The Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church by Joseph F. Kelly

(New York: Liturgical Press, 2009), 236

Notes


Contents


Council Years Doctrinal Statements
Nicaea I 325 Nicene Creed:
Son is homoousios with Father
Constantinople I 381 Expanded Nicene Creed:
Divinity of Holy Spirit
Ephesus 431 One person of Christ; Mary is Theotokos
Chalcedon 451 One person, two natures “without confusion…without separation”
Constantinople II 553 Reaffirmed 1–4; anti-Nestorian anathemas
Constantinople III 680–681 Two wills/energies in Christ
Nicaea II 787 Veneration of icons affirmed; worship to God alone
Constantinople IV (Catholic) 869–870 Reaffirmed earlier councils (no new creed)
Lateran I 1123 —
Lateran II 1139 —
Lateran III 1179 —
Lateran IV 1215 Transubstantiation term used; doctrinal summary
Lyons I 1245 —
Lyons II 1274 Union formula incl. Filioque (Latin articulation);
purgatory teaching (Western articulation)
Vienne 1311–1312 Rational soul as form of body (affirmed)
Constance 1414–1418 — (mainly condemnations)
Florence
(Basel–Ferrara–Florence)		 1431–1445 Decrees of union (primacy, Filioque, purgatory in Latin terms);
sacraments summary
Lateran V 1512–1517 Immortality of soul affirmed
Trent 1545–1563 Justification; Scripture & Tradition; 7 sacraments;
Mass; transubstantiation reaffirmed
Vatican I 1869–1870 Faith & reason; papal primacy + infallibility
Vatican II 1962–1965 4 Constitutions (liturgy, church, revelation, modern world)

Introduction

  • The first eight councils before the schism were conducted in Greek. The next ten Western councils before the Reformation were conducted in Latin. (1)
  • Ecumenical council: a gathering of the bishops of the entire world under the presidency of the Pope. "Ecumenical" comes from the Greek oíkoumene meaning "the inhabited world" (2)
  • The ecumenical council is the supreme teaching authority in the Catholic Church (3)
  • "Generalization about the ecumenical councils can be a hazardous practice." (8)
  • "When we bear in mind that faith involves mysteries, we can understand that some theologians, trying to give shape and comprehension to those mysteries, would come up with formulas that the larger church would later reject. We should see them not always as heretics but sometimes as sincere Christians genuinely trying to make sense of their belief." (8)
    • Heterodoxy: deviation from commonly accepted teaching
    • Heresy: conscious deviation from a publicly stated doctrinal position of the church

Chapter 1: The Trinitarian Councils

_Summary: _

  • Nicea I met because of two momentous events in Christian history: the advent of the first Christian emperor, and the final reckoning of trinitarian theology. (16)
    • 312: Constantine secures his throne in the Battle of Milvian bridge via the ☧
    • 313: Edit of Milan legalizes Christianity in the empire, but also leads to imperial interference in the Church
    • 324: Constantine becomes emperor of East and West, and founds Constantinople
    • 325: Constantine calls the First Council of Nicea
  • Trinitarian debates arose as the Church attempted to articulate how Jesus was divine yet maintain monotheism.
    • Monarchianism: emphasizes the unity of the three persons of the trinity to the point of denying the distinct existence of Son and Spirit, developed by theologians in Rome to avoid a slide back into polytheism
      • Modalism: a form of Monarchianism teaching that "Son" and "Spirit" are names for the different forms or "modes" of the Father's activity
      • Adoptionism: a form of Monarchianism teaching that Jesus was a good man in whom God dwelt as a divine power
    • Tertullian advanced trinitarian theology with useful terminology: trinitas, substantia, persona: in the trinity the three persons partake in the divine substance.
    • Arius taught that Jesus is subordinate because he is not divine: "there was when he was not"
  • Nicea I:
    • Homooúsious (consubstantialis) was chosen to pin Arius down
    • Common date of Easter
    • Set the pattern of issuing decrees (dogmatic statements) and canons (ordinances)
  • The period after Nicea was "genuinely traumatic"—per Julian: "Wild animals do not attack one another as fiercely as do these Christians."
    • Athanasius defended Nicea but was a polarizing figure.
    • The Cappadocian fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen) secured the legacy of Nicea by showing that in the Trinity are one ousía and three hypostatses, equating ousía with the Latin notion of substance and hypóstasis with the Latin notion of person.
  • Constantinople I:
    • Deals with trinitarian doctrine, confirming the doctrine of Nicea and affirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit
    • Illustrates the relation of the papacy to an ecumenical council: Damasus of Rome not notified, but later popes accepted the council
    • Gregory of Nazianzus was promoted to the see of Constantinople and made president of the Council, but the Alexandrians objected so he resigned and Nectarius was appointed by the emperor—since he was a catechumen he was ordained a bishop in his baptismal robes (30)
    • Third canon: "The Bishop of Constantinople shall have primacy of honor after the Bishop of Rome because Constantinople is the new Rome." (30)
    • The reception of the council was slow and challenging: Rome did not accept the third canon, and Eastern bishops were suspicious of the addition to the creed. But it succeeded in finishing off Arianism. (31)

Chapter 2: The Christological Councils

Summary: How can Christ be both human and divine?

  • Mortification: "The monks died a little bit every day via rigorous fasting and discipline." (33)
  • Docetism: A spiritual being like God would be corrupted by contact with a fleshy body. Christ did not have a real body, but only seemed to.
  • Gnosticism: Held a low opinion of the body as the prison of the soul.
  • Nestorianism: Denial of the divine-human union in Christ; Mary as Christotokos but not Theotokos
  • Apolooinarianism: the elimination of the divine-human distinction
  • John Cassian opposed Nestorius (39)
  • Ephesus
    • Called by the emperor Theodosius to support Nestorius in 431
    • Cyril's machinations led to three separate councils before various parties arrived, and ended with him and Nestorius both sent as prisoners to Constantinople, where he coaxed the emperor along with bribes.
  • Chalcedon
    • Leo's Tome was the first time a Pope-theologian's writings influenced the outcome of a council
    • Christ is one person with two natures, one human and one divine. Two natures "without confusion, change, division, separation"
    • After the council, Monophysitism (one nature) spread in the east
  • The first four ecumenical councils are the most important because they:
    • Established a method of elucidating doctrine when Scripture alone could not do so
    • Established the teachings of God and Christ

Chapter 3: The Byzantine Councils

_Summary: _

  • Doctrine of the Two Swords (Pope Gelasius I: 492-96): the emperor holds the secular sword and the Pope the spiritual sword; the emperor ought to defer to the Pope in spiritual matters.
  • Emperor Justinian was motivated to reconcile with the Monophysites in the Eastern empire for political reasons
  • Constantinople II:
    • Condemned the Three Chapters (the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrus, and Ibas)
    • Also condemned the writings of Origen, leading to a widespread destruction of his works
    • Pope Vigilius initially held out, but accepted the council before he died
  • Constantinople III
    • Heraclius had to address Monophysitism again, and Sergius referred to one activity, Monoenergism, and one will, Monothelitism.
    • Pope Honorius I affirmed that Christ had two natures but only one will (seemingly without understanding the theological implications)
    • Maximus the Confessor wrote the best refutation of Monothelitism, but was exiled and had his hand and tongue cut off for it.
  • Muslims conquer all of North Africa, most of Spain, and are finally stopped in Tours by Charles Martel in 732.
  • Pepin use papal support to in the throne, and then defeated the Lombards and made the "Donation of Pepin" which became the Papal States.
  • Leo III became the Byzantine emperor and saved Constantinople from the Muslims, but considered icons to be idolatrous.
  • Pope Gregory II quickly denounced iconoclasm and Gregory III called a synod that did the same. John Damascene provided a theological defense of icons.
  • Nicea II (786-787)
    • Irene called the council to address iconoclasm. Opened in Constantinople but attacked, so relocated to Nicea.
    • Icons serve an important teaching purpose, especially during a time when most were illiterate.
  • Charles Martel > Pepin > Charlemagne crowned as emperor, kicking of the medieval period of church-state struggle.
  • Muslim pirates sacked Rome in 846!
  • Constantinople IV (869-70, 879)
    • John VIII re-instated the deposed Photius, and the Byzantine navy came to repel Muslims from Rome.

Chapter 4: The Papal Councils of the Twelfth Century

_Summary: _

  • "The tenth century represents the lowest point in papal history," with John XII being the "most scandalous of all the popes", but he did crown Otto I creating the Holy Roman Empire.
  • Henry IV and the Investiture Controversy
  • Pope Paschal II accepted the compromise that the bishop receives his insignia of temporal power from the king, but insignia of ecclesiastical office from the Pope.
  • Callistus II settled the matter with an ecumenical council.
  • Lateran I (1123)
    • First council called by a Pope rather than an emperor
    • Called by Callistus II to ratify the investiture decision of the Concordat of Worms
    • Passed disciplinary decrees
  • Lateran II (1139)
    • Innocent II (supported by Bernard of Clairvaux) and Anacletus II (anti-Pope) were elected on the same day creating schism.
    • After Analectus died, Innocent II called Lateran II to confirm the illegitimacy of the acts of Analectus.
  • Lateran III (1179)
    • The scope of the papacy increased in the twelfth century as the papal government was often called upon to settle numerous disputes, all of which was quite expensive.
    • Actions of the council: Restricted the election of the Pope to the College of Cardinals, invalidated the ordinations of Barbarossa's anti-popes, emphasized the authority of bishops in their dioceses.

Chapter 5: The Papal Councils of the Thirteenth Century

_Summary: _

  • Lateran IV (1216)
    • The most important medieval council of Pope Innocent III
    • Henry VI married Constance, acquiring Sicily and threatening to surround the Pope.
    • The Fourth Crusade was a disgrace with the capture of Zara and looting of Constantinople.
    • Innocent III encouraged the new Franciscans and Dominicans.
    • The Council promulgated 71 canons, including a creed, the obligation of lay lords to defend orthodoxy, yearly confession, 1and disciplinary matters.
  • Lyons I (1245)
    • Dealt with various matters, but most importantly deposing the problematic Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.
  • Lyons II (1274)
    • Charles of Anjou ruled Sicily and dominated much of Italy, while Byzantine emperor Michael VIII recaptured Constantinople.
    • In exchange for help against Charles, Michael and the Greeks accepted the Filioque at Lyons II and east and west were reunited before collapsing under popular opinion.

Chapter 6: Schism and Conciliarism

_Summary: _

  • Vienne (1311-1312)
    • Clement V moved the papacy to Avignon in 1309.
    • At Vienne, Clement V suppressed the Knight Templars under pressure from Philip IV who wanted their gold.
  • Great Western Schism
    • The Great Western Schism began when the cardinals who elected the Italian Urban VI claimed to have done so only under pressure from the Roman mob and then elected Clement VII who returned to Avignon.
    • The cardinals of the Roman and Avignon Popes deposed them both (they did not recognize this), and elected Alexander V, resulting in three claiming the papacy.
  • Constance (1415-1418)
    • Deposed anti-popes John XXIII and Benedict XIII, recognized the resignation of Gregory XII, and elected Martin V as the Pope to end the Great Western Schism.
    • Addressed issues of heresy, such John Wycliffe's ecclesiology that prelates not in a state of grace are not legitimate, taken up by Jan Hus and the Czechs to support their nationalist ambitions against the Germans.
  • Basel-Ferrara-Florence-Rome (1431–1445)
    • Council started in Basel and run by conciliarists.
    • Moved to Ferrara to respond to the needs of the Byzantines who wanted reunion for military help against the Turks. Meanwhile the part of the Council that stayed in Basel deposed the Pope and elected an anti-Pope, before fizzling out.
    • Moved to Florence since Ferrara couldn't support such a large council. Debated the Filioque and came to a fragile reunification agreement.
    • Moved to Rome to wrap up, and reunified with the Chaldeans and Maronites.
  • Lateran V (1512-1517)
    • Julius II called Lateran V in response to Louis XII calling the council of Pisa to oppose him. The council was a papal victory over the conciliar movement.

Chapter 7: The Council of Trent

_Summary: _

  • The Protestant Reformation
    • "The Protestant Reformation centered on doctrinal matters and on which ecclesiastical authorities had the competency to judge in such matters. The Reformation was not about the abuses rampant in the Catholic Church (and against which many Catholic reformers also railed). Yet it was one of these abuses that forced Luther, who was a pastor as well as a university theologian, to reconsider his fidelity to Catholic teaching." (126)
    • "The Protestant Reformation began in Luther's ruminations on Purgatory." (128)
    • Luther's theology in summary: Sinners can do nothing to justify themselves before God; God imputes created righteousness to sinners. (129)
    • Luther argued that all doctrine must rely upon Scripture alone. He rejected the authority of ecumenical councils and of the popes. (129)
  • The Council of Trent (part 1)
    • Called by Paul III and opened in 1545
    • Issued decrees on divine revelation (1546: Scripture and Tradition, Canon of Scripture, Vulgate as sufficient for doctrinal matters), original sin (1546: historicity of Adam and Eve, baptism removes the guilt of original sin but not concupiscence), justification (1547: only God can justify man, but man can prepare for justification; man as sanctified through grace; bishops residing in their dioceses), sacraments (1547: all seven sacraments were instituted by Christ and have efficacy via administration i.e. ex opere operato)
  • The Council of Trent (part 2)
    • Decrees on baptism and confirmation, the Eucharist (explaining the real presence via transubstantiation), penance and extreme unction
    • German Protestant observers attended, but left after their efforts to remove the Roman Catholic character of the church were unsuccessful
  • The Council of Trent (part 3)
    • Defined the sacrificial character of the mass, pronounced that Christ is fully present in communion under both species, declared holy orders a sacrament and established a seminary system, confirmed the sacramental nature of marriage, and clarified teaching of images, purgatory, relics, and veneration of saints
    • Cardinal Morone brought the council to a close
  • After Trent, Pius V reviews the Roman Breviary (1568) and the Roman Missal (1570, 1604 revised), and Roman Catechism (1566)

Chapter 8: The First Vatican Council

_Summary: _

  • Lead-up to Vatican I included: missions to Africa and the Americas, royal absolutism (such as Louis XIV of France), the Enlightenment and French Revolution.
  • Pius VI died imprisoned in France in 1799, and Pius VII was impriosoned in France from 1812 until 1815 after Napoleon's defeat.
  • " it was unfortunate for the Church that the anti-religious Enlightenment, the anti-Catholic French Revolution, and the ambitious Napoleon came to define so many modern values for the nineteenth-century popes. As absolute monarchs the popes could not be expected to be sympathetic to democracy but they saw democracy largely in the form of a secularist government that wished to abolish religion. They also saw freedom of religion as indifferentism: the idea that there are no distinctions among religions and that one is as good as any other... had democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech as well as freedom of the press come to the papacy in different forms, some of the papacy's problems with the nineteenth century might have been avoided." (153)
  • Pope Gregory XVI made no concessions: Mirari Vos condemned indifferentism (the notion that people of different religions could be saved), invited Austria to suppress revolts in the Papal States.
  • Pius IX fled Rome and was only returned under guard of French troops, while the Papal States were dismembered by Victor Emmanuel II in the unification of Italy. In 1854 he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception, and in 1864 proclaimed the Syllabus of Errors in Quanta Cura.
  • Pius IX summoned the council to "restate the faith in certain matters where it had been attacked or misunderstood, to review the whole matter of clerical life and its needs, to provide new safeguards for Christian marriage and the Christian education of youth, and to take up in this new age problems of the relation of Church and State and provide appropriate guidance, so as to promote peace and prosperity in national life everywhere." (165, cf. Aeterni Patris)
  • Dei Filius: first document of the council, which talked about the nature of God, revelation and Scripture, nature and essence of faith, and faith and reason.
  • Pastor Aeternus (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church): defined papal primacy, and papal infallibility: "We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church."
  • After the council, Pius IX became the "Prisoner of the Vatican", and the Papal States were now gone: for the first time in a millennium the popes could be unfettered religious leaders.

Chapter 9: The Second Vatican Council

_Summary: _

  • First session: opened with the document on the liturgy, worked on divine revelation, and struggled with a draft on the church
  • Second session: addressed the nature of the college of bishops and permanent diaconate, put a discussion of Mary into the document on the church, addressed the laity and ecumenism
  • Third session: Lumen Gentium's "subsistit in", religious liberty, ecumenism (expanded from just a decree on the Jews), divine revelation, eastern churches, Gaudium et spes
  • Fourth session: education, religious liberty, wrapped up the council
  • (Note: this chapter on Vatican II seems to take a tone that celebrates the hermeneutic of rupture and the "spirit of the council".)

Topic: Councils of the Church

Source

Created: 2026-01-16-Fri
Updated: 2026-05-16-Sat