A study of the early church councils, from the Apostolic council of Jerusalem AD. 52 to the second ecumenical council AD. 381

• Main Author: Kaçar, T.
• Published: Swansea University 2000
• Subjects: 270
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.637745

The main framework of the study is as follows. The first two chapters are a historical overview of the church councils from the Apostolic council in AD. 52 to the second ecumenical council of Constantinople in 381. The chapters are to be divided as pre-Nicene and post-Nicene. Chapter three focuses on the organisation and protocol of the church councils. As far as the first four centuries are concerned, it will concentrate on finding out who took the first step in holding a council. Then, the communication channels and means of transportation to a fixed council place are examined. The chapter also covers the protocol, the seating arrangement, qualifications for membership, and presidency of the councils. Chapter four examines the transactions of the church councils. Six types of business preoccupied the bishops in the church councils. These were creed and canon making, electing and consecrating bishops, judging ecclesiastical and secular cases, and routine church business. The second part of this chapter examines the recording and dissemination of decisions taken at the councils. Chapter five is an attempt to compare the Latin and Greek traditions of the church councils, particularly in the third century, as the available evidence makes a broad comparison possible between the two milieu. In doing this I will try to identify the structural features of the church councils, that is how meetings were regulated, and how decisions were made in the Latin and Greek tradition. Chapter six is concerned with the politics of summoning and carrying out a council. The central theme of the chapter is to discuss those political activities in the form of factionalism and to identify the foundations of this factionalism. The second part of the chapter looks at the attitudes of the western and eastern bishops in promulgating new creeds and in forming factions in the fourth century.