How many ecumenical councils?

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The council of Nicaea was ecumenical from inception, so was Chalcedon and Constantinople II
 
chimo said:
An Ecumenical Council can only be considered Ecumenical if it includes the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since it was the Eastern Orthodox Church that had attended to the first seven general Ecumenical Councils than by their own definition any other councils afterwards that has not their participation is not considered Ecumenical. For a council to be Ecumenical it must follow the guidelines of the first Seven Councils. From this the councils to unite the Church for instance like Florence is not considered to be Ecumenical since it was only an attempt from the Church of Rome to established better relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church. It would not matter anyway since the Council was generally rejected by the Orthodox. A council needs the support of the next generation if that council is to accepted by the whole Church. So the first general seven Ecumenical Councils were only accepted as Ecumenical when the next generation would come to accept it. Council decisions were not put into effect right away because it needed time for it to be established and accepted.
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What a load of hogwash
 
prodromos said:
Where do these councils declare themselvew to be ecumenical?
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None do, that I’m awar of but that was because they were already known to be so. You only see them declared so before when people plead for th conviction of a general council and after. Calling yourself ilecumenical isn’t important even in our communion. Rafter it is the final papal ratification that matters.
 
prodromos said:
Doesn’t it bother you that Vatican II declares itself to be ecumenical? No other council made such a claim of itself.
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From Orthodox-Wiki
Theologians such as Fr. John S. Romanides have argued, however, that the councils universally regarded as ecumenical within the Orthodox Church seemed of themselves to have no sense of requiring a reception by the Church before they went into effect. Their texts do indeed include self-declarations of their ecumenicity, and in most cases, their decrees immediately were written into Roman imperial law. No condition of later reception is reflected in the councils’ texts.
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Further, the question of when exactly one may say that the Church has received or rejected a council is not answerable by receptionist theory. Another ecclesiological problem is also created by receptionism: Why is it, for instance, that the Fourth Ecumenical Council may be said to have been “received by the whole Church” while significant numbers of Christians apparently within the Church rejected it, leading to the schism which even now persists? Such reasoning is circular, because whoever accepts a council is therefore inside the Church, but any who reject it are outside. In other words, such councils are ecumenical essentially because those who hold to their decrees declare themselves exclusively to be the Church.
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The practical needs of the historical circumstances of the councils also bear out Romanides’ analysis. Dogmatic decisions were needed right away when the councils met. The idea that one could wait for decades or even centuries to know whether a council was truly ecumenical would have radically changed the character of such a council. The councils’ fathers regarded their decisions as immediately binding.
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At the current time, the episcopacy of the Church has not as yet put forward a universal definition as to what precisely lends a council its ecumenicity. What is generally held is that councils may be regarded as ecumenical and infallible because they accurately teach the truth handed down in tradition from the Church Fathers
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You say a subsequent council has to declare whether a previous council can be raised to ecumenical status. What council raised Nicaea II to ecumenical status?
 
I would also add when was Constantinople I raised to ecumenical status, and by which council?
 
chimo said:
An Ecumenical Council can only be considered Ecumenical if it includes the Eastern Orthodox Church.
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I could equally say “A Council can only be considered Ecumenical if it includes the Catholic Church.”
 
Wandile said:
After it is the final papal ratification that matters.
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You are confused in terms of causality. Even the way Lumen Gentium is worded Papal “ratification” is a necessary but not sufficient condition of ecumenicity. Papal approval does not “make” a council ecumenical or not but its pronouncement in virtue of the word ecumenical in the same way if one adheres to papal infallibility it would be absurd to say the pronouncement makes a truth. The pope has not been granted authority over metaphysics. However, the Catholic understanding is that the episcopacy has some kind of privileged position epistemologically, shall we say.

It seems, though, the disagreement is over the word Ecumenical. While the value is implicit for the East, the Latin Church tries to appropriate the term itself as meaning “true” or “authoritative” - which in lies the problem.
 
Wandile said:
So for a council of to be ecumenical, schismatic bodies and heretical bodies must also have a say? What happened to The Catholic Church is the Church Christ established?
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The Catholic Church is the Church that Christ established this also includes the Orthodox churches.

There have been credible Marian apparitions in both Catholic and Orthodox/Coptic churches leading me to conclude that from Heaven’s perspective there remains One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church. We are merely a family divided all living under the same house maintaining an absurd fiction that we aren’t actually still related by blood.

Even the idea of schism is largely a historical fiction. It took centuries for a break in communion between various churches to solidify, and even still it hasn’t solidified everywhere.
 
I’m interested how you analyze things. Ecumenism works at its best by primordial heap understanding.
 
Devoted_to_Jude said:
The Catholic Church is the Church that Christ established this also includes the Orthodox churches.
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Respectfully this is wrong. This is branch theory. The Catholic Church has firmly clarified that she and she alone is the one church of Christ.

Dominus Iesus, signed by John Paul II and prepared by the then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Now His Hollyness Pope Benedict XVI) say it this way:

“Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.58 The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches.59 Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.”

So in short, the official Catholic doctrine is that while the Orthodox Church is not part of the Church, the Church is present within the Orthodox Church?

In more detail it is that we see the Catholic Church as “present” in the EO through their valid Sacraments, Apostolic Succession, and adhereance to the Nicene Creed. However this does not mean that we see the EO as part of the Church.

It is not uncommon to find some Catholics who are not very educated on this point who will claim that the EO Church is part of the Catholic Church. They are mistaken but I don’t think that they are necessarily culpable for this mistake. There is alot of miscommunication out there.
Devoted_to_Jude said:
There have been credible Marian apparitions in both Catholic and Orthodox/Coptic churches
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True very true but so have there been miracles in Protestant churches too. God works where people seek him. He is not contained by the divisions of men. Are we to say that Protestant churches are part of the Church too?
Devoted_to_Jude said:
Even the idea of schism is largely a historical fiction. It took centuries for a break in communion between various churches to solidify, and even still it hasn’t solidified everywhere.
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Yeah centuries but certainly after the council of Florence the schism became material and real.
 
Wandile said:
Respectfully this is wrong. This is branch theory.

Dominus Iesus, signed by John Paul II and prepared by the then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Now His Hollyness Pope Benedict XVI) say it this way:
“Therefore, there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.58 The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, are true particular Churches.59 Therefore, the Church of Christ is present and operative also in these Churches, even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.”

So in short, the official Catholic doctrine is that while the Orthodox Church is not part of the Church, the Church is present within the Orthodox Church?
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First thanks for the introduction to branch theory. However, now that I’ve done a little reading on it I can tell you my statements had no direct relationship with branch theory, which is a hypothesis among Anglican theologians.

I can also say that I am not so sure if Catholics really accept the primacy of Peter any more than the Orthodox in the sense that there seems to be just as much misunderstanding about what it actually entails in both Churches. Certainly both Churches appear to have missed the mark here–and if that is not at least a little true then I don’t know how better to explain what I am seeing what I look at both Churches.

As someone who converted (from a secualr scientism) to the Catholic faith, entering through the Latin church, I can’t believe that it is a fully developed and positively healthy church. In fact if one doesn’t take their own spiritual life into their own hands and instead were to just follow along with the bishops then one would, based on the Church’s own teaching seem to be skirting the edge of mortal danger. The attitude in the Latin church seems to be sin-swin, it is all just so much phony baloney. This is conveyed in the confessional, in the liturgy, and from many of the bishops’ actions. The cognitive dissonance that arises between the practice at the local parish and what we learn from our tradition was, at least, for me actually overwhelming.

While on the other hand when I looked at the experience of some Orthodox friends I recognized this wasn’t the case for them. What do you think Jesus would say at the Final Judgement to any Catholic who left the Latin church to join an Orthodox church because they has taken all they believed they could bare? What does it mean when the church itself becomes the cross a faithful Christian has to bear? I don’t know, but when the Church, herself, became the biggest obstacle to the very practice of Christianity that the Church, herself, is promoting then that is a problem.

Also being new to CAF I want to be clear as I am beginning to recognize there is apparently an issue with polemical ideologues here and camps and all that kind of stuff. I in no way, shape or form mean make any polemical criticism of the Church myself here. Rather I am just meaning to speak about something all to real from personal experience that has informed my own thinking on the subject.

For me I was lucky that there was a great Maronite church in my area–although in hindsight I think God had been calling me here are along.

I work as a philosopher of science and in that capacity also in theoretical biology. Right now I am starting to do a systematic reading of the I.D literature which I’ve ignored in the past. Whether this really has any theological implications or not is unclear to me presently. Nevertheless what is clear is that situation on the ground is much different than one would think from looking at the map, metaphorically speaking. Our theology is like our map and when we actually get to the destination that map describes the situation will often be different than how we imagined it or conceptualized it from the map–and sometimes disorientingly so.

Here is a trivial illustration taking neurons. A basic description includes a cell body and a long axon tail. Now try to find an actual neuron in neural tissue. Everything is just squished together and its hard to tell what’s what. Sometimes you’ll find what looks like a clear example of a neuron only that what you take to be the axon is really just a distorted cell body and what kind of looks like a cell body (since you think you’ve already identified the axon) is actually the axon. Reality just isn’t as ideal as our conceptualizations of reality.

A lot of past problems in the Church would appear–and have been in hindsight confessed to be–more a confusion over semantics than they were real disagreements. Trying to define in analytical language how the two natures come together or exist within the one person of Jesus Christ, for example. This is about as intractable a problem as is the mind-body problem in philosophy, and one which we are likely only kidding ourselves if we believe we’ve come upon a correct formulaic statement that really captures the reality.

Having said all this I do again want to thank you for your comment, as it is very helpful in my thinking moving forward. I have so many commitments that my reading often lags far behind my thinking. However, as it stood my comments basically came from my own experience and they were meant causally and not phrased with language meant to withstand formal interrogation. From what you wrote I don’t believe there is actually any conflict–and for what it is worth the Catechism of John Paul II actually does say that Protestant Churches are part of the Catholic Church.
 
Para. 836 in the Catechism of John Paul II starts the discussion on who belongs to the Catholic Church. This precedes the discussion the positive formulation of the doctrine that there is no salvation outside of the Church and is related contextually to it. The meat of it is found in para 838 and I take the quote from the Latin (because it is the version of this catechism I have besides me):

<<Cum illis qui, baptizati, christiano nomine decorantur, integram autem fidem non profitentur vel unitatem communionis sub Successore Petri non servant, Ecclesia semetipsam novit plures ob rationes coniunctam>>. <<Hi enim qui in Christum credunt et Baptismum rite receperunt, in quadam cum Ecclesia catholica communione, etsi non perfecta constituuntur>>. Cum Ecclesiis orthodoxis haec communion tam profunda est <>.

I add this for two reasons. First it is sometimes a violation of the forum rules to fail to provide documentary evidence for assertions like the very last one I made in my previous comment, but also I because I am curious how you reconcile these two comments in your own mind? Since they were written by the same group of people, I am not suggesting there is any actual conflict here, but certainly they must be understood to temper each other and inform how we should understand both assertions independently of each other?
 
Paragraph 838 reiterates that they are not in a state of full communion I.e. Not in the church as only those in the church have full communion with her.

Now it just be noted that there is a difference when speaking about communities and churches vs members of said communities and churches.

It’s not possible for schismatic and heretical groups to be part of the church as repairs how similar they are to is. That is because they are objective institutes that are subject it their objective truthful states (schism and/or heresy)

The individuals who belong to these churches are dealt with in a case but case basis. That’s is subjective as one must be culpable to be punished for a sin. So yes a person who leaves the Catholic Church knowing full well that she is the one true church of Christ commits the sin of schism… A mortal sin.
 
Wandile said:
Not in the church as only those in the church have full communion with her.
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Another reason I used the Latin is because I find arguments that come down to very precise formulations not only inherently problematic (as we all do) but impossibly problematic in actual fact, and I say this as an analytical philosopher. Although, really I say because I am an analytical philosopher and have spent a good portion of my life bumping up against the limits of resolution within natural language.

It is not unlike American football in this way where the ball is simply spotted down the field until a question of whether enough yards have been acquired for a first down come into play. Then, of course, they bring out the chains. The problem is that the starting point for the chains will always be just the last visually spotted position of yardage and the measurement can in truth never be more accurate than the degree of error contained in the yardage of origin. This is fine if we are speaking of a game or even, unfortunately enough, of a legal system, but it can never give up the accuracy we need to make an absolute pronounce of truth (you would think that if God really wanted us to know these things he would have given up a different mechanization of cognition than the one we apparently have).

In any event I will take some time to digest what you said, but in the meanwhile I would like to ask you to reference where the above quoted phrase appears or if it doesn’t specifically appear what source text/s you have used to construct it? Because we have now entered an argument that depends on absolute precision, which in part means we must appeal to the Latin used in the official text of the documents.

One more thing to keep in mind is that again even with the above caveat we are still only speaking in conceptual terms, which as I hope I’ve demonstrated never accurately captures the messiness (for lack of a better word) of reality. At best what we can achieve here is absolutely precise animation of the concept in question. This doesn’t mean that even if we are successful at that, which practically never happens, it won’t still take much additional art to determine its real form in reality.

It seems a bit like a fool’s errand, but I am game because in I’ve never really been all that smart when it comes down to it.

You’ve spoken, for example, of the distinction between material and formal heresy, but I ask which of us is not, in truth, a material heretic? What keeps us from becoming formal heretics is our obedience to the Magesterium. Along these lines one thing I really love about the Syriac tradition is the fact that the theology is expressed poetically, which seems to reflect a humble recognition of our natural limits.
 
Please excuse my typos. My phone likes to “correct” my supposed errors from time to time but only makes things worse 😃
 
That’s hard to provide because in all honesty that understanding of full communion has been gathered from reading the catechism and the writings of the saints and doctors of the church as well as papal decrees. But I’m pretty sure I can I find it in the catechism. By the end of tomorrow I will surely provide something for you to read over 🙂
 
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