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Intel - Religion
Christianity - Councils

"In God we trust.
All others we monitor."

• It is not necessary for a convert to become Jewish in order to be Christian

• Christians now unwelcome from Synagogues, branded as heretics

• St. Cyprian speaks of women who had no husband and lord but Christ, with whom they lived in a spiritual matrimony...he condemns the cohabitation of such virgins with ecclesiastics, under the pretence of a purely spiritual connection...The Council of Elvira decreed that such fallen virgins, if they refused to return back to their former condition, should be denied communion even at the moment of death. (The History of Marriage, p. 404-405)

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• Constantine also presided over the first major rift or controversy in the church – the Arian Controversy – which denied the co-equal relationship between Jesus and God. In 325 CE he summoned the First Ecumenical Council of the church at great palace hall of Nicaea – forming the basis of the Nicene Creed.
• 300 Bishops in attendance (5 from west)

• ...by the Council of Nicaea in 325 he was identified as God in the fullest sense, literally 'of the same substance, essence or being', hence in the further wording of the Creed, "Θεόν αληθινόν εκ Θεού αληθινού" Theón alēthinón ek Theoú alēthinoú 'true God from true God'.

• The Council of Sardica was one of the series of councils (or synods) called to adjust the doctrinal and other difficulties of the Arian controversy.

• The Council of Sirmium is the name primarily given to the third Council of Sirmium which marked a temporary compromise between Arianism and the Western bishops of the Christian church.

• In 358, the Roman Emperor Constantius II requested two councils, one of the western bishops at Ariminum and one of the eastern bishops (planned for Nicomedia but actually held at Seleucia) to resolve the Arian controversy over the nature of the divinity of Jesus Christ, which divided the 4th-century church.

• The major concerns of the Council involved constricting the conduct of church members.
• The Council expressed its decrees in the form of written rules or canons.
• Among the sixty canons decreed, several aimed at:
• Maintaining order among bishops, clerics and laypeople (canons 3-5, 11-13, 21-27, 40-44, 56-57)
• Enforcing modest behavior of clerics and laypeople (4, 27, 30, 36, 53-55)
• Regulating approach to heretics (canons 6-10, 31-34, 37), Jews (canons 16, 37-38) and pagans (canon 39)

• Outlawing the keeping of the Saturday sabbath and solemnifying Sunday as the Christian sabbath (canon 29)
• Outlining liturgical practices (canons 14-20, 21-23, 25, 28, 58-59)
• Restrictions during Lent (canons 45, 49-52)* Admission and instruction of catechumens and neophytes (canons 45-48)
• Specifying the Biblical canon (canons 59-60)

• And in the earlier part of the fourth century the Council of Gangra expressly condemned anyone who maintained that marriage prevented a Christian from entering the kingdom of God. But, at the end of the same century, a council also excommunicated the monk Jovinian because he denied that virginity was more meritorious than marriage. (The History of Marriage, p. 402)

• Nicene Creed although it was revised later in 381-2 CE at the Council of Constantinople.

• Decisions on canonization of Bible, based on 367 Easter letter of Athanasius

• The council was called due to the contentious teachings of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople.
• Nestorianism emphasized the dual natures of Christ. Patriarch Nestorius tried to answer a question considered unsolved: "How can Jesus Christ, being part man, not be partially a sinner as well, since man is by definition a sinner since the Fall".

• To solve that he taught that Mary, the mother of Jesus gave birth to the incarnate Christ, not the divine Logos who existed before Mary and indeed before time itself.
• Mary, as mother of Jesus, she became Theotokos, literally, the "God-bearer", or "Mother of God". This doctrine was confirmed by the First Council of Ephesus in 431.

• It was the chief of many councils that affirmed the theology of Augustine of Hippo against Pelagianism.
• It received the papal sanction.

• The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, with the goal of assisting the Byzantine Empire against the invasions of the Seljuk Turks.
• Very soon, however, the participants saw the main objective as the capturing or recapturing of the Holy Land.

• The Council of Pisa was an unrecognized ecumenical conference of the Roman Catholic Church held in 1409 that attempted to end the Western Schism.
• Instead of ending the Western Schism, the Council elected a third papal claimant, Alexander V, who would be succeeded by John XXIII.

• The Council of Constance seeks to end the Great Schism, the embarrassment of having two or three popes competing for authority and power.
• This same council burns Czech priest John Hus as a heretic and condemns John Wycliffe posthumously.

• Council of Constance replaces three Popes with one new one

• The council issued condemnations on what it defined as Protestant heresies and defined Church teachings in the areas of Scripture and Tradition, Original Sin, Justification, Sacraments, the Eucharist in Holy Mass and the veneration of saints.

• It issued numerous reform decrees.
• By specifying Catholic doctrine on salvation, the sacraments, and the Biblical canon, the Council was answering Protestant disputes.

• Declares the Pope infallible
• The first Vatican council says of Athanasius that he inquires so diligently, piously, and soberly that his reason, illumined by faith, discovers the following rule:
  “All that is said of the Father is also said of the Son, excerpt that the Son is Son and not Father.”