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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival. Cf. The Symbol of Faith (Creed), as Defined by the Second Ecumenical Council, Bilingual - Greek / English - text, translated by Elpenor.
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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34 Pages
Page 33
Excursus on the Authority of the Second Ecumenical Council.
(Hefele, History of the Councils, Vol. II., pp. 370, et seqq.)
Lastly, to turn to the question of the authority of this Council, it appears, first of all, that immediately after its close, in the same year, 381, several of its acts were censured by a Council of Latins, namely, the prolongation of the Meletian schism (by the elevation of Flavian), and the choice of Nectarius as Bishop of Constantinople, while, as is known, the Westerns held (the Cynic) Maximus to be the rightful bishop of that city.
In consequence of this, the new Synod assembled in the following year, 382, at Constantinople, sent the Latins a copy of the decrees of faith composed the year before, expressly calling this Synod oikoumenike and at the same time seeking to justify it in those points which had been censured. Photius [234] maintains that soon afterwards Pope Damasus confirmed this synod; but, as the following will show, this confirmation could only have referred to the creed and not to the canons. As late as about the middle of the fifth century, Pope Leo I. spoke in a very depreciatory manner of these canons, especially of the third, which concerned the ecclesiastical rank of Constantinople, remarking that it was never sent to the See of Rome. Still later, Gregory the Great wrote in the same sense: Romana autem Ecclesia eosdam canones vel gesta Synodi illius hactenus non habet, nec accepit; in hoc autem eam accepit, quod est per eam contra Macedonium definitum. [235]
Thus, as late as the year 600, only the creed, but not the canons of the Synod of Constantinople were accepted at Rome; but on account of its creed, Gregory the Great reckons it as one of the four Ecumenical Councils, which he compares to the four Gospels. So also before him the popes Vigilius and Pelagius II, reckoned this Synod among the Ecumenical Councils.
The question is, from what date the Council of Constantinople was considered ecumenical by the Latins as well as by the Greeks. We will begin with the latter. Although as we have seen, the Synod of 382 had already designated this council as ecumenical, yet it could not for a long time obtain an equal rank with the Council of Nicaea, for which reason the General Council of Ephesus mentions that of Nicaea and its creed with the greatest respect, but is totally silent as to this Synod. Soon afterwards, the so-called Robber-Synod in 449, spoke of two (General) Councils, at Nicaea and Ephesus, and designated the latter as he deutera sunodos, as a plain token that it did not ascribe such a high rank to the assembly at Constantinople. It might perhaps be objected that only the Monophysites, who notoriously ruled the Robber-Synod, used this language; but the most determined opponent of the Monophysites, their accuser, Bishop Eusebius of Dorylaeum, in like manner also brought forward only the two Synods of Nicaea and Ephesus, and declared that "he held to the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers assembled at Nicaea, and to all that was done at the great and Holy Synod at Ephesus."
[234] Photius, De Synodis, p. 1143, ed. Justelli.
[235] Greg., Epist., Lib. I., 25.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/second.asp?pg=33
