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Course 12 · Lesson 3.5

The seven councils and how the churches receive them

10 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 3.5

What you will learn

  • List the first seven ecumenical councils with their dates and main decisions.
  • Explain what the fifth, sixth and seventh councils decided and why.
  • Describe what the word ecumenical means for a council and what reception means.
  • Compare how Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East and Protestant churches count the councils.

The big idea

Between 325 and 787, seven councils of bishops met to settle questions about the Trinity, the person of Christ and the use of icons. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches both accept all seven. Other churches accept fewer, and Protestants differ among themselves. What makes a council count as ecumenical is a question the churches answer in different ways. For many, the answer includes reception, meaning that the wider church came to accept the decision as true to the faith.

Key terms

Ecumenical council
A council of bishops representing the whole church, whose decisions on faith are accepted as binding by those who recognize it.
Reception
The process by which the church accepts a council’s decisions as faithful. Some councils were not received and are no longer counted.
Canon (of a council)
A rule about church order or discipline decided by a council, as distinct from a definition of doctrine.
Monothelitism
The teaching that Christ, though he has two natures, has only one will. The sixth council rejected it.
Iconoclasm
Literally image breaking. The movement in the Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries that opposed the use of religious images.
Veneration (proskynesis)
A respectful honor shown to an icon, a saint or a holy object, distinguished by the seventh council from the worship due to God alone.
Pentarchy
The idea of five leading sees: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.

Background

The councils did not set out to write a system. Each answered a particular crisis, sometimes provoked by an emperor, a quarrel between great sees or a popular movement. Their decisions are short, and the debates around them were long. A student should read the definitions with the history in mind.

The word ecumenical comes from the Greek for the whole inhabited world. In practice, the early councils were gatherings of bishops mostly from the Greek East, with delegates from Rome. No fixed rule stated beforehand what made a council ecumenical. The churches recognized them afterward, and the debate over this recognition continues.

The seven councils are listed here as a quick map: Nicaea I (325): the Son is of one substance with the Father. Constantinople I (381): the divinity of the Spirit and the creed. Ephesus (431): Theotokos and the unity of Christ’s person. Chalcedon (451): one person in two natures. Constantinople II (553): condemnation of the Three Chapters and of certain Origenist teachings. Constantinople III (680 to 681): two wills in Christ. Nicaea II (787): the legitimacy of icons.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The first four, the Trinity and Christ

The first four councils are the foundation for most churches. They settled that the Son is God, that the Spirit is God, that Jesus is one person, and that this person has a divine and a human nature. Many Protestant bodies, including the Church of England by an act of the sixteenth century, name these four as the standard.

Step 2: The Second Council of Constantinople (553)

The fifth council was called by the emperor Justinian, who hoped to win back churches that had rejected Chalcedon. It condemned certain writings, called the Three Chapters, by Antiochene theologians, and it repeated the teaching of Chalcedon in Cyrillian language. It also condemned Origenist teachings. Pope Vigilius was brought to Constantinople under pressure and at first resisted, then accepted the outcome. The affair is a good example of the role of imperial politics. The reconciliation with the Oriental churches did not succeed.

Step 3: The Third Council of Constantinople (680 to 681)

A new dispute arose about Christ’s will. Monothelites held that since Christ is one person, he has one will, and they hoped to heal the breach with the churches that rejected Chalcedon. Maximus the Confessor, a monk and theologian, argued that if Christ lacks a human will, then his humanity is incomplete, and what he did not assume he did not heal. The council taught that Christ has two natural wills, human and divine, in harmony. It condemned Monothelite leaders, including a former pope, Honorius, a case that Catholic scholars discuss in connection with papal teaching. They generally argue that his letters were private and not an exercise of defining authority.

Step 4: The Second Council of Nicaea (787)

Emperors in the eighth century, beginning around 726 to 730, had attacked images, and some Christians destroyed icons. John of Damascus and others replied that since the Word became flesh and was seen, he can be depicted. The council distinguished latreia, worship due to God alone, from proskynesis, honor given to the image, which passes to the person it represents.

The decision was challenged in the West, where the Frankish court, relying on a flawed Latin translation, objected. Iconoclasm returned in the early ninth century and ended in 843, a day that Orthodox Christians still celebrate as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

Step 5: How the churches count

The Catholic Church recognizes twenty-one ecumenical councils, including those of the Middle Ages and the modern period, such as Trent and the two Vatican Councils. Eastern Orthodox churches recognize seven, and some Orthodox teachers speak of later councils as having comparable weight. The Oriental Orthodox churches recognize the first three. The Church of the East recognizes the first two. Protestants vary: Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican confessions appeal to the first four or the first six, and many Protestants accept the seventh with reservations about icons, while others reject it. Some free churches hold that no council has authority apart from Scripture.

The question of reception sits under all of this. Some councils were attended by many bishops and later repudiated, such as the council of 449. The churches therefore think that a council’s authority comes in part from acceptance, though they describe that acceptance differently.

  1. What makes a council a council of the whole church?
  2. Why might a short definition be more lasting than a long discussion?
  3. How should a church treat a council that had political pressure behind it?
  4. Why is the question of Christ’s will more than a technical matter?
  5. Why would Christians divide over the use of images?
  6. Which councils would you want to read in full, and why?

Examples

A will in the garden

In Gethsemane, Jesus prays that the cup pass, yet adds not my will but thine (Luke 22:42). Maximus read this as showing a human will that freely agrees with the divine. If Christ had only one will, the prayer would have no real meaning.

An image and its prototype

A person kisses a photograph of a relative far away. The kiss goes to the person, not the paper. The fathers of the seventh council used a similar idea about icons, though they stressed that the honor is not worship.

A council not received

The council of 449 at Ephesus was called by the emperor and attended by many bishops, but it was soon overturned. Its example shows why churches speak of reception as well as procedure.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church holds that ecumenical councils are infallible when they define faith and morals with the pope’s approval. It accepts the seven as the first of twenty-one. The Church teaches that a council is ecumenical when confirmed by the successor of Peter.

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church accepts seven councils as the voice of the Holy Spirit in the church, and teaches that their authority rests on the church’s reception of them as true. It does not hold that the pope alone confirms them. The church of the seven councils is, for the Orthodox, the undivided church.

Oriental Orthodox and the Church of the East

The Oriental Orthodox accept the first three councils, and the Church of the East the first two. They do not say that they reject Christ’s full divinity and humanity, and modern dialogues have looked for common statements.

Protestant

Protestants generally hold that councils can err and are subject to Scripture, while honoring the first councils as faithful. The Reformers appealed to the first four councils. Free-church traditions rely less on councils and more on Scripture alone.

Why it matters

These councils shaped the shared vocabulary of nearly all Christians and also mark the points where churches parted. Seeing how each church counts them clarifies why unity is hard to restore, and why the debate about authority in the church cannot be separated from the debate about doctrine.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: All the councils were attended by the whole church.

Correction: Attendance was mostly Eastern, and imperial influence was strong. Their authority is explained in different ways by different churches.

Misunderstanding: The seven councils are accepted by all Christians.

Correction: Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches accept all seven. Others accept fewer, and Protestant views differ.

Misunderstanding: The seventh council commanded the worship of images.

Correction: It explicitly distinguished worship, owed to God alone, from the veneration of images. How well that distinction is observed in practice is a separate question.

Misunderstanding: Honorius proves that a pope can teach heresy.

Correction: Catholic scholars generally argue that his letters were private and not definitions. Critics, including Orthodox and Protestant writers, argue that the case is a real challenge to papal infallibility.

Knowledge check

List the seven councils with dates.

Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680 to 681) and Nicaea II (787). The first four deal with the Trinity and the person of Christ, the fifth with the Three Chapters and Origenism, the sixth with Christ’s wills and the seventh with icons.

What did the sixth council teach?

It taught that Christ has two natural wills, divine and human, which are in harmony. It rejected Monothelitism, the view that he had only one will. Maximus the Confessor’s argument that an incomplete humanity cannot heal humanity was influential.

What is the difference between latreia and proskynesis?

Latreia is the worship that belongs to God alone. Proskynesis is the honor or veneration given to images, saints or holy things. The seventh council taught that icons may be honored with proskynesis, and that the honor passes to the person depicted, not to the object.

Why do churches differ in how many councils they count?

Churches hold different views about what makes a council ecumenical and which decisions they accept. Catholics count twenty-one, the Eastern Orthodox seven, the Oriental Orthodox three, the Church of the East two, and Protestants vary, often appealing to the first four or six.

Think it through

  1. Does the way a church counts councils say anything about its view of authority?
  2. Which of the seven decisions do you think affects Christian life most directly?
  3. What does reception mean in practice for ordinary believers?
  4. How might Christians who count different numbers of councils still read them together?

Independent assignment

A table of the seven councils

Make a table in your notebook with a row for each of the seven councils and columns for date, place, emperor, issue, decision and which churches accept it. Fill in each cell from the seven councils text in the library and from this course. Then write a paragraph of 150 words on which council seems to you hardest to understand and why. Aim for 300 to 500 words.

Further study