Tag: Ecumenical 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

Vatican 2 on the The Eastern Churches

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As part of my continued service to the students of Franciscan University of Steubenville ;-), I have just recorded the audio for the document “Orientalium Ecclesiarum”.

This document was produced by the Second Vatican Council and concerns the Churches in the Catholic Church which follow an Eastern Rite. Given that I attend an Eastern Rite parish during the summers, it’s rather odd that I’ve never actually sat down and read this document before.

Still, better late than never I suppose…

A long time ago, when I first began this blog, I start producing a series entitled “V2 we love you!”. At the time, the JP2 Group was reading the document “Dei Verbum”. I anticipated that we would work through more of the Council’s documents. My hope was that the series of blog entries would provide a helpful accompaniment to our study.

We didn’t end up studying any more of the documents and so I never wrote the blog posts. However, a little while ago I signed up for a course on the Second Vatican Council at the Diocesan Institute which starts this October. Hopefully that’ll get me motivated and I will once again be renewing my efforts with the series.

Anyway, the text for the document is available here and the audio is available below:


Orientalium Ecclesiarum

Introduction to Islam (Part 5 of 5): The Catholic Response

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Today I would like to conclude my introductory series to Islam. This series wasn’t intended to be an apologetic response to Islam, just an accurate and objective description of Islamic belief and practice. It is my hope that this will lead to a better understanding of Islam by Christians.

Over the course of this series we have looked at the origins of Islam, Muhammad, the teaching of the Qur’an, as well as the faith and obligations of Muslim life.  I would now like to conclude by looking at what the Catholic Church had to say about Islam at the Second Vatican Council.

The Catholic Church sets forth its binding teaching regarding Islam in the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions” (also known as “Nostra Aetate”, literally “In our time”):

#1 In our time, when day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely her relationship to non-Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.

One is the community of all peoples, one their origin, for God made the whole human race to live over the face of the earth. One also is their final goal, God…

The church says that she sees it her task to “promote unity and love”. This unity and love is fostered by considering what unites humankind and, in this “big picture” vision of the world, we are reminded that every single person comes from God and every single one will, some day, return to Him.

#2 … The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

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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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