The view of the Ecumenical Synods on the state

Authors

• Metropolitan of Helsinki Johannes

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30674/scripta.67074

Keywords:

State and religion, Church and state, Councils and synods, Theology, Ecumenical, Christianity, Religions -- Relations, Leadership, Religious, Authority, Schism -- Eastern and Western Church

Abstract

When one wants to learn to know the basic principles of the Ancient, undivided Church concerning the State, as authoritatively and validly as possible, one has to turn to the teachings of the so-called Ecumenical Synods, which is the term used of those great synods of the bishops which were recognised as representing the mind of the Church and whose declarations and rulings thus were—and are, from the Orthodox point of view—binding on the whole Church. The period, during which the said synods of the ancient Church took place, falls between the 4th and the 8th centuries, the latest of them being held in 787.