ECUMENICAL COUNCIL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ecumenical council mean? 

• ECUMENICAL COUNCIL (noun)
  The noun ECUMENICAL COUNCIL has 1 sense:

1. (early Christian church) one of seven gatherings of bishops from around the known world under the presidency of the Pope to regulate matters of faith and morals and discipline

  Familiarity information: ECUMENICAL COUNCIL used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ECUMENICAL COUNCIL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(early Christian church) one of seven gatherings of bishops from around the known world under the presidency of the Pope to regulate matters of faith and morals and discipline

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Context example:

the first seven councils through 787 are considered to be ecumenical councils by both the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church but the next fourteen councils are considered ecumenical only by the Roman Catholic church

Hypernyms ("ecumenical council" is a kind of...):

council ((Christianity) an assembly of theologians and bishops and other representatives of different churches or dioceses that is convened to regulate matters of discipline or doctrine)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ecumenical council"):

First Council of Nicaea; Nicaea (the first ecumenical council in 325 which produced the wording of the Nicene Creed and condemned the heresy of Arianism)

Constantinople; First Council of Constantinople (the second ecumenical council in 381 which added wording about the Holy Spirit to the Nicene Creed)

Council of Ephesus; Ephesus (the third ecumenical council in 431 which declared Mary as mother of God and condemned Pelagius)

Chalcedon; Council of Chalcedon (the fourth ecumenical council in 451 which defined the two natures (human and divine) of Christ)

Constantinople; Second Council of Constantinople (the fifth ecumenical council in 553 which held Origen's writings to be heretic)

Constantinople; Third Council of Constantinople (the sixth ecumenical council in 680-681 which condemned Monothelitism by defining two wills in Christ, divine and human)

Nicaea; Second Council of Nicaea (the seventh ecumenical council in 787 which refuted iconoclasm and regulated the veneration of holy images)