Criteria for an ecumenical council during the first centuries
No ecumenical council has formally imposed legal norms on the requirements and criteria for the
ecumenicity of a council. The ecumenicity of the first synods, united in the full communion of
the Churches of the East and West, was a fact of consciousness of the Church, manifested in the
spirit of the divine care. Bishops and Christians, influenced by the Holy Spirit, responded to
the need to profess and defend the Orthodox faith against various heresies and save the
tradition that came from the Holy Apostles through the Church Fathers. In the historical context
of the iconoclast problem addressed by the 7th Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (787), for the first
time, even in a minor way, questions arose regarding criteria for the ecumenicity of an
ecumenical council. For an ecumenical council to be regarded as such, the Fathers of the Council
of Nicaea considered it was necessary to have the participation of the Pope of Rome and the four
Eastern Patriarchs, or at least their delegates; moreover, it had to confess a theology in
accord with the precedent set at the previous ecumenical synods; and, finally, its decisions had
to be received by the Churches of the Christian world.
DIMITRIOS SALACHAS
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