5. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.
– Point 5, The Fundamental Declarations
The great Councils of the Church, before the split between the Greek East and Latin West, have long defined the united Church. However, which Councils is a debate as old as the Third Ecumenical Council, when the Church saw its first split with the Nestorian Church (now referred to as the Church of the East). The Fourth Ecumenical Council saw the Miaphysite Church (Oriental Orthodox Church) depart, and the conflicts over councils would continue as the East and West continued to debate when the Sixth Ecumenical Council ended – does it include the Quinisext Council, as the East contends, or not, as the West holds? Further debates continued between East and West as to the Seventh Ecumenical Council and Eighth, yet modern scholarship has settled around the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church.
Anglicans, for their part, have conservatively accepted without hesitation and “affirm the teaching of the first four Councils.” It is a conservatism that permeates Anglicanism, affirming what the early Church always accepted. As Lancelot Andrewes succinctly summarizes, we profess:
One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period—the centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.
– Lancelot Andrewes, Opuscula Quædam Posthuma
This Five-Point Anglicanism is not arbitrary, but roots itself upon that great Doctor of the universal Church, St. Gregory the Great, who said, “I confess that I receive and revere, as the four books of the Gospel, so also the four [ecumenical] Councils” (Book I, Letter 25, Registrum Epistolarum). St. Gregory lived during the time of the Fifth Council, and while he also wrote “The Fifth Council I equally venerate,” it is clear that he upheld the first four as outstanding pillars upon which the faith is preserved. This line of thinking is also reflected in the third point of the Jerusalem Declaration: “We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Jeremy Taylor likewise opined, “The Church of England receives the four first Generals as of highest regard, not that they are infallible, but that they have determined wisely and holily” (Rules and Advices to the Clergy).
Yet this does not dismiss nor ignore the later Councils. After all, the Books of Homilies acknowledge the Fifth and Sixth Councils as part of “those six Councils which were allowed and received of all men” (The Second Part of the Homily Against the Peril of Idolatry). While the source of this quote comes from perhaps the most hostile Anglican writing against the Seventh Council, it is not the only commentary on the Seventh Council and was heavily borrowed as an abridgement of a treatise by Bullinger. See p. xxx, The Editor’s Preface, Two Books of Homilies. The learned Richard Field, a friend and contemporary of Richard Hooker, echoed the reception of six Councils and summarized them and their importance for us today:
Of this sort there are only six; the First (Nicea I) defining the Son of God to be coessential, coeternal and coequal with the Father. The Second (Constantinople I, 391) defining that the Holy Ghost is truly God, coessential, coeternal and coequal with the Father and the Son. The Third (Ephesus 431), the unity of Christ’s person. The Fourth (Chalcedon 451), the distinction and diversity of His natures, in and after the personal union. The Fifth (Constantinople II, 553), condemning some remains of Nestorianism, more fully explaining things stumbled at in the Council of Chalcedon…. And the Sixth (Constantinople III, 680-1), defining and clearing the distinction of operations, actions, powers and wills in Christ, according to the diversity of His natures. These were all the lawful General Councils (lawful I say both in their beginning, and proceeding, and continuance) that ever were holden in the Christian Church touching matters of faith.
– p. 61, Of the Church, Book Five, Vol. IV
What of the Seventh Council? Anglicans have been wary, cautious, and perhaps suspicious is the best and most charitable manner of putting it. The late great Rev. Dr. Peter Toon noted that Richard Field wrote cautiously, but not necessarily dismissively, regarding the Seventh Council, quoting him from the same section in Book Five of his magnum opus, Of the Church:
For the Seventh, which is Nicea II, was not called about any question of faith, but of manners; in which our adversaries confess that there may be something inconveniently prescribed, and so as to be the occasion of great and grievous evils; and surely that is our conceit of the Seventh General Council, Nicea II; for howsoever it condemn the religious adoration and worshipping of pictures and seem to allow no other use of them but that which is historical, yet in permitting men by outward signs of reverence and respect towards the pictures of saints to express their love towards them, and the desire they have of enjoying their happy society, and in condemning so bitterly such as upon dislike of abuses wished there might be no pictures in the Church at all, it may seem to have given some occasion and have opened up the way unto that grow idolatry which afterwards entered into the Church.
There is simply something different about these later three Councils. They are an outworking of the first Four Councils – not unimportant, but also more like additional supports further upholding the pillars. Hence, they are received by Anglicans in the ACNA for their “Christological clarifications,” yet just like the first Four Councils, all seven are received, “in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.” (The Fundamental Declarations). As the Rev. Dr. Peter Toon observed, “But what is clear is that like his [Richard Field’s] famous contemporaries (Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes) and many divines to follow them, he had a great respect for the first Four Councils, highly regarded the next two, and was cautious about the Seventh. This has been the basic Anglican position and remains so, I think!” I think so as well, and would also commend this work of the learned and Venerable Isaac Rehberg for a deeper treatment on the topic.
There is a deep charity that is inherent in the Anglican Way by rooting our faith in the first Four pillars that constitute the Ecumenical Councils, while confessing the Christological clarifications of the latter three Councils. First, it links Anglicans to the faith of the Christians in the first five centuries, while clarifying the resurgent heresies that were ever present in the sixth through ninth centuries and simply reinvent themselves to this day. Second, it allows Anglicans to engage ecumenically with Rome and the East on one hand, while differentiating itself from the latter councils, both of those communions added to the ancient faith. Third, it continues the Anglican ability to have discussions with both the Assyrian Church of the East and Oriental Orthodox to build good relations and determine where we may differ in our understandings of the faith we confess. Most importantly, the Councils guard the deposit of faith as revealed in the Scriptures and help the faithful to discern error from orthodoxy.
The General Councils have refuted heresies from within and kept the wolves out of the Church. In our confused age, we need the Council in order to properly discern and combat modern errors with ancient roots in heresy. Unlike the Roman communion, Anglicans do not acknowledge their twenty-one councils merely because the Bishop of Rome has given them his stamp of approval. Nor do we give full ecumenical status to the nine of Eastern Orthodoxy. (Modern Eastern Orthodox polemics uphold Seven Ecumenical Councils, but their writings have touted Fourth Constantinople and Fifth Constantinople as ecumenical from time to time). As Anglicans, we rest on Article 21 of the 39 Articles of Religion, which upholds “General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes.” Considering the sad state of affairs with a lack of Christian rulers and no single emperor, the likelihood of another Ecumenical Council is dubious from either the Eastern Orthodox or Anglican perspective.
The Articles of Religion, however, do not place our faith in conciliarism, but warn, “And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God), they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God.” (Article 21). Where then, shall we put our trust and our faith? We go back to the beginning of Point 1 of the Fundamental Declarations and root ourselves firmly upon the revelation of the written word of God. Or as Article 21 holds, “Wherefore things ordained by them [General Councils] as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.”
Therefore, we condemn ancient heresies by and through the Word of God, received and expounded upon by the holy fathers gathered together in the undivided Church. Should another ecumenical council never convene again, we fear not, for we rest upon the Holy Scriptures – the same upon which the fathers of old combatted and fought off the wolves who sought to confuse, divide, and harm the Church catholic and orthodox. May we confess and pass on the same faith received by the gathered saints of old.
