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What constitutes a council ecumenical in the Reformed tradition? Who must attend? Who can vote? When was the last valid one? What must happen for another one to take place?
What constitutes a council ecumenical in the Reformed tradition? Who must attend? Who can vote? When was the last valid one? What must happen for another one to take place?
What constitutes a council ecumenical in the Reformed tradition? Who must attend? Who can vote? When was the last valid one? What must happen for another one to take place?
Gregory Nanzianzen, who says (Ep. 55), that he never saw any council end well. In asserting that all, without exception, ended ill
The last ecumenical council was the synod of Dordt.
Technically there never has been an ecumenical council. Those called "ecumenical councils" could only be as extensive as the authority of the civil magistrate which called them. They often contained an unbalanced representation in favour of the places in which they were called and some places had no representation. It is important for Protestants to recognise this lack of universality in order to contest the claims of traditionalists who use the ecumenical councils to undermine the Confessions of the Protestant reformation.
Charitably, though, the first four "ecumenical councils" are generally recognised for the good confession which they make before many witnesses with respect to the faith once delivered to the saints, especially in relation to the Trinity and the person of Christ. Appeal is sometimes made to them to show the catholicity of what Protestants confess. They are also useful for showing that the Pope of Rome did not have the authority which he later claimed for himself, and that councils can err and have erred.
For in process of time, when the power of the Roman empire gave countenance and protection unto the Christian religion, another way was fixed on for this end, viz., the use of such assemblies of bishops and others as they called General Councils, armed with a mixed power, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical — with respect unto the authority of the emperors and that jurisdiction in the church which began then to be first talked of. This way was begun in the Council of Nice, wherein, although there was a determination of the doctrine concerning the person of Christ — then in agitation, and opposed, as unto his divine nature therein — according unto the truth, yet sundry evils and inconveniences ensued thereon. For thenceforth the faith of Christians began greatly to be resolved into the authority of men, and as much, if not more weight to be laid on what was decreed by the fathers there assembled, than on what was clearly taught in the Scriptures. Besides, being necessitated, as they thought, to explain their conceptions of the divine nature of Christ in words either not used in the Scripture, or whose signification unto that purpose was not determined therein, occasion was given unto endless contentions about them.
However, such was the watchful care of Christ over the church, as unto the preservation of this sacred, fundamental truth, concerning his divine person, and the union of his natures therein, retaining their distinct properties and operations, that — notwithstanding all the faction and disorder that were in those primitive councils, and the scandalous contests of many of the members of them; notwithstanding the determination contrary unto it in great and numerous councils — the faith of it was preserved entire in the hearts of all that truly believed, and triumphed over the gates of hell.