Ecumenical councils

“And the apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.”

— Acts 15:6

An ecumenical council was an assembly of bishops from across the whole church, convened to settle a disputed question of Christian doctrine.¹ Reformed writers trace the practice to the apostles’ own gathering at Jerusalem (Acts 15) and treat the seven councils held between AD 325 and 787, from the First Council of Nicaea to the Second Council of Nicaea, as its historic instance; which later assemblies also qualify remains disputed.² A council’s decisions, on the Reformed account, carry “an authority far beneath that of scripture,” binding the conscience only so far as they agree with God’s Word.²

Confessional Definition

The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession does not name any council, ancient or otherwise. The Second Helvetic Confession both states the underlying principle and applies it to the ancient councils by name. On the principle: councils’ decrees stand in the same rank as the opinions of the fathers, neither of which settles a controversy on its own authority.

In the same order also we place the decrees and canons of councils. Wherefore we do not permit ourselves, in controversies about religion or matters of faith, to urge our case with only the opinions of the fathers or decrees of councils… Therefore, we do not admit any other judge than God himself, who proclaims by the Holy Scriptures what is true, what is false, what is to be followed, or what to be avoided.³

On the ancient councils specifically, the confession receives the first four by name, on the same ground: not because a council decreed it, but because its content is Scriptural.

With a sincere heart we believe, and freely confess with open mouth, whatever things are defined from the Holy Scriptures concerning the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are summed up in the Creeds and decrees of the first four most excellent synods convened at Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon… knowing that nothing is contained in the aforesaid symbols which is not agreeable to the Word of God.⁴

The Westminster Confession states the same subordination in more general terms, addressed to synods and councils as an institution rather than to any named assembly: their decrees, “if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission,”⁵ but “all synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both.”⁶ (Westminster’s own chapter on synods addresses church government generally, including the Baptist/Presbyterian disagreement over synods’ authority over congregations; see church government for that separate question.) Pictet draws out what “help” means for doctrine in particular: a council’s decrees on matters of faith are “regarded in the same light as the maxims of wise men,” persuasive but not binding in their own right.²

Biblical Basis

Reformed writers point to Acts 15 as the pattern the later councils followed, not merely a loose analogy. Facing a dispute over whether Gentile converts had to be circumcised, “the apostles and elders were gathered together to consider this matter” (Acts 15:6), and the resulting letter to the Gentile churches announced its verdict, “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these requirements” (Acts 15:28). Pictet cites this assembly directly as the church’s precedent: “For this union a precedent has been established by the apostles themselves, who assembled together, (Acts 15); and this example was followed by the church in the establishment of synods and councils.”¹ Bavinck reads the wider book of Acts the same way, finding in “Acts 1; 6; 15; 21” evidence of “at least a permission to assemble, deliberate with other churches and even request adjudication in certain disputes.”⁷ On this reading synods are “permitted by divine law,” useful to the church’s well-being though not, like the apostles’ own authority, strictly necessary to its existence.⁷

Historical Development

“Ecumenical council” names a rank that developed over time rather than one that existed from the apostolic era. In the earliest centuries “there was not yet [a] hierarchy of ecclesiastical assemblies; there were as yet no provincial, metropolitan, or ecumenical councils.” Only gradually did “a ranking of provincial, national, patriarchal, and ecumenical councils” emerge as the church grew and its structures became more hierarchical.⁸ Once that rank existed, contemporaries agreed convening it required civil, not merely ecclesiastical, authority: Pictet lists the five councils held before the schism between East and West alongside the emperor who called each one, “Constantine the Great, Theodosius I, Theodosius II, Marcian, and Justinian, who called together, respectively, the councils of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and the second of Constantinople.”²

The Trinitarian councils (325-381)

The first two councils settled how the church would speak of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Confronting Arianism’s denial of the Son’s full deity, the church “formulated at the Councils of Nicea (AD 325) and Constantinople (381) the dogma that Jesus Christ was God and distinct from the Father (and the Spirit).”⁹ By the end of the fourth century, that three hypostases, Father, Son, and Spirit, subsist in the one divine being was accepted teaching in both the Greek East and the Latin West.⁹

The Christological councils (431-553)

Attention then turned from the Trinity to the person of Christ. “The Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) set christological boundaries with the formulation ‘one person, two natures, without separation and division, without mixture and change.’”⁹ Neither council closed the question: “Debates… continued about one nature or two (‘Monophysitism’) as well as one will or two (‘Monotheletism’),” disputes that carried on for centuries and drove the calling of further councils.⁹

Monothelitism and the veneration of images (680-787)

The sixth council, the Third Council of Constantinople (680-681), took up the will question left open after Chalcedon, affirming that Christ has both a divine and a human will against Monothelitism. The seventh, the Second Council of Nicaea (787), addressed a different controversy entirely, ruling in favor of venerating icons against the iconoclast movement. Its reception in the West was neither immediate nor uniform: the council’s call “for the cult (servitium) and adoration (adoratio) of images was not recognized in the Carolingian world; but after the ninth century, the opposition gradually grew silent.”¹⁰

Opposing Views

Roman Catholic theology ties ecumenicity to papal ratification rather than to the ancient seven as a closed set: “a council is ecumenical only when its decrees have been endorsed by the pope and have thereby acquired an infallible, universally binding character.”¹¹ On that definition the list of ecumenical councils stays open. A Roman Catholic profession of faith required into the nineteenth century bound its subscriber to receive “all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent,” and an 1877 decree updated the same formula to add the (First) Vatican Council (1869-70) by name.¹²

Eastern Orthodoxy closes the list at the ancient seven and adds nothing to it. It “adheres to the ancient Creeds and doctrinal decisions of the first seven oecumenical councils,” supplementing them only with later confessional and catechetical documents, such as the 1643 Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogilas and the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem, that make no claim to be further councils of the same rank.¹³

Reformed theology closes the list on different grounds than Orthodoxy does. Where Orthodoxy stops at seven councils because it holds those seven, and only those, to carry binding conciliar authority, the Reformed confessions receive the first four (or, more loosely, all seven) because their content, examined against Scripture, is judged accurate, not because a fixed number of assemblies exhausted the church’s authority to convene.⁴ Pictet concedes the label’s own weakness: “there has never been a universal council, although many were called such,” since even the most broadly attended councils summoned only the bishops within a given emperor’s own territory, and “councils continued to be convened, which were called universal, although they were not attended by delegates from Gaul, Spain, or Britain.”¹⁴

Objections and Responses

If accepting the Nicene formula on the Trinity as settled doctrine is not optional, doesn’t that give a council’s decree the same practical authority as Scripture, whatever the confessions say in theory? Pictet’s own account distinguishes the two: conciliar decrees on doctrine are received “in the same light as the maxims of wise men,” persuasive because their reasoning is sound, not binding because a council issued them.² Nicaea is not treated as a source of new revelation but as a judgment tested against Scripture and found to agree with it; a council that reached the opposite conclusion would carry no such weight. Pictet leaves the underlying rule unqualified: “no councils ever possessed infallibility; and that several have grievously erred.”¹⁴

A council convened by an emperor, attended only by bishops within his own territory, and never representing the whole church geographically, seems like a poor fit for the name “ecumenical.” Pictet raises this difficulty himself rather than glossing over it: “there has never been a universal council,” since no list of attendees ever reached “delegates from Gaul, Spain, or Britain.”¹⁴ The name describes an aspiration and a rank within church order, not a literal claim that every region of the church took part. That gap between the label and the actual roll of attendees is part of why the Reformed tradition locates a council’s authority in whether its conclusions agree with Scripture rather than in the breadth, real or claimed, of who signed on to them.

Related Doctrines

References

Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), 390. ↩ ↩²
Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), 391. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chap. 2, “Of Interpreting the Holy Scripture.” ↩
The Second Helvetic Confession (1566), chap. 11, “Of the True Faith,” under “The Creeds of Four Councils Received.” ↩ ↩²
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 31, “Of Synods and Councils,” para. 3. ↩
Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 31, “Of Synods and Councils,” para. 4. ↩
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 21, “The Church as a Spiritual Reality.” ↩ ↩²
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged, chap. 21, “The Church as a Spiritual Reality.” ↩
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged, chap. 2, “The History and Literature of Dogmatic Theology.” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged, chap. 2, “The History and Literature of Dogmatic Theology.” ↩
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged, chap. 21, “The Church as a Spiritual Reality.” ↩
Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 7, “Creeds and Confessions.” ↩
Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 7, “Creeds and Confessions.” ↩
Pictet, Christian Theology, 392: “there has never been a universal council, although many were called such… no councils ever possessed infallibility; and that several have grievously erred.” ↩ ↩² ↩³