The Seven Ecumenical Councils
Between 325 and 787 the bishops of the whole Church met seven times to answer the questions on which the Gospel itself depends. These are their stories — what each council faced, what it decided, and why it still matters.
A council is the Church thinking together. When a teaching arose that would have emptied the Gospel of its meaning, the bishops of the whole world gathered, prayed, argued, searched the Scriptures and the Fathers, and confessed with one voice what the Church had always believed. The seven councils below are received by the Orthodox Church as authoritative for all Christians.
The First Council of Nicaea
Nicaea in Bithynia · 325
The first time the whole Church gathered in one room — to answer the question on which everything else depends: is Jesus Christ truly God?
Arianism Read the article → II381The First Council of Constantinople
Constantinople · 381
Fifty-six years after Nicaea the Church finished the Creed — and confessed that the Holy Spirit is God, worshipped together with the Father and the Son.
Arianism revived · the Spirit-fighters · Apollinarianism Read the article → III431The Council of Ephesus
Ephesus · 431
A quarrel over a title given to the Virgin turned out to be a quarrel about her Son: is the One born in Bethlehem God Himself, or a man joined to God?
Nestorianism Read the article → IV451The Council of Chalcedon
Chalcedon · 451
The largest council of the ancient Church drew the line that still defines Orthodox faith in Christ — and paid for it with the first great division of Christendom.
Eutychianism (monophysitism) Read the article → V553The Second Council of Constantinople
Constantinople · 553
The least famous of the seven, and the one that shows what a council is for: the Church declaring in what sense her own words must be understood.
Crypto-Nestorian readings of Chalcedon · Origenism Read the article → VI680–681The Third Council of Constantinople
Constantinople · 680–681
The council that saved human freedom: because Christ willed as a man as well as God, our wills are not overridden by grace but healed by it.
Monothelitism (and monoenergism) Read the article → VII787The Second Council of Nicaea
Nicaea · 787
The last of the seven returned to the city of the first — to defend the icons, and with them the whole claim that God has really entered matter.
Iconoclasm Read the article →Looking for more? The story of what led up to the very first council — the Arian crisis that made it necessary — is told separately in The Road to Nicaea. The councils are also summarised in week 11 of our Catechism Year Plan.
The Faith of the Fathers, Here in Orlando
The Creed the councils gave us is sung at every Liturgy at Saint Nina Orthodox Mission. Come and pray it with us.
← History of Orthodoxy Become Orthodox →