First Council of Constantinople

It is also known simply as the Council of Constantinople. Because ecumenical councils were also held in the same city in 553 and in 680–681, it is called the First Council of Constantinople when it must be distinguished from them. This article deals with the council of 381. A council is a gathering of bishops from various regional churches to define doctrine and church discipline.

Background

The Council of Nicaea of 325 confessed that the Son is "of the same essence" (homoousios) as the Father and condemned Arianism. To condemn a teaching is to judge it erroneous. This decision, however, did not end the controversy. Later emperors such as Constantius II and Valens supported compromise positions that avoided the expression "of the same essence." Athanasius, who defended the Nicene faith, was exiled several times during this period.

New views also spread at this time. One acknowledged the divinity of the Son but held that the Holy Spirit is not equal to God; its adherents were called Pneumatomachians ("opponents of the Spirit"). Another was the view of Apollinaris, who held that Christ did not possess a complete human mind.

The so-called Cappadocian Fathers—Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa—defended the Nicene faith by refining the formula "one essence, three persons." Here "person" (hypostasis) denotes a distinct personal subsistence. In 380 Theodosius I issued an edict proclaiming the Nicene faith the orthodox faith of the empire.

Proceedings

The council met from May to July 381. About 150 Eastern bishops are reported to have attended, while bishops of the Western (Latin) church were virtually absent.

Meletius of Antioch initially presided over the council but died while it was in session. Gregory of Nazianzus then took charge, but he withdrew when opposition arose to his becoming bishop of Constantinople. Nectarius was elected bishop in his place.

Outcomes and Influence

• Creed: The confession of faith known today as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, or simply the Nicene Creed, is associated with this council. The creed expands the article on the Holy Spirit, confessing the Spirit as "the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified." The text of the creed, however, is first attested in the records of the Council of Chalcedon of 451. Scholars therefore disagree as to whether it was composed in exactly this form in 381.
• Doctrine: The council condemned the various Arian factions, the Pneumatomachians, the Sabellians of the modalist tradition, the Apollinarians, and others. It is regarded as having thereby laid the basic framework for the doctrine of the Trinity and for pneumatology. The condemnation of Apollinaris also led into later Christological controversies.
• Church precedence: The council determined that the bishop of Constantinople, as bishop of "New Rome," ranks in honor next after the bishop of Rome. This decision became one of the factors behind the tensions that later developed between the two churches.
• Filioque: From around the sixth century the Western church began adding to the creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" (Filioque). The Eastern church regarded this as a unilateral alteration of a conciliar decision, and the issue became one of the principal points of contention in the East–West Schism.

Assessment

The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church recognize this council as the second ecumenical council and receive its decisions as authoritative teaching. The Orthodox Church uses the text without the Filioque, while the Catholic Church uses the text that includes it.

The major Protestant denominations also generally accept the council's Trinitarian confession. They ground this acceptance, however, not in any claim that councils are free from error but in the agreement of that confession with Scripture. In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin stated that he reverently receives as sacred the early councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. The Westminster Confession of Faith states that councils may err and are therefore not to be made the rule of faith but used as a help.

Because Protestant congregations in Korea chiefly confess the Apostles' Creed in worship, the Nicene Creed is seldom used there. In churches with a strong liturgical tradition (that is, fixed forms of worship), such as the Anglican Church of Korea, the Nicene Creed is confessed at the Eucharist.