Councils in the Life of the Church

The seven Ecumenical Councils are not museum pieces but the living doctrinal backbone of Orthodox faith — the framework within which the Church confesses the Trinity and the Incarnation, sealed in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and remembered every year in the Church’s worship: the Sunday of the Fathers of the councils, and the Triumph of Orthodoxy on the first Sunday of Great Lent.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Seven as Doctrinal Backbone

For the Orthodox Church the seven councils are the settled framework of the faith — the definitive articulation, against the historic heresies, of the two central mysteries: who God is and who Christ is. The first two councils (Nicaea I, Constantinople I) defined the Trinity — one God in three co-equal persons, the Son homoousios with the Father, the Spirit the Lord and Giver of Life. The remaining five (Ephesus through Nicaea II) defined the Incarnation — the one Christ, truly God and truly man, in two natures with two natural wills, born of the Theotokos and rightly depicted in the holy icons (Ware, The Orthodox Church, rev. ed., 1993, on the councils as the framework of doctrine; see the summary table in Orthodoxy: The Seven Ecumenical Councils). Each council presupposes and builds on the ones before; together they are experienced as a single, coherent confession, so that a Byzantine typology could call them the “seven pillars” of the house of Wisdom (Proverbs 9:1) (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 2, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, 1974). To this day Orthodox catechesis, iconography, and hymnography treat the seven councils as the touchstone of orthodoxy: to hold “the faith of the seven councils” is a common shorthand for Orthodox Christianity itself.

The Synodikon of Orthodoxy

The clearest expression of how the councils live in the Church’s worship is the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, a text composed for the restoration of the icons in 843 and expanded thereafter, proclaimed annually on the first Sunday of Great Lent (Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 1979, on the Synodikon; Gouillard, Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie, 1967, the critical edition). The Synodikon rehearses the faith of the councils in the form of solemn acclamations and anathemas: “Memory Eternal” is proclaimed to the champions of orthodoxy — the Fathers, the confessors, the defenders of the icons — and “Anathema” to the heresiarchs the councils condemned, from Arius and Nestorius and Eutyches to the iconoclasts. Significantly, the Synodikon was not closed in 843: it was expanded to include the condemnations of later councils — the eleventh-century condemnation of John Italos, and above all the fourteenth-century hesychast (Palamite) councils, which added their affirmation of the distinction between God’s essence and energies and their anathemas against Barlaam and Akindynos (Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 1964; Gouillard, Le Synodikon, 1967; see The Palamite Councils and the Conciliar Future). The living, expandable Synodikon is thus itself evidence that the Church’s conciliar confession did not stop at 787 — a point that bears directly on the question of an eighth council (see Section 09).

The Liturgical Commemorations

The Orthodox Church commemorates the councils and their Fathers on several fixed occasions in the liturgical year, weaving their memory into the rhythm of worship:

  • The Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council — kept on the Sunday after the Ascension (the Seventh Sunday of Pascha) — honors the 318 Fathers of Nicaea; its hymns celebrate their confession of the homoousios against Arius and their preservation of the apostolic faith (Lenten and Pentecostarion Triodia; Ware, The Orthodox Church, 1993).
  • The Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council — kept in October — commemorates the Fathers of Nicaea II and the defense of the icons.
  • More broadly, several Sundays and feasts commemorate “the Holy Fathers of the [first six / seven] Ecumenical Councils” together, especially in July, celebrating the whole conciliar tradition as one (menaia and typikon; Ware, The Orthodox Church, 1993). The precise assignment varies by local usage, but the pattern is constant: the councils are given their own feasts, as saving events in the Church’s history.

The Triumph of Orthodoxy

The greatest of these commemorations is the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the first Sunday of Great Lent, which celebrates the definitive restoration of the icons in 843 after the second iconoclasm (see The Defense of the Icons). Though its historical occasion is specifically the victory over iconoclasm — and so the vindication of the Seventh Council — the feast came to celebrate the triumph of the whole conciliar faith over all the heresies, the “Triumph of Orthodoxy” as such. On this day the Synodikon of Orthodoxy is proclaimed, and in the traditional rite the faithful process with icons, confessing in act what the councils defined in word (Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, 1979; Schmemann, Great Lent, 1969, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy). The feast makes visible the Orthodox conviction that dogma is not abstract: the faith the councils defined is the faith the Church prays, sings, and paints; right doctrine (ortho-doxia, “right glory”) and right worship are one.

Doctrine Confessed, Not Merely Recorded

The deepest point about the councils in the life of the Church is that their definitions are received as doxology — as the Church’s confession of the God she worships — and not merely as historical decrees to be catalogued. The Creed of the first two councils is sung at every Liturgy; the Theotokos of Ephesus is invoked in every service; the two natures of Chalcedon and the two wills of Constantinople III are confessed in the Church’s hymns of the Incarnation; the icons of Nicaea II fill her walls and are kissed by every worshipper. This is why the Orthodox regard the seven councils not as a closed chapter of the fourth through eighth centuries but as permanently contemporary — the abiding shape of the faith, re-confessed in every generation’s worship. The councils gave the Church her grammar for speaking of God; the Church has been speaking it, in prayer, ever since. Whether the sequence of ecumenical councils is closed at seven, or whether later councils belong with them, is the open question the final section takes up (see The Question of an Eighth Council and Beyond).

See Also

References

  • Gouillard, Jean. “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: édition et commentaire.” Travaux et Mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316.
  • Meyendorff, John. Byzantine Theology. New York: Fordham University Press, 1979; A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence. London: Faith Press, 1964.
  • Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition, vol. 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
  • Schmemann, Alexander. Great Lent: Journey to Pascha. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1969.
  • Ware, Kallistos (Timothy). The Orthodox Church. Rev. ed. London: Penguin, 1993.