the fifth-and-sixth, because it supplied the canons that the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils had not issued, both having ruled on doctrine alone. Its 102 canons are the backbone of Orthodox canon law: they settle the scriptural canon by receiving the earlier lists, regulate the clergy, forbid depicting Christ as a lamb in place of His human form, and legislate on fasting and marriage. The Orthodox Church receives them as having the authority of the Sixth Council; Rome never accepted them in full, which is itself one of the older fault lines between East and West.ImportantCouncils and Their CanonsThe Synod of Jerusalem (1672)Convened at Bethlehem under Patriarch Dositheos of Jerusalem to answer a Calvinist confession circulated under the name of Patriarch Cyril Loukaris of Constantinople. Its Confession of Dositheos rejects predestination without regard to the will, faith without works, and the reduction of the Mysteries to signs; it affirms the real change of the gifts in the Eucharist, the veneration of icons and saints, and the anagignoskomena as genuine Scripture. It is the nearest thing Orthodoxy has to a formal reply to the Reformation, and it is a local council of high authority rather than an ecumenical one.