The Photian Council of 879–880

The great council held in Constantinople in 879–880, under St. Photius and with Roman legates present, restored Photius to his see, reaffirmed the Seventh Council, and forbade any addition to the Creed — a clear reference to the Filioque. A significant strand of Orthodox tradition reckons this the Eighth Ecumenical Council; another treats it as a great but non-ecumenical council. This file sets out both cases, without adjudicating.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Background: Photius and the Two Councils

St. Photius the Great, one of the most learned men of the Byzantine world, was twice Patriarch of Constantinople (858–867, 877–886), and his patriarchate was entangled with a bitter dispute with Rome and with the rival party of the deposed patriarch Ignatius (see St. Photius the Great). The conflict produced two councils of the same city that must not be confused:

  • The council of 869–870, held under the emperor Basil I with Roman legates, condemned and deposed Photius and reaffirmed the veneration of icons. This council was received in the West as the “Eighth Ecumenical Council,” and Roman Catholicism counts it as such to this day (Dvornik, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948, on the two councils; Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017).
  • The council of 879–880, held after Photius’s reconciliation with Ignatius (now dead) and his restoration to the patriarchate, with the assent of Pope John VIII and his legates, rehabilitated Photius, annulled the council of 869–870, reaffirmed the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicaea II), and prohibited any alteration of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (Dvornik, The Photian Schism, 1948; Siecienski, The Papacy and the Orthodox, 2017).

The two councils thus reach opposite verdicts on Photius, and East and West number them differently. The Orthodox reject the council of 869–870 (which condemned Photius) and hold the council of 879–880 (which vindicated him) as the authoritative one; it is this latter council, of 879–880, that some Orthodox reckon the Eighth Ecumenical Council.

What the Council of 879–880 Did

The council met in the Hagia Sophia over the winter of 879–880, a large assembly (the sources speak of some 383 bishops) presided over by Photius, with legates of Pope John VIII who recognized Photius as the legitimate patriarch (Dvornik, The Photian Schism, 1948; Siecienski, The Filioque, 2010, on the council’s creedal act). Its principal acts were three. First, it restored Photius and declared the anti-Photian council of 869–870 null and void. Second, it solemnly reaffirmed the definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Council on the veneration of icons. Third — and most consequentially for later history — it decreed that the Creed of the 150 Fathers (the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed) must be kept without any addition or subtraction, and anathematized those who would compose another creed or add to it (Acts of the council of 879–880; Dvornik, The Photian Schism, 1948; Siecienski, The Filioque, 2010). Though the Filioque is not named in so many words in the decree, the target is unmistakable in context — the Frankish and increasingly Roman insertion of “and the Son” into the Creed — and the Roman legates assented to the prohibition. Photius had already, in his Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, given the classic Eastern theological refutation of the Filioque, arguing that the Father alone is the source of the Spirit’s procession (Photius, Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit; see The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed).

The Case for an Eighth Ecumenical Council — Both Sides

Whether the council of 879–880 should be numbered the Eighth Ecumenical Council is a live and unsettled question among Orthodox. Per the methodology of this collection, the strongest form of each position is set out, and the question is not decided.

`[Disputed: whether the Constantinopolitan council of 879–880 is the Eighth Ecumenical Council.

(a) The case FOR reckoning it ecumenical. It possesses, its advocates argue, every mark of an ecumenical council: it was a great council of the whole Church of its day, attended by the representatives of all five patriarchates including the legates of Rome (Pope John VIII), presided over by the reigning ecumenical patriarch; it defined doctrine on a matter of the first importance (the integrity of the Creed and, implicitly, the rejection of the Filioque); it reaffirmed the Seventh Council; and it was received in the East. It was explicitly called “ecumenical” and numbered eighth by weighty later authorities — St. Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Florence, and, in the modern period, forcefully by St. Nektarios of Aegina and others who argued that the Church already possesses an Eighth Ecumenical Council and need not await a new one; the council’s ratification of the inviolable Creed is treated as a dogmatic act of ecumenical weight (Dvornik, The Photian Schism, 1948, noting the tradition; and the argument advanced by Orthodox writers such as those who cite St. Nektarios and St. Mark of Ephesus; see St. Mark of Ephesus). On this view the number “seven” is a Western and later convention that the Orthodox have too readily borrowed.

(b) The case AGAINST, or for treating it as a great but non-ecumenical council. Others hold that, however authoritative and however firmly received in the East, the council of 879–880 has not in fact been received by the whole Church as ecumenical — the number seven is deeply entrenched in Orthodox usage, the liturgical commemorations and catechesis speak of “the seven councils,” and no pan-Orthodox act has formally numbered 879–880 as the eighth. On this reading the council’s authority is unquestioned but its rank as “ecumenical” has never been the object of the settled, universal reception that alone confers that title (see Ecumenicity and Reception); it is better described as a great council, or a council of ecumenical authority in its decisions, whose formal enumeration among the ecumenical councils remains open. A further complication is the Roman dimension: the West later set the council aside in favour of the anti-Photian council of 869–870 — the very council that 879–880 had annulled with the assent of John VIII’s own legates. From the Orthodox side this later repudiation is Rome’s departure from what its legates had ratified, not a defect in the council’s authority; but it does mean the council never enjoyed an enduring East–West reception, a point those who reserve the formal title “ecumenical” duly note.

The collection does not adjudicate. It reports that a significant and venerable strand of Orthodox opinion holds 879–880 to be the Eighth Ecumenical Council, that another treats it as a great non-numbered council, and that the Church has not settled the question by any universal act.]`

Why It Matters

The dispute over the “Eighth Council” is not antiquarian. It bears directly on the Filioque controversy — for if 879–880 is an ecumenical council that forbade additions to the Creed, then the Western insertion of the Filioque stands condemned by an ecumenical act, and not only by the Church’s constant conciliar and patristic witness. It bears on the theology of reception, since the council is a textbook case of a body with every external mark of ecumenicity whose rank was never universally settled. And it bears on the question, taken up in the next file, of whether the conciliar list is open — whether the Church can and should recognize councils after 787 as ecumenical, and on what authority (see The Palamite Councils and the Conciliar Future). The 879–880 council is, on any reckoning, one of the most important councils in the history of East–West relations, and the debate over its number is a live thread in Orthodox self-understanding.

See Also

References

  • Dvornik, Francis. The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948 (the standard study of the two councils and the “legend”).
  • Photius. Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit.
  • Siecienski, A. Edward. The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010; The Papacy and the Orthodox: Sources and History of a Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
  • Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 879–880 (the “Photian” union council).