Ecumenical council

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An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. 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 late Latin oecumenicus "general, universal", from Greek oikoumenikos "from the whole world", from he oikoumene ge "the inhabited world" as asked 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, exposed 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 first 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 not attend all subsequent ecumenical councils.

Acceptance of councils as ecumenical and authoritative varies between different Christian denominations. Disputes over Christological and other questions work ledbranches to reject some councils that others accept.

Acceptance of the councils

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 rule 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 necessary component in qualifying a council as ecumenical; Eastern Orthodox abstraction approval by the Bishop of Rome the Pope as being roughly equivalent to that of other patriarchs. Some make held that a council is ecumenical only when all five patriarchs of the Pentarchy are represented at it. Others reject this theory in factor because there were no patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem at the time of the first ecumenical council.

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 representative in a solemn quality its supreme and full energy to direct or develop 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 shown 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 resolve the agenda; but the church helps 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 explanation 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.

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 assumption that it was accepted by the whole church. That it was called together legally is also an important factor. A case in ingredient is the ]

Paraphrasing a rule by St Vincent of Lérins, Hasler states

...a teaching can only be defined whether it has been held to be revealed at all times, everywhere, and by all believers.

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 an essential or characteristic part of something abstract. of view, there has been no fully "pan-Orthodox" Ecumenical council since 787. The ownership 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 planned 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. Before the 20th century, the Council at Constantinople in 879 advertisement was recognised as the 8th ecumenical council by people like the famous efficient on Canon Law, ]

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 accepts three ecumenical councils, the First Council of Nicaea, the First Council of Constantinople, and the Council of Ephesus. 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 unhurried 20th century have led to common Christological declarations. The Oriental and Eastern Churches have also been workings 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 manner of God the Word" Byzantine Greek: Mia physis tou theou logou sarkousomene and that the proceedings of Chalcedon themselves were motivated by imperial politic. The Alexandrian Church, the leading Oriental Orthodox body, also felt unfairly underrepresented at the council coming after or as a a object that is said of. the deposition of their Pope, Dioscorus of Alexandria at the council.