§ 79. The Concept and Task of the Ecumenical Council

THIRD DIVISION. Organs of Church Authority. CHAPTER ONE. Church authority in the ecumenical church. I. ECUMENICAL COUNCILS.

The ecumenical council (οἰκουμενικὴ σύνοδος)[1] is an assembly of the pastors and teachers of the Church, gathered, so far as possible, from all parts of the Christian world, to decide jointly on matters that concern the whole Church, and whose decisions the whole Church then receives and recognizes.[2]

In order that a council may, in the strict sense, be called ecumenical, it must fully correspond to definite conditions, both internal and external.

Among the external conditions, the first is that all the local churches take part in such a council, whether personally through their bishops, or through their lawful representatives, or through special letters in which the opinion of the church concerned on the questions at issue is expressed, or, finally, through a declared willingness on the part of certain churches, which find themselves in some exceptional situation, that they will in every respect recognize the decisions the council shall proclaim. The number of the council’s members does not determine the ecumenical significance of a council, nor is the word “ecumenical” to be understood as meaning that all the bishops existing in the world must be present at such a council, for that would in itself be impossible; indeed there have been local councils at which twice as many bishops were present as at some ecumenical ones, and yet those councils have only local significance.[3] Rather, the ecumenical significance of a council depends on other conditions, among which, of the external ones, after the one already mentioned, is this: that the council’s decisions be received by all the churches, both by those whose representatives were personally present at the council and by those that were not represented at the council;[4] and besides this, a third external condition is that those same decisions be received by all the clergy and people belonging to the Church. This last condition is of particular importance because it concerns the whole composition of the Church (§ 52), and because it attests the unanimous acknowledgment of the truth and holiness of the conciliar decisions, and at the same time is what causes those same decisions to pass from the realm of theory into the life of the Church and to become the property of all the members of the Church, without distinction as to their position in the ecclesiastical organism.[5]

Besides these external conditions, certain definite internal conditions must also be strictly observed for a council to be recognized as ecumenical. Of these the first is that the questions to be decided be of ecumenical significance, namely such questions as concern the essence of the faith and the teaching of the Church, that touch the fundamental principles of the being and constitution of the Church, and that are of importance for all the local churches of the inhabited world. The second condition is that the council, in its decisions, express in detail that which, in substance, all have held always and everywhere.[6]

The observance of all these conditions constitutes the fundamental teaching of Orthodox church law concerning the ecumenical councils, and we find these very conditions strictly observed at those seven ecumenical councils that the Orthodox Church receives and recognizes. In accordance with the conditions set forth, especially the internal ones, and on the basis of what the records of the former ecumenical councils tell us, the activity of such councils concerns: 1) to define, according to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church, the dogmas of the faith, and to set them forth in the form of creeds or definitions of faith;[7] 2) to examine and confirm the tradition of the Church, and to distinguish true tradition from corrupted;[8] 3) to judge every teaching that arises in the Church;[9] 4) to review the canons of all earlier councils;[10] 5) to determine the manner of church administration in general, and in particular the administration of the local churches and their respective rights;[11] 6) to determine the degrees and rights of the church hierarchy;[12] 7) to exercise the supreme judicial authority over bishops in general, as well as over autocephalous bishops and over the local churches themselves;[13] 8) to issue, for the whole Church, general positive ordinances regarding everything that concerns the constitution, administration and life of the Church.[14]