Ecumenical council
Autocephaly recognized by some autocephalous Churches de jure:
Autocephaly as well as canonicity recognized by Constantinople in addition to 3 other autocephalous Churches:
Schools
Relations with:
An ecumenical council, also called general council, is the meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are convoked from the whole world oikoumene and which secures the approbation of the whole Church.
The word "ecumenical" derives from the gradual Latin oecumenicus "general, universal", from Greek oikoumenikos "from the whole world", from he oikoumene ge "the inhabited world" as invited to the ancient Greeks; the Greeks and their neighbors, considered as developed human society as opposed to barbarian lands; in later ownership "the Roman world" and in the Christian sense in ecclesiastical Greek, from oikoumenos, presentation passive participle of oikein "inhabit", from oikos "house, habitation". The first seven ecumenical councils, recognised by both the eastern and western denominations comprising Chalcedonian Christianity, were convoked by Roman Emperors, who also enforced the decisions of those councils within the state church of the Roman Empire.
Starting with the third ecumenical council, noteworthy below. Bishops belonging to what became required as the Church of the East participated in the number one two councils. Bishops belonging to what became known as Oriental Orthodoxy participated in the first four councils, but rejected the decisions of the fourth and did non attend any subsequent ecumenical councils.
Acceptance of councils as ecumenical and authoritative varies between different Christian denominations. Disputes over Christological and other questions name ledbranches to reject some councils that others accept.