Conciliar

The Synod of Jerusalem (1672)

1672 · 17th c. · 1 work

The Synod of Jerusalem, sometimes called the Council of Bethlehem, was a local council of the Eastern Orthodox Church held in March 1672 under the presidency of Dositheus II, Patriarch of Jerusalem. It met on the occasion of the rededication of the Basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem, and there were present, besides the clergy of Palestine, several visiting ecclesiastics from other Orthodox lands.

Its purpose was to refute the Calvinizing Confession of Faith that had been circulated under the name of Cyril Lucaris, the former Patriarch of Constantinople, and to set out, in answer to it, the doctrine of the Eastern Church on grace, free will, the Church, the sacraments, the Scriptures, and the state of souls after death. The synod's Acts demonstrate that the Eastern Church had never received Cyril's Confession as her own, recall the earlier synods of Constantinople and Jassy that had condemned it, and then issue the Confession of Dositheus — eighteen Decrees and four Questions — as the council's own positive statement of faith.

The Confession of Dositheus is among the most important Orthodox symbolic texts of the post-patristic period and was subsequently endorsed by the other Eastern patriarchs. Together with the decisions of the synod it remains a standard reference for the Orthodox response to both Calvinism and the Roman Catholicism of the day.

Sources: J. N. W. B. Robertson, The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (London: Thomas Baker, 1899)