ialmisry said:
Michał Kalina said:
Wandile said:
Yurysprudentsiya said:
Wandile said:
I'm curious to known what makes a council ecumenical in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy?
Acceptance by the faithful. His sheep shall know His voice.
I've always had a problem with this explanation and honestly think this is not the true Orthodox answer. Its Ahistorical as none of the 7 ecumenical councils were accepted by all faithful... None of them
IIRC, Constantinople II was accepted without much controversy.
Hardly. There was a large schism for decades over it in the West. And the Archbishop of Rome was struck from the diptychs by the Fathers of the Council until he submitted to it.
For that reason, I've seen a number of Ultramontanists try to back track on it, like they have with their council of Pisa, and engage in revisionism of its degrees, like they have with their council of Constance.
He never rejected the council for doctrinal reasons but for political reasons :
"...Already in the seventh session of the council Justinian caused the name of Vigilius to be stricken from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, it was said, to communion with the Apostolic See. Soon the Roman clergy and people, now freed by Narses from the Gothic yoke, requested the emperor to permit the return of the pope, which Justinian agreed to on condition that Vigilius would recognize the late council. This Vigilius finally agreed to do, and in two documents (a letter to Eutychius of Constantinople, 8 Dec., 553, and a second "Constitutum" of 23 Feb., 554, probably addressed to the Western episcopate) condemned, at last, the Three Chapters (Mansi, IX, 424-20, 457-88; cf. Hefele, II, 905-11), independently, however, and without mention of the council. His opposition had never been based on doctrinal grounds but on the decency and opportuneness of the measures proposed, the wrongful imperial violence, and a delicate fear of injury to the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, especially in the West. Here, indeed, despite the additional recognition of it by Pelagius I (555-60), the Fifth General Council only gradually acquired in public opinion an ecumenical character. In Northern Italy the ecclesiastical provinces of Milan and Aquileia broke off communion with the Apostolic See; the former yielding only towards the end of the sixth century, whereas the latter (Aquileia-Grado) protracted its resistance to about 700 (Hefele, op. cit., II, 911-27). (For an equitable appreciation of the conduct of Vigilius see, besides the article VIGILIUS, the judgment of Bois, in Dict. de théol. cath., II, 1238-39.) The pope was always correct as to the doctrine involved, and yielded, for the sake of peace, only when he was satisfied that there was no fear for the authority of Chalcedon, which he at first, with the entire West, deemed in peril from the machinations of the Monophysites..."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04308b.htm