35.

 Outline the understanding which your derived from this section about the Ecumenical Councils.

            The textbook notes that the Church's Councils had as their purpose the salvation of man and that the Council is the chief means by which God has chosen to guide His flock. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky adds that:

The highest organ of authority in the Church, and the highest authority in general, is a council of bishops: for a local Church it is a council of its local bishops, and for the Ecumenical Church, a council of the bishops of the whole Church [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 235].

As noted, an Ecumenical Council starts out as a general council of bishops from all districts who assemble in order to discuss and decide questions pressing to the entire Church. St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite (+1809) gives four distinguishing marks of an Ecumenical Council. The first is that it is convened “by order, not of the pope nor of such and such a patriarch, but by royal orders.” The Ecumenical Councils were convened by the Roman (Byzantine) emperors when they wanted to make the definition of an Ecumenical Council a law of the empire for the peace of its citizens. The second is that there should be a discussion of topics of faith “and afterwards a decision and a dogmatic definition should be published in each one of the Patriarchates.” The third is that “the dogmas must be correct in their Orthodoxy and in agreement with the Divine Scriptures, or the previous Ecumenical Councils.” To be the voice of the Church, a council's decisions must be in harmony with the Scriptures and the preceding Ecumenical Councils, and conversely, a council cannot be ecumenical if its decisions are in disharmony with the Scriptures or the previous Ecumenical Councils. If the decisions meet these standards, they are valid. As St. Maximus the Confessor states: “The right faith validates the meetings that have taken place, and again, the correctness of dogmas justifies the meetings.” The fourth is that it must have universal recognition. All the Orthodox patriarchs and archbishops must “agree and accept the decisions and canonizings by the Ecumenical Councils, either through their personal presence or through their delegates, and in their absence, through their letters.” [Quoted in Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, The Mind of the Orthodox Church, pp. 215-16].

            Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky additionally notes that:

The Orthodox Church of Christ is the Body of Christ, a spiritual organism whose Head is Christ. It has a single spirit, a single common faith, a single and common catholic consciousness guided by the Holy Spirit; and its reasonings are based on the concrete, definite foundations of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This catholic consciousness is always with the Church, but, in a more definite fashion, this consciousness is expressed in the Ecumenical Councils of the Church [Op. cit., p. 35].

Concerning what the Ecumenical Councils accomplished, Fr. Michael explains that they formulated precisely and confirmed a number of fundamental truths of the Orthodox Christian faith. Secondly, they defended the ancient teaching of the Church against the distortions of heretics. Thirdly, they formulated numerous laws and rules, or canons, for governing public and private Christian life, and they required universal and uniform observance of these canons. Lastly, the Ecumenical Councils confirmed the dogmatic decrees of a number of local councils, and also the dogmatic statements composed by certain Fathers of the Church.

            Fr. Michael gives more details, stating that when it happened that councils of bishops permitted heretical views to be expressed in their decrees, the catholic consciousness of the Church was disturbed and was not pacified until authentic Christian truth was restored and confirmed by means of another council. In a footnote, it is explained that:

True Councils — those which express Orthodox truth — are accepted by the Church's catholic consciousness; false councils — those which teach heresy or reject some aspect of the Church's Tradition — are rejected by the same catholic consciousness. The Orthodox Church is the Church not of councils as such, but only of true councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit, which conform to the Church's catholic consciousness [Ibid., p. 36].

The textbook for this course notes that the decisions of a general council are overturned if the Church rejects them as heretical. Three instances of such a rejection are given: Ephesus (449), the Iconoclast Council of Hieria (754), and Florence (1438-39).

            Fr. Michael explains that the Ecumenical Councils of the Church made their dogmatic decrees a) after a careful, thorough and complete examination of all those places in Sacred Scripture which touch a given question, and b) thus testifying that the Ecumenical Church has understood the cited passages of Sacred Scripture in precisely this way. In this way, the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils concerning the faith express

... the harmony of Sacred Scripture and the catholic Tradition of the Church. For this reason these decrees became themselves, in their turn, an authentic, inviolable, authoritative, Ecumenical and Sacred Tradition in the Church, founded upon the facts of Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition [Ibid].

Concerning the Church's Creed, Fr. Michael makes the following notation:

Among all the dogmatic decrees of the Councils, the Ecumenical Councils themselves acknowledge as primary and fundamental the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith, and they forbade any changes whatsoever in it, not only in its ideas, but also in its words, either by addition or subtraction (decrees of the Third Ecumenical Council, repeated by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Councils) [Ibid., p. 37].

The first part of the Creed was written at the First Ecumenical Council, and it emphasized the monotheistic centrality of faith. The second half of the Creed, written at the Second Ecumenical Council, emphasized the respective roles of each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. The doctrinal truth proclaiming the dyophysite nature of the Son, His two (dyo, duo) simultaneous natures, was the work of St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444). Whoever does not accept the truths of the Creed is not an Orthodox Christian.

            It should also be noted that the Orthodox Church to this day retains the original text of the Creed. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, uses an altered text, thus coming under the condemnation of five Ecumenical Councils that the Latin Church itself recognizes as divinely inspired.

            The doctrinal definitions handed down by the Ecumenical Councils are infallible, and along with the Bible, they have a permanent and irrevocable authority. The Ecumenical Councils cannot be revised or corrected, but must be accepted in their entirety. Archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy writes in this regard that:

The decision of an Ecumenical Council is the highest earthly authority of the Holy Church of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, as it was stated in the decision of the first Apostolic Council, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us...” (Acts 15:28) [The Law of God, p. 425].