EXCURSUS ON THE AUTHORITY OF THE SECOND ECUMENICAL COUNCIL.

(Hefele, History of the Councils, Vol. II., pp. , et seqq.)

Lastly, to turn to the question of the authority of this Council, it 

appears, first of all, that immediately after its close, in the same 

year, , several of its acts were censured by a Council of Latins, 

namely, the prolongation of the Meletian schism (by the elevation of 

Flavian), and the choice of Nectarius as Bishop of Constantinople, 

while, as is known, the Westerns held (the Cynic) Maximus to be the 

rightful bishop of that city.

In consequence of this, the new Synod assembled in the following year, 

, at Constantinople, sent the Latins a copy of the decrees of faith 

composed the year before, expressly calling this Synod 

    oikoumenikh    and at the same time seeking to justify it in 

those points which had been censured. Photius() maintains that soon 

afterwards Pope Damasus confirmed this synod; but, as the following will 

show, this confirmation could only have referred to the creed and not to 

the canons. As late as about the middle of the fifth century, Pope Leo 

I. spoke in a very depreciatory manner of these canons, especially of 

the third, which concerned the ecclesiastical rank of Constantinople, 

remarking that it was never sent to the See of Rome. Still later, 

Gregory the Great wrote in the same sense: Romana autem Ecclesia eosdam 

canones vel gesta Synodi illius hactenus non habet, nec accepit ; in hoc 

autem eam accepit, quod est per earn contra Macedonium definitum.()

Thus, as late as the year , only the creed, but not the canons of the 

Synod of Constantinople were accepted at Rome; but on account of its 

creed, Gregory the Great reckons it as one of the four Ecumenical 

Councils, which he compares to the four Gospels. So also before him the 

popes Vigilius and Pelagius II, reckoned this Synod among the Ecumenical 

Councils.

The question is, from what date the Council of Constantinople was 

considered ecumenical by the Latins as well as by the Greeks. We will 

begin with the latter. Although as we have seen, the Synod of  had 

already designated this council as ecumenical, yet it could not for a 

long time obtain an equal rank with the Council of Nicaea, for which 

reason the General Council of Ephesus mentions that of Nicaea and its 

creed with the greatest respect, but is totally silent as to this Synod. 

Soon afterwards, the so-called Robber-Synod in , spoke of two 

(General) Councils, at Nicaea and Ephesus, and designated the latter as 

    h        deutera        sunodos   , as a 

plain token that it did not ascribe such a high rank to the assembly

at Constantinople. It might perhaps be objected that only the 

Monophysites, who notoriously ruled the Robber-Synod, used this 

language; bill the most determined opponent of the Monophysites, their 

accuser, Bishop Eusebius of Doylaeum, in like manner also brought 

forward only the two Synods of Nicaea and Ephesus, and declared that "he 

held to the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers assembled at 

Nicaea, and to all that was done at the great and Holy Synod at 

Ephesus."

The Creed of Constantinople appears for the first time to have been 

highly honoured at the fourth General Council, which had it recited 

after that of Nicaea, and thus solemnly approved it. Since then this 

Synod has been universally honoured as ecumenical by the Greeks, and was 

mentioned by the Emperor Justinian with the Councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, 

and Chalcedon, as of equal rank.()

But in the West, and especially in Rome, however satisfied people were 

with the decree of faith enacted by this Synod, and its completion of 

the creed, yet its third canon, respecting the rank of Constantinople, 

for a long time proved a hindrance to its acknowledgment. This was 

especially shown at the Council of Chalcedon, and during the time 

immediately following. When at that Council the creed of Constantinople 

was praised, repeated, and confirmed the Papal Legates fully concurred; 

but when the Council also renewed and confirmed the third canon of 

Constantinople, the Legates left the assembly, lodged a protest against 

it on the following day, and declared that the rules of the hundred and 

fifty bishops at Constantinople were never inserted among the Synodal 

canons (which were recognised at Rome). The same was mentioned by Pope 

Leo himself, who, immediately after the close of the Council of 

Chalcedon wrote to Bishop Anatolius of Constantinople: "that document of 

certain bishops (i.e. the third canon of Constantinople) was never 

brought by your predecessors to the knowledge of the Apostolic See."() 

Leo also, in his 105th letter to the Empress Pulcheria, speaks just as 

depreciatingly of this Council of Constantinople; and Quesnel is 

entirely wrong in maintaining that the Papal Legates at the Synod of 

Chalcedon at first practically acknowledged the validity of the third 

canon of Constantinople. Bishop Eusebius of Doylaeum was equally 

mistaken in maintaining at Chalcedon itself, that the third canon had 

been sanctioned by the Pope; and we shall have occasion further on, in 

the history of the Council of Chalcedon, to show the untenable character 

of both statements.

Pope Felix III. took the same view as Pope Leo, when, in his letter to 

the monks at Constantinople and Bithynia in , he only spoke of three 

General Councils at Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon; neither did his 

successor Gelasius (-) in his genuine decree, De libris 

recipiendis, mention this Synod. It may certainly be said, on the other 

hand, that in the sixth century its ecumenical character had come to be 

most distinctly acknowledged in the Latin Church also, and, as we have 

seen above, had been expressly affirmed by the Popes Vigilius, Pelagius 

II., and Gregory the Great. But this acknowledgment, even when it is not 

expressly stated, only referred to the decrees on faith of the Council 

of Constantinople, and not to its canons, as we have already observed in 

reference to the third and sixth of them.

COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

A.D. .