Popes and Councils

Editor's Note: Tonight's livestream on the Orthodox Ethos reviews Tim Gordon's claims made in his recent debate with Jay Dyer...

Tune in here!

His claims concerning the papacy have relevance to the Orthodox Church's 8th Œcumenical Council. In that Council, the Papists raised some objections but still ratified the decisions of that Council for two centuries. One of the objections regards the question who is more authoritative: the Pope or the Œcumenical Councils. The Church's decision in the West and the East is as follows:

Objection XI. After the pope’s epistles were read and the representatives of the bishop of Rome had asked the Council if they accepted them, the latter replied that they accept as many [parts of the epistles] as are contained in right and lawful speech, and not simply that they accept them, as had happened at the other Œcumenical Councils. Yet it must be said, first, that at the Council in Chalcedon Leo’s epistle is heavily scrutinized, as is Agatho’s in the Sixth and Hadrian’s in the Seventh. See those places and note especially that at that time also, the fathers discerningly accepted the things that had to do with the issues which the Councils were facing, but they did not also accept everything that the popes or others said about themselves. For this reason, at the Seventh Council the sections of Hadrian’s epistle that dealt with the holy icons were read, but what he said concerning the title “œcumenical” and other such things were kept quiet and ignored. In fact, in opposition to the hushed demands, the fathers, every single one of them, called the bishop of Constantinople “œcumenical patriarch”. So here too, because the epistles contained some things that were off of the topic, thus were they treated; see there. Therefore, the epistles were accepted for what they said concerning those matters for which the Council had been convened, which were right and lawful; the Council, however, did not accept the irrational things, the demand that they leave Bulgaria to the bishop of Rome and the pope’s excessive and uncanonical words concerning the Roman church. In fact, they expressly rejected them, and the sin lies with the author and not with them that did not accept.*

* Gregory Heers, translator, The Acts of the Eighth Œcumenical Council, (Florence, AZ: Uncut Mountain Press, 2025).

Much more can be found within The Acts of the Eighth Œcumenical Council. Get it at UncutMountainPress.com!