The Palamite Councils and the Conciliar Future

The fourteenth-century councils of Constantinople (1341–1351) that vindicated St. Gregory Palamas defined the distinction between God’s essence and his energies with dogmatic authority — and some Orthodox propose them as a would-be Ninth Ecumenical Council. The 2016 Holy and Great Council of Crete raised the same question of conciliar authority in the modern age, but amid disunity. Both are treated soberly and from both sides.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Palamite Councils of 1341–1351

In the fourteenth century a controversy over the nature of the hesychasts’ experience of God — the vision of the Uncreated Light — led to a series of councils at Constantinople that are, in dogmatic weight, among the most important the Orthodox Church has held since the seven. The monk and theologian St. Gregory Palamas defended the hesychast monks against Barlaam of Calabria and later Gregory Akindynos and Nikephoros Gregoras, teaching the real distinction between the unknowable divine essence (ousia) and the uncreated energies (energeiai) — the operations of God, such as the light of Tabor, by which God is truly known and in which the saints are deified, without the essence itself being comprehended (see St. Gregory Palamas). The councils of 1341, 1347, and 1351 at Constantinople vindicated Palamas and condemned his opponents, and the definition of the 1351 council enshrined the essence–energies distinction as the Church’s teaching (Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. Lawrence, 1964, the standard study; the Tomos of 1351). Crucially, these councils’ decisions were incorporated into the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, so that their affirmations and anathemas are proclaimed every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy alongside those of the seven councils (Gouillard, Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie, 1967; see Councils in the Life of the Church). By that reception into the Synodikon, the Palamite councils function, in practice, with the authority of the Church’s dogmatic tradition.

[Disputed: whether the Palamite councils of 1341–1351 constitute a Ninth Ecumenical Council. Some Orthodox theologians (notably in the twentieth-century "neo-Palamite" current, and figures such as Fr. John Romanides and others) argue that these councils meet the criteria of an ecumenical council in all but name — they defined dogma on the knowledge of God, were received by the whole Orthodox Church, and are confessed in the Synodikon — and should be numbered as the Ninth (with 879–880 as the Eighth) (see the neo-Palamite argument summarized in Meyendorff, *A Study of Gregory Palamas*, 1964, and later Orthodox literature). Others hold that, while the Palamite teaching is unquestionably the dogma of the Church, these councils have not been received *as ecumenical* by any universal act, were purely Eastern (post-schism, with no Western participation, which affects the sense in which they can be called "ecumenical"), and are better described as councils of ecumenical authority whose formal enumeration remains open — the same reception question that hangs over 879–880 (see [The Photian Council 879–880](the-photian-council-879-880.md); [Ecumenicity and Reception](../01-what-an-ecumenical-council-is/ecumenicity-and-reception.md)). The collection reports the proposal and the caution without deciding.]

Is the Conciliar List Open?

Behind both the “Eighth” and “Ninth” proposals lies a single question: is the sequence of ecumenical councils closed at seven, or can the Church still recognize new ecumenical councils? Two considerations pull in different directions, and Orthodox opinion genuinely divides.

On one side, the deep entrenchment of “seven” in Orthodox usage, hymnography, and catechesis, and the sense that the seven completed the definition of the two central mysteries (Trinity and Incarnation), suggest to many a certain fittingness, even finality, in the number — as though the age of the great dogmatic definitions belongs to the undivided Church of the first millennium (Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, 1974, on the reverence for the seven). On the other side, Orthodox ecclesiology in principle sets no fixed number: an ecumenical council is defined by its nature and reception, not by its place in a list, and there is no dogmatic reason the Church could not, if occasion required and reception followed, recognize an eighth, ninth, or further ecumenical council (Ware, The Orthodox Church, 1993, on the openness of the conciliar principle; Florovsky, “The Authority of the Ancient Councils,” 1972). The very fact that the Synodikon was expanded to include the later councils shows that the Church’s conciliar confession did not simply stop in 787. The honest answer is that the question is unsettled: the Church has neither formally closed the list at seven nor formally added to it.

The 2016 Council of Crete

The question of conciliar authority became concrete and painful in the modern era with the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, convened at Kolymvari in Crete in June 2016 after more than half a century of pan-Orthodox preparation. It was intended as the first council of all the autocephalous Orthodox Churches in the modern age — though its conveners were careful not to call it “ecumenical,” presenting it rather as a “Holy and Great Council” addressing pastoral and canonical questions (relations with other Christians, the diaspora, fasting, marriage, autonomy) rather than defining new dogma (the conciliar documents at holycouncil.org; see Orthodoxy: The Seven Ecumenical Councils). Its authority is contested, and both sides deserve a fair statement.

`[Disputed: the standing and authority of the 2016 Council of Crete.

(a) The case for its authority. Its supporters — the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the ten autocephalous Churches that participated — hold that Crete was a genuine and canonically convened pan-Orthodox council, the fruit of decades of conciliar preparation agreed by all the Churches, and that its documents carry real authority for the Orthodox Church; that the absence of four Churches does not invalidate a council any more than the purely-Eastern composition of Constantinople I invalidated it (reception, not universal attendance, is decisive); and that the conciliar life of the Church must continue in the modern world (statements of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and participating Churches, 2016; documents at holycouncil.org).

(b) The case against, or for reserve. Four of the fourteen universally recognized autocephalous Churches — the Russian, Bulgarian, Georgian, and Antiochian — did not attend, some withdrawing shortly before it opened over unresolved procedural and doctrinal concerns (notably the document on relations with other Christians and the seating/agenda disputes), so that ten of fourteen Churches participated (Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, 15 July 2016). Critics — including these Churches and many traditionalist and Athonite voices — argue that a council from which several autocephalous Churches are absent cannot claim to speak for the whole Orthodox Church, that its documents (especially on ecumenism and the naming of non-Orthodox bodies as “churches”) are theologically problematic, and that its authority is at best provisional pending wider reception; the Russian Church holds that Crete cannot be regarded as pan-Orthodox or its decisions as binding on the whole Church (ROC Synod statement, 2016). As of the mid-2020s the council’s status “remains under discussion,” and the subsequent rupture over Ukraine (2018–2019) has further complicated any pan-Orthodox reception (see the dated “as of” caution in Orthodoxy: The Seven Ecumenical Councils).

The collection does not adjudicate. It records that Crete 2016 was a real pan-Orthodox council of ten of the fourteen Churches, that it did not claim ecumenical rank, and that its authority is genuinely and currently contested — a living, unfinished instance of the reception principle.]`

The Conciliar Future

The cases of 879–880, the Palamite councils, and Crete 2016 together show that the conciliar question is not closed and not merely historical. The Orthodox Church continues to believe that she is governed conciliarly and that the Holy Spirit still speaks through her councils; what remains genuinely open is which post-787 councils rank as ecumenical, and how — in a divided Christendom and, at present, amid Orthodox jurisdictional rupture — a truly pan-Orthodox and universally received council is to be held at all. The reception principle set out at the beginning of this collection (see Ecumenicity and Reception) is not a museum key to the past but the live criterion by which these open questions will, in time and by the Spirit’s guidance, be answered. The seven councils are settled; the conciliar future is not.

References

Meyendorff, John. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Trans. George Lawrence. London: Faith Press, 1964; Byzantine Theology, New York: Fordham University Press, 1979.
Gouillard, Jean. “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie.” Travaux et Mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316.
Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Crete, 2016). Official documents, holycouncil.org.
Statement of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on the Council of Crete, 15 July 2016.
Ware, Kallistos (Timothy). The Orthodox Church. Rev. ed. London: Penguin, 1993.
Florovsky, Georges. “The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers.” In Bible, Church, Tradition. Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972.
Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition, vol. 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.