Session 8 - (Church History - Age of Ecumenical Councils and Great Schism)

Today we will discuss the Era of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, called to help the young church combat false teachings/heresies which threatened to divide the Church, and the time of the first tragic division in Christianity between the East and west which is known as the Great Schism.

Age of The Seven Ecumenical Councils

The Orthodox Church has always upheld that the deciding of matters of church teachings, and disciplinary importance must be done in council with all of the Bishops and Hierarchs of the Church, who represented the faithful under their flocks. This is based on what I mentioned last week – the council of Jerusalem, where the apostles met to decide on how to receive gentiles into the Christian Faith. After prayer and deliberation, they were moved to say that the decision was “good to us and to the Holy Spirit. “ This vision of conciliarity, where the Bishop of Jerusalem, the eldest brother, presided over the council but did not dictate its decision, is basis for decision making in the Church.

From the fourth to the eighth centuries, seven councils were called by the Byzantine Emperor to decide matters of importance in the Church, as there were divisions within the Church due to false teachings that were being introduced. These councils performed two basic tasks: 1) They formulated the visible, ecclesiastical organization of the Church, setting the ranking of the Five Patriarchates or centers of Christianity; and 2) they defined, once and for all, the teachings of the Church on faith, formulating the basic dogmas concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation or taking on of Flesh by Christ.

These councils were not unilaterally proclaimed ecumenical or universal until after their decision stood the test of time, and were ratified at future councils.
The following are the dates and places of the Councils.

1. Nicea (325) 2. Constantinople (381) 3. Ephesus (431) 4. Chalcedon (451) 5.Constantinople (553) 6. Constantinople (681) 7. Nicea (787).

Of course time will not permit me to go into great detail regarding what took place at each of them, however, I will give you a brief synopsis of each which I have adapted from a wonderful resource that gives a nice overview of the Orthodoxy Faith, entitled These Truths We Hold, compiled by a monk of St. Tikhon’s Monastery. You can order a copy from St. Tikhon’s Monastery Bookstore.

1. Nicea I (325).

This Council condemned the heresy of Arianism, which had contended that the Son was inferior to the Father and was, in fact, created. The Fathers here declared that the Son is one in essence (homoousios) with the Father, and formulated the first part of what eventually became the Creed or the Symbol of Faith. In addition, three great Sees were singled out Rome, Alexandria and Antioch (Canon 6), and the See of Jerusalem, although still subject to the Metropolitan of Caesarea, was given the next place in honor after Antioch (Canon 7).

2. Constantinople I (381).

This Council expanded the Nicene Creed, developing the teachings concerning the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father; Who, with the Father and Son, is worshipped and glorified..., against the heresy of the Pneumatomachi (Spiritsmashers) and the Macedonians (followers of Macedonius), who could not accept the Third Person of the Trinity as equal to the other Two. It was in this period that we see the activities of the great Cappadocian Fathers, St. Gregory Nazianzus (the Theologian), St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, as well as the great Alexandrian Father, St. Athanasius the Great. The First Council of Constantinople also decreed that Constantinople, the new capital, should hold the next place of honor after Rome, since it was now the New Rome (Canon 111).

3. Ephesus (431).

This Council met to discuss the heresy of the Nestorians, who could not accept that God and Man had been united in one Person, Christ, refusing to call the Virgin Mary, Theotokos (or Birthgiver of God). Supported primarily by St. Cyril of Alexandria, this Council affirmed that Mary was truly Theotokos, since, as the Evangelist had proclaimed, the Word was made flesh (John 1:14), and the Virgin had borne a single and undivided Person Who is, at the same time, God and Man.

4. Chalcedon (451)

This Council met to discuss the heresy of the Monophysites who held that in Christ the human nature had been merged into the divine, so that there was, after the divine union, only one nature. The Bishops of this Council accepted the so-called Tome of Pope St. Leo the Great of Rome, which affirmed the belief that the one and the same son, perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, [is] truly God and truly man...acknowledged in two natures unconfused, unchanged, undivided and inseparable. In addition, the place of Constantinople after that of Rome was confirmed, as was that of Jerusalem in the fifth place of honor.

A tragic result of this Council (and that of Ephesus prior) was the splitting apart from the main body of a large group of Christians adhering to either the Nestorian or Monophysite view. The Nestorians were found basically in Persia and Mesopotamia, and were especially decimated by the Islamic and Turkish onslaughts, whereas the Monophysites were strong in Africa (Egypt and Ethiopia the present Coptic Church), Armenia, and India (the Jacobite Church).

So you don’t think these decisions are man-made and without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I would like to share with you a true story, a miracle that occurred at this ecumenical council that confirmed the Truth proclaimed by this Ecumenical Council.

In the year 451 in the city of Chalcedon, in the very church where the glorified relics of the holy Great Martyr Euphemia rested, the sessions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council (July 16) took place. The Council was convened for determining the precise dogmatic formulae of the Orthodox Church concerning the nature of the God-Man Jesus Christ.

This was necessary as I said before because of the widespread heresy of the Monophysites ["mono-physis" meaning "one nature"], who opposed the Orthodox teaching of the two natures in Jesus Christ, the Divine and the Human natures (in one Divine Person)  After prolonged discussions the two sides could not come to a decisive agreement.

The holy Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople proposed that the Council submit the decision of the Church dispute to the Holy Spirit, through His undoubted bearer St Euphemia the All-Praised, whose wonderworking relics had been discovered during the Council's discussions. The Orthodox hierarchs and their opponents wrote down their confessions of faith on separate scrolls and sealed them with their seals. They opened the tomb of the holy Great Martyr Euphemia and placed both scrolls upon her bosom. Then, in the presence of the emperor Marcian (450-457), the participants of the Council sealed the tomb, putting on it the imperial seal and setting a guard to watch over it for three days. During these days both sides imposed upon themselves a strict fast and made intense prayer. After three days the patriarch and the emperor in the presence of the Council opened the tomb with its relics: the scroll with the Orthodox confession was held by St Euphemia in her right hand, and the scroll of the heretics lay at her feet. St Euphemia, as though alive, raised her hand and gave the scroll to the patriarch. After this miracle many of the hesitant accepted the Orthodox confession, while those remaining obstinate in the heresy were consigned to the Council's condemnation and excommunication.

5. Constantinople II (553).

This Council met to further reinterpret the decrees of Chalcedon, seeking to explain how the two natures of Christ unite to form a single person. It affirmed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is one of the Holy Trinity, one and the same divine Person (hypostasis), Who has united personally (hypostatically) in Himself the two natures of God and Man, without fusing them together and without allowing their separation. Certain teachings of Origen, including his teaching concerning the pre-existence of the soul, among other things, were also expressly condemned.

6. Constantinople III (681).

This Council met to condemn the Monothelite heresy which held that in the union of the two natures in Christ, the human will was merged into the divine as one will, since the two natures were united into one person. The Council, however, held that if Christ has two natures, he also has two wills human and divine.

7. Nicea II (787).

This Council met to affirm the belief of the Orthodox that veneration of the Holy Icons was proper and necessary for a correct understanding of the Incarnation of Christ, against those who held that Icon-veneration was idolatry and that all Icons should be destroyed (Iconoclasts). This Seventh Council was also the last of the Ecumenical Councils accepted as such by the Orthodox Church, although the possibility does exist that, in principle, more could be convened. The Iconoclast controversy did not end until after another rising of the heretics beginning in 815, which was finally suppressed by the Empress Theodora in 843. This final victory of the Holy .Icons in 843 is known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy, and is commemorated on the First Sunday of Great Lent. Thus, with the resolution of the Iconoclast controversy, the Age of the Seven Councils came to an end.

Rise of Islam

Another major historical event that took place in this period was the rise and rapid spread of Islam, the most striking characteristic of which was the speed of its expansion. And today is no exception especially in the west. Within fifteen years after the death of Mohammed in 632, his followers had captured Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and in fifty years, they were already at the gates of Constantinople. Within 100 years, they had swept across North Africa and through Spain. The Byzantine Empire lost the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and until the actual fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Empire was never free from attack. During the early part of the 9th Century, we see the evangelization of the Slavic Peoples by Sts Cyril and Methodios and the Conversion of Prince Vladimir of Kievan Rus.

The Great Schism

The Great Schism marked one of the most tragic events in the history of Christianity, when the formal split between the Patriarchates of the East – Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch, and the Patriarchate of the West – Rome occurred in the year 1054 In this year the Churches of the East and West mutually excommunicated each other. Officially proclaimed at Constantinople in that year by the Papal Legate, Cardinal Humbert, it was, in a sense, the culmination of a process that had been taking place for several centuries, ultimately centering on two major controversies: Papal authority and the Filioque. Orthodox see the Pope as being the first among equals, not as the final authority in the Church on Doctrine and Dogma. The Filioque is the latin word for and the Son which was added to the Creed in the section which talks about the Holy Spirit Proceeding from the Father. There were several other issues, too numerous to speak about now and most notably, the differences in Eastern and Western approaches to theology. We know that later, the Roman Church in 1517 had a further split – when the Protestant Confession was established with the nailing of the 95 theses on the Wittenburg Cathedral by Martin Luther.

The schism of 1054, however, was not initially recognized by the entire Christian East and was never healed, even after several attempts were made to do so. Probably the deciding factor in the permanence of the Schism had been the capture and sack of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204, which the Orthodox never forgot. However it is important to note that the late Pope John Paul II officially offered an apology for this terrible event in history to His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew a short time before his repose .