Ecumenical Councils and Eastern Catholics

[NinjaSnark]

How many Ecumenical Councils do Eastern Catholics recognize? I’ve seen ECs on this forum say they only recognize the first seven- is that true across the board for ECs or does it differ from sui iuris Church to sui iuris Church?

This is terribly confusing for me. I’ve heard Catholics many times point to Orthodoxy and talk about their Ecumenical Council problem, but it seems that the Catholic Church isn’t exactly a bastion of clarity on the issue either.

How does the Church deal with this incongruity? If the West considers many more councils than the first seven to be Ecumenical (and therefore the doctrines therein infallible), then what does the East do with that? Consider things like papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception theologoumenon?

As I try to pin down the bare bones minimum, the basics, of Catholic belief I’m having a really hard time figuring out what is dogma and what is theologoumenon.

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ConstantineTG]

The tricky part here is that Eastern Catholics will also accept decisions pertaining to them in councils they otherwise wouldn’t have accepted.

 

[NinjaSnark]

The tricky part here is that Eastern Catholics will also accept decisions pertaining to them in councils they otherwise wouldn’t have accepted.

Could you give me some "for instace"s, Constantine? I want to make sure I’m getting an accurate picture here.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I don’t have specifics, but I know that Vatican II was very positive for Eastern Catholics as there is a greater support and emphasis now on regaining the Eastern traditions over the Latinizations. Someone who’s more knowledgeable on the matter will come along and correct me. Of course there are councils that dealt with the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome and of course these Eastern Churches will hold on to those favorable decisions as binding.

 

[NinjaSnark]

Gotcha. Thanks for your responses! I do hope others come along and participate in the discussion… I feel like I’m kind of at an intellectual impasse and can’t really move forward one way or another until this gets ironed out in my head.

 

[Vico]

How many Ecumenical Councils do Eastern Catholics recognize? I’ve seen ECs on this forum say they only recognize the first seven- is that true across the board for ECs or does it differ from sui iuris Church to sui iuris Church?

This is terribly confusing for me. I’ve heard Catholics many times point to Orthodoxy and talk about their Ecumenical Council problem, but it seems that the Catholic Church isn’t exactly a bastion of clarity on the issue either.

How does the Church deal with this incongruity? If the West considers many more councils than the first seven to be Ecumenical (and therefore the doctrines therein infallible), then what does the East do with that? Consider things like papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception theologoumenon?

As I try to pin down the bare bones minimum, the basics, of Catholic belief I’m having a really hard time figuring out what is dogma and what is theologoumenon.

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated!

“Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma” by Dr Ludwig Ott, lists 255 dogmas de fide.

The Catholic Church teaching is that the teaching of a council must be approved the the Supreme Pontiff for it to be dogma of faith. Also the Supreme Pontiff has the unique ability to designate a council as general. If you have studied the councils then you know that:

The First Council of Constantinople (381) was local, later ratified. Not everything from a council is ratified by the Supreme Pontiff either. Sometimes the information from the council is not known to the Supreme Pontiff.

1. Council of Nicaea (325)
   ratified by Pope St. Sylvester I (314-335 pontificate)
2. First Council of Constantinople (381)
   It was a local council of the east.
3. Council of Ephesus (431)
   ratified by Pope Celestine I (421-432 pontificate)

Note: 447 A.D. dogma of filioque. Creed of 381 had not been received yet by the Latin Church.

1. Council of Chalcedon (451)
   ratified by Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461 pontificate)
2. Council of Constantinople II (553)
   reconfirmed the first four councils: Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, ratified by Pope Vigilius (537-555 pontificate)

“Having thus detailed all that has been done by us, we again confess that we receive the four holy Synods, that is, the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the first of Ephesus, and that of Chalcedon, and we have taught, and do teach all that they defined respecting the one faith.”

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/const2.html

Pope St. Gregory I (590-604 pontificate) declared the four general councils to be authoritative as the four Gospels.

http://catholic-resources.org/Church…alCouncils.htm

And there was Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085 pontificate) that referred to the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869-870) as ecumenical, by reference to canon 22.

 

[Peter_Mogila]

If you go by official Catholic Church documents, there is no explicit rejection of the standard number of Ecumenical Councils that would support those Eastern Catholics who hold to only 7. Having said that, however, there are many Eastern Catholics who only accept the first 7.

I’m quite interested to see if the new Ukrainian Catholic Catechism only presents 7 or if it refers to later Councils as Ecumenical. If it only explicitly presents 7, that’d be quite significant for Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical relations.

Peter

 

[Cecilianus]

Whether they are called “ecumenical” or not, they are still authoritative, as the substance of the faith expressed is of Apostolic authority. They tend to phrase dogmas in Latin terms, while we prefer specifically Greek theological expressions. They both teach the same thing.

I accept the authority of all the Councils ratified by the Pope of Rome, as well as the Palamite synod of Constantinople-Blachernae that closed in 1351 because of its liturgical and theological place in the East by which it is passed down to us as dogma. And anything not explicitly rejected by the Pope of Rome from the Council in Trullo is still authoritative, in my eyes.

My response isn’t quite as intellectual or profound as brother Vico’s, for which post I thank him, but is just the attitude of this particular Byzantine Catholic.

 

[TrentCath]

How many Ecumenical Councils do Eastern Catholics recognize? I’ve seen ECs on this forum say they only recognize the first seven- is that true across the board for ECs or does it differ from sui iuris Church to sui iuris Church?

This is terribly confusing for me. I’ve heard Catholics many times point to Orthodoxy and talk about their Ecumenical Council problem, but it seems that the Catholic Church isn’t exactly a bastion of clarity on the issue either.

How does the Church deal with this incongruity? If the West considers many more councils than the first seven to be Ecumenical (and therefore the doctrines therein infallible), then what does the East do with that? Consider things like papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception theologoumenon?

As I try to pin down the bare bones minimum, the basics, of Catholic belief I’m having a really hard time figuring out what is dogma and what is theologoumenon.

Any help or direction would be greatly appreciated!

The ‘Official’ Teaching of the church recognises some 21 councils as ecumenical, it would be too long to list them all but you can easily find the list on say wikipedia or a more authoritative source like the New Catholic Enyclopaedia (which you can google).

I must admit as a ‘Western’ Catholic I’ve also struggled with how exactly Eastern Catholics reconcile doctrines such as Papal Infallibility, The popes ‘supreme and plenary jurisdiction’, Purgatory, the immaculate conception etc… with their own traditions. Some Eastern Catholics I’ve met have simply rejected those doctrines as being ‘western’ (something which I dont fully understand) whilst others appear to accept them. So I’ll be as interested as you in the various responses to this thread.

Sorry I couldnt be of any help…

 

[Ghosty]

Actually, I don’t believe there is an “official” count of Ecumenical Councils in the Catholic Communion. There’s the common list that holds to 21, but so far as I know it’s not “official”.

Peace and God bless!

 

[TrentCath]

Actually, I don’t believe there is an “official” count of Ecumenical Councils in the Catholic Communion. There’s the common list that holds to 21, but so far as I know it’s not “official”.

Peace and God bless!

The councils identified themselves as ecumenical and were recognised by the pope as such. This being the requirement for a council to be ecumenical in the Catholic Church, the councils are thereby ecumenical. Though it is indeed true that not all the councils were always accepted as ecumenical, they have over time been accepted by the Magistereum (teaching authority) of the church as such and no one seriously contests that the Catholic Church accepts 21 councils as ecumenical.

If you are looking for a specific document that lists 21 council as ecumenical then yes you are right no such document exists. The reason for this is that it is simply not necessary, the churches acceptance of 21 councils is both implicit and explicit in the writings of the popes, saints, catechisms, the councils themselves, its liturgy and the consensus of all ‘Orthodox’ Catholic Theologians.

God Bless!

 

[Peter_Mogila]

Among Eastern Catholics, some of the strongest objections to the later councils as being recognized as ecumenical come from the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

For example, from their official US webpage:

1. Was the Vatican Council an ecumenical council? Why? Why Not?

  A The Vatican council was not an ecumenical council – no participation from the Orthodox

melkite.org/Challenge2007C.htm

I have met Ukrainian and Ruthenian Catholics who hold to the same view but their Church webpages don’t make such statements (as far as I can see).

Peter

 

[Cecilianus]

The councils identified themselves as ecumenical and were recognised by the pope as such. This being the requirement for a council to be ecumenical in the Catholic Church, the councils are thereby ecumenical. Though it is indeed true that not all the councils were always accepted as ecumenical, they have over time been accepted by the Magistereum (teaching authority) of the church as such and no one seriously contests that the Catholic Church accepts 21 councils as ecumenical.

If you are looking for a specific document that lists 21 council as ecumenical then yes you are right no such document exists. The reason for this is that it is simply not necessary, the churches acceptance of 21 councils is both implicit and explicit in the writings of the popes, saints, catechisms, the councils themselves, its liturgy and the consensus of all ‘Orthodox’ Catholic Theologians.

God Bless!

Just because one sui juris particular Church (the Roman) calls a council “ecumenical” does not mean the same terminology applies universally.

The “Magisterium” as an abstract teaching authority exercised through Roman curia and Papal pronouncements is a particularly Latin way of teaching the Faith. We have more of an emphasis on proclaiming the Faith through the Liturgy and through canons. For example, the teaching of Nicea II is taught to us through the iconography of our churches and the Feast of the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy; that is why we venerate icons, not because we found in Denzinger that that is what the Magisterium teaches. The Chalcedonian Christology is taught to us by the many prayers to the Theotokos in the Liturgy, rather than by appealling to Papal pronouncements about Mary. Just a different method, and both are good, and we both hold the same Faith. But the Western councils after the Triumph of Holy Orthodoxy did not affect our liturgy or the proclamation of our faith, so there is no reason or need to call them ecumenical, imo. They did not involve the Orthodox (except for Florence and Lyons, which were largely failures) and hence in relation to us are not really ecumenical. This does not affect their authority or the fact that the faith they proclaim is the faith of the whole Church, the whole sacred oikumene, and this is why the West is justified in calling them ecumenical.

The Orientals are likewise justified in reducing the number of ecumenical councils to those in which they participated. An Assyrian Church of the East priest once said to me “we’re not Nestorian; we just never attended Chalcedon and consequently never saw a reason to either embrace it or reject it, regarding it as their affair which is none of our business”. I don’t think any ecumenical council since Nicea I (or maybe Constantinople I) has had every bishop in the Church present, and maybe not even those (there may have been and probably were bishops in India who may not have been invited, for example). Doesn’t affect a council’s authority, but it does mean that a country whose bishops did not attend have a legitimate point in regarding it just as a local council.

 

[Peter_Mogila]

Just because one sui juris particular Church (the Roman) calls a council “ecumenical” does not mean the same terminology applies universally.

I’m wondering how this statement is viewed by the Latin Rite Catholics here? Are Latin Rite Catholics comfortable with the idea that Eastern Catholics might only accept 7 ecumenical councils?

And a follow-up question:

Would Latin Rite Catholics be comfortable with Orthodox only accepting 7 ecumenical councils in a reunited Church?

Peter

 

[Vico]

Peter Mogila, have you read the (1998 revision) eastern canon law?

CCEO Canon 598

§ 1. Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition, that is, in the single deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and which are at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, or by its ordinary and universal Magisterium, which in fact is manifested by the common adherence of Christ’s faithful under the guidance of the sacred Magisterium. All Christian faithful are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines.

§ 2. Furthermore, each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely, those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.

CCEO Canon 1436

§ 1. Whoever denies a truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or who calls into doubt, or who totally repudiates the Christian faith, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished as a heretic or an apostate with a major excommunication; a cleric moreover can be punished with other penalties, not excluding deposition.

§ 2. In addition to these cases, whoever obstinately rejects a teaching that the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops, exercising the authentic Magisterium, have set forth to be held definitively, or who affirms what they have condemned as erroneous, and does not retract after having been legitimately warned, is to be punished with an appropriate penalty.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_30061998_ad-tuendam-fidem_en.html

 

[Peter_Mogila]

Vico,

I realize that’s what it says and what Rome says. Still, there are many Eastern Catholics who disagree and the Melkite Church which backs the Zoghby Initiative, not to mention the official US Melkite Church webpage (which I cited above) that says the Vatican Council was not ecumenical.

I’m not Eastern Catholic. I’m just asking what different folks here think about this.

It does have ecumenical implications, however. Would Orthodox need to accept the later Western Councils as ecumenical in a reunited Church?

Peter

 

[NinjaSnark]

Vico,

I realize that’s what it says and what Rome says. Still, there are many Eastern Catholics who disagree and the Melkite Church which backs the Zoghby Initiative, not to mention the official US Melkite Church webpage (which I cited above) that says the Vatican Council was not ecumenical.

I’m not Eastern Catholic. I’m just asking what different folks here think about this.

It does have ecumenical implications, however. Would Orthodox need to accept the later Western Councils as ecumenical in a reunited Church?

Peter

If Eastern Catholics don’t have to, then I don’t see why the Orthodox would be expected to… especially if in a reunited Church the plan would be for ECs to be reabsorbed into their mother Churches.

But admittedly I am the last person who should probably be speculating on it- as I’m the one who was unsure about the Ecumenical Council status thing to begin with.

 

[Peter_Mogila]

If Eastern Catholics don’t have to, then I don’t see why the Orthodox would be expected to… especially if in a reunited Church the plan would be for ECs to be reabsorbed into their mother Churches.

But, this question brings us back to the question of the real meaning of the words “universal,” “catholic,” and “ecumenical.” If we say that the latter Western Councils do not have authority over the Eastern Churches, then how do we reconcile that with how we understand what is “universal” or “catholic”?

A similar problem exists for those seeking to find unity between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Is it 4 Councils or 7? Admittedly, that reconciliation is not so daunting – only 3 Councils to reconcile versus 14 between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Peter

 

[Aramis]

7 of those 21 are Ecumenical Councils, without question.

Most of them are at least general councils of the West, and several (Florence, V1, V2) are general councils of the Catholic Communion.

Do they rise to Ecumenical status? maybe, maybe not…

Does it Matter? No - they have church wide authority as they were promulgated by the popes as valid councils of the church. They taught truth as surely as any meeting of the synod of the Catholic Communion.

So Why not call them ecumenical? Because doing so hurts the ongoing dialogues with the separated brethren in Christ in both of the Orthodox Communions and the Utrecht Communion.

They are councils of the church 21 general councils, with full teaching authority. That’s the minimum standard for Catholics on the issue. The label ecumenical isn’t part of it.

 

[NinjaSnark]

But, this question brings us back to the question of the real meaning of the words “universal,” “catholic,” and “ecumenical.” If we say that the latter Western Councils do not have authority over the Eastern Churches, then how do we reconcile that with how we understand what is “universal” or “catholic”?

A similar problem exists for those seeking to find unity between the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Is it 4 Councils or 7? Admittedly, that reconciliation is not so daunting – only 3 Councils to reconcile versus 14 between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

Peter

It is a pickle. It seems like something that definitely needs an answer. If the purpose of Ecumenical Councils is to define dogmas necessary for/binding on the entire Church, then it strikes me that everyone should be on the same page about how many there are. If they’re saying 21 in the west… well, that’s a big leap from the Eastern 7. Presumably there was a lot of defining going on in those 14 councils.

This is the sort of thing that makes me want to just throw my hands up in the air. I left Protestantism because it doesn’t make sense, and I just want to go home. But where is home? One day I’m pretty sure it’s the Catholic Church, and then the next, Orthodoxy. It’s exhausting and frustrating. And it’s not like Protestantism where I can just pick a Church based on whose service I like better.