The Atlas

The Seven Councils

Seven times in its first eight centuries the whole church sat down to answer one question. The creeds are the minutes of these meetings.

1. AD 325

   Nicaea I

   Is the Son truly God, or the first and highest of creatures?

   Against Arius: the Son is homoousios — of one being with the Father — begotten, not made. The creed said in churches every Sunday begins here, but it does not end here: what 325 wrote stops at “and we believe in the Holy Ghost,” and then anathematizes Arius. The clauses about the Spirit, the Church and the resurrection are Constantinople's, fifty-six years later.

   Read it:The creed of 325The canonsThe synodal letter

   Athanasius of AlexandriaEusebius of Caesarea

2. AD 381

   Constantinople I

   And the Holy Spirit — is he also to be worshipped as God?

   The creed is completed: the Spirit is 'the Lord, the giver of life, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.' The Cappadocians' argument carried the day. This — not the shorter text of 325 — is the creed people mean when they say the Nicene Creed, and the one recited on a Sunday.

   Read it:The creed said on SundaysThe canons

   Basil of CaesareaGregory of NazianzusGregory of Nyssa

3. AD 431

   Ephesus

   May Mary be called Theotokos — the one who bore God?

   Yes — because her Son is one person, not two. Against Nestorius, the council held that the child of Bethlehem and the eternal Word are the same 'he.'

   Read it:The canonsThe decree against Nestorius

   Cyril of Alexandria

4. AD 451

   Chalcedon

   How can one person be both fully God and fully man?

   Two natures, 'without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,' in one person. Read from Leo's Tome, the bishops cried: 'Peter has spoken through Leo.'

   Read it:The definition of faithThe thirty canonsLeo's Tome

   Leo the Great

5. AD 553

   Constantinople II

   What of the teachers whose writings leaned toward Nestorius — and of Origen?

   The Three Chapters were condemned, and Origen — three centuries dead, the greatest mind of the early church — was anathematized with them. His works survive on our shelves regardless: read him and weigh him yourself.

   Read it:The sentence of the synodThe capitula

   Origen of AlexandriaLeontius of Byzantium

6. AD 680

   Constantinople III

   Does Christ have one will, or two?

   Two — a divine will and a human will, never contrary, for 'not my will but thine' had to be a real human yes. The confessor of this doctrine, Maximus, had died for it eighteen years before.

   Read it:The definition of faith

   Maximus the Confessor is not yet on our shelves — his door awaits a source. The council's own acts are shelved under the year the sessions closed (681).

7. AD 787

   Nicaea II

   May icons of Christ and the saints be venerated?

   Yes: honor passes to the one depicted, and because the Word truly took flesh, the flesh may be depicted. John of Damascus had written the defense from the caliph's lands.

   Read it:The canonsThe decree of the second Nice

   John Damascene