Ecumenical Counsils

The term ecumenical council refers to a universal gathering of Christian bishops to resolve urgent issues affecting the whole church. The term ecumenical literally means world wide. These councils and their decrees were absolutely crucial to the development of Christianity from the fourth century forward. The councils were not a perfect institution because they were often influenced by emperors, and never fully represented the array of ideas held by other bishops who weren’t invited. People were sent into exile, killed, excommunicated, and victimized by acts of physical violence during the debates. There were many councils called to discuss the relevant issues of the time, however there

are only four that are recognized by the Catholic, Orthodox, and most mainstream

Protestant churches. Those four councils are the ones that meet at Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451).

The first council was held in 325 AD in the town of Nicaea. This council was c

Gregory argued that if Jesus did not have a human soul, than the souls of humans were not saved by him. From then on, everyone recognized that it must have been a complete human nature, body and soul, in which the Son of God was united. The outcome of the council proclaimed that Christ was indeed fully human, and sided with the Cappadocian Fathers.

The bishops of the council did not agree with Arianism and supported Athanasius in their final decision of the relationship between God and his son. As a result of this council the Nicene Creed was formulated as a statement of beliefs and closely related the relationship between Father and Son. The council asserted that the Son is one in being with the Father, in contrast to the Arians, who claimed that the Son did not share the same substance as the Father. The council at Nicaea, however, provoked decades of controversy made worse by the opinions of the emperors and still plenty of Christians followed Arius.

The last council was held in Chalcedon in 451 AD. This council represented the decisive stage in the development of the early Christian doctrine of Christ. The orthodox leader was Pope Leo of Rome, who, in a letter, wrote that in the incarnation there were two distinct natures, the divine and the human, united without separation and without confusion in a single person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The two in one Jesus: two natures with different identities, both fully human and fully divine in one person. The heretic Eutyches denied Christ real humanity because he said that after the incarnation Christ had one nature, divine. This argument fell back into the ancient heresy of docetism which is the oldest heresy of all. Docetism is the belief that Jesus did not really become flesh but only seemed to have a body; in reality he was a spiritual being who could not suffer or die.

onvened by the emperor Constantine because he thought the kingdom was threatened by all the arguing. The issue that provoked the meeting of the council was weather Christ w

Some topics in this essay:
Athanasius Athanasius, , Catholic Orthodox, Cyril Nestorius, Jesus Christ, Cappadocian Fathers, God Jesus, Spirit God, Son Father, Nicene Creed, christ divine, cappadocian fathers, christ human, jesus christ, heresy docetism, council held, term ecumenical, divine argument, weather christ, divine person,