Tag: Council

Church Councils

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Two weeks ago in our Acts of the Apostles Bible study we covered Acts 15 where we heard about the Council of Jerusalem in AD 52.

In our discussion we also spoke about Ecumenical Councils, when the bishops of the world are gathered together to settle issues facing the Church. I said I would put something up here listing those councils. Here they are…

AD 325: Nicea
Issue: The Divinity of Christ

AD 381: Constantinople
Issue: The Divinity of Holy Spirit

AD 431: Ephesus
Issue: Mary as “Theotokos” (“God Bearer”)

AD 46I: Chalcedon
Issue: The two natures in Christ

AD 476:  The Fall of Rome

AD 553: Constantinople II
Issue: Condemned a variety of writings.

AD 680: Constantinople III
Issue: The two wills in Christ

AD 787: Nicea II
Issue: The veneration of images

AD 869: Constantinople IV

AD 1054 Eastern Schism. The East has never held another council. 

AD 1123, 1139, 1179, 1215: Lateran I, II, III and IV

AD 1245 & 1274: Lyons I & II

AD 1311: Vienne

AD 1414: Constance 
Western Schism

AD 1453 Fall of Constantinople

AD 1512: Lateran V

AD 1545: Trent
Issue: Dealt with Luther’s teachings and made Church reforms

AD 1869: Vatican I

AD 1963: Vatican II

V2, We Love You: Introduction

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As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m planning on offering a series of blog entries about the “Ecumenical Council” commonly known as “The Second Vatican Council”, or simply “Vatican 2”.

Most Catholics will be able to tell you that Vatican 2 was important, but, in my experience, fairly few are actually able to articulate well why it was important.  Many are not able to explain what exactly Vatican 2 was, what it actually taught and why it is important in the history of the Catholic Church.  It is my hope that this blog will help shed a little light on these issues.

I think that it is best, before I get stuck into the meat of Vatican 2, that I attempt to give something of a general introduction to the concept of councils in general, and ecumenical councils in particular.

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V2, We Love You

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At the moment I’m reading through the documents of the Second Vatican Council in preparation for what we will be covering in the JP2 Group towards the end of the year. I thought it would make sense to do a few blog posts about what I’ve been reading.

The Second Vatican Council is probably one of the most misunderstood and misrepresented Councils of Church history, together with the Council of Nicea and the Council of Trent.

I can’t think of Vatican 2 without remembering an incident that happened back in England when I was a member of our church’s hospital visiting ministry.  Each week, two members of our group would go to the local hospital and visit all those patients who had written down “Roman Catholic” on their admission forms.  We would visit each of them, offer them something to read and check to see if they wanted to receive Holy Communion the following day.  It was a large campus and it took us several hours to cover the entire hospital.

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