Although I have shared the substance of the first six Ecumenical Councils with my readers before, I would reiterate their substance again so that all might have a firm understanding of our faith. Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church embraces these as the foundation of our faith.

First Council of Nicaea (325): affirmed that Jesus is truly God and equal to the Father; repudiated Arianism, and adopted the Nicene Creed.

First Council of Constantinople (381): affirmed that Jesus was perfectly man against the ideas of the Apollinarians; revised the Nicene Creed into its present form which is used in the Eastern and Western Churches; prohibited any further alteration of the Creed without the assent of an Ecumenical Council.

Council of Ephesus (431): affirmed that Jesus is one person against Nestorianism; proclaimed the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, and also condemned Pelagianism.

Council of Chalcedon (451): affirmed that in Jesus there are two distinct natures in one person that are hypostatically united without confusion, change, division or separation; repudiated Eutychianism and Monophysitism; adopted the Chalcedonian Creed.

Second Council of Constantinople, (553): reaffirmed decisions and doctrines explicated by previous Councils, condemned new Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite writings.

Third Council of Constantinople, (681): asserted Jesus had both a divine and a human will; repudiated Monothelitism.

It is obvious as you review the content of each of these six Councils that the primary concern of each Council was to come to a true and real understanding of WHO JESUS IS. It was the belief of the early Church that He was special, especially in light of His resurrection from the dead. Although they knew that His teachings were life-giving, they did not have a clear idea of who He is. Thus different bishops and priests began sharing their ideas about who Jesus is. This led to controversy since other bishops and priests didn’t agree with all of the ideas that were being proposed. So controversy broke out. The Emperor, who was considered the head of the Church and the State, called the first Council (Nicaea) to attempt to stop the controversy since it was upsetting the Empire. But, as one controversy was repudiated, another broke out. So for 356 years the Church struggled to find a way to express her faith that Jesus was not only a special human being but that He was God Himself incarnate.

This, of course, led to the next stage of Christian dogma development, namely who is God. I shall continue thoughts about that in the next issue of this Bulletin.