First Council of Constantinople

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine
Disciplinary status: Church discipline
Evidence type: Historical account
GuideAn ecumenical council acts with the Roman Pontiff as the Church's supreme Magisterium. The exact note of each decree or proposition must be identified separately; disciplinary acts and historical narrative are not thereby dogma.
Contents

The First Council of Constantinople was the second ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, held in 381 to reaffirm the Nicene faith, confess the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and restore ecclesial order in the East.

The First Council of Constantinople (Latin: Concilium Constantinopolitanum; Ancient Greek: Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I.[8][9] This second ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, except for the Western Church,[10] confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and dealt with sundry other matters. It met from May to July 381[11] in the Church of Hagia Irene and was affirmed as ecumenical in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon for Chalcedonian Christianity and the Second Council of Ephesus for the Oriental Orthodox Churches.

From Nicaea to 381

The long Nicene controversy

Nicaea's definition did not immediately produce political or theological peace. Bishops disputed the meaning of homoousios, emperors promoted changing formulas, and ecclesiastical rivalries became entangled with doctrine. Some opponents of explicit Arianism still hesitated to use Nicene language because they feared that one substance might collapse the Father and Son into one person. The pro-Nicene settlement matured as theologians distinguished the one divine ousia from three hypostases and showed that real personal distinction does not divide God's being.

By the 360s and 370s, Athanasius of Alexandria and the Cappadocian Fathers helped draw many former Homoiousians toward the Nicene confession. Basil of Caesarea defended the divinity of the Holy Spirit through the inseparability of the Spirit's work from that of the Father and the Son. Gregory Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa likewise argued that the Spirit who sanctifies, gives life, and is glorified with Father and Son cannot be a creature. This convergence supplied the theological grammar the council would receive.

The Holy Spirit and Apollinarianism

The Pneumatomachians, often called Macedonians in later accounts, refused to confess the Holy Spirit's full divinity. Their positions varied, but they could describe the Spirit as a ministering power or exalted creature while maintaining a strong doctrine of the Son. The question was not an abstract ranking within heaven. If the Spirit is not God, the Spirit cannot unite creatures to the divine life, make them temples of God, or perfect baptism into the one name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The council also confronted Apollinarianism. Apollinaris of Laodicea defended Christ's divinity but compromised his full humanity by assigning the divine Word the place of a rational human mind. The Church's answer was that the eternal Son assumed a complete human nature, including a rational soul. What is not assumed is not healed: salvation requires the incarnate Word to be fully God and fully human, a principle later Christological councils would articulate with still greater precision.

Political and ecclesial setting

The death of the Arian-favoring emperor Valens in 378 changed the eastern balance. Theodosius I became emperor in the East and, with the edict Cunctos populos of 380, publicly supported the trinitarian faith professed in communion with Rome and Alexandria. Imperial policy returned churches in Constantinople to Nicene bishops. This support made a settlement possible, but it also meant that episcopal decisions occurred within forceful state action that historians must neither ignore nor mistake for the source of dogmatic truth.

Constantinople itself had grown from Byzantium into the imperial capital and a contested ecclesiastical prize. Gregory Nazianzen served the small Nicene community there and preached the Theological Orations before Theodosius installed him in the Church of the Holy Apostles. At Antioch, the Meletian schism divided Nicene believers between Meletius and Paulinus, the latter supported by Alexandria and Rome. Questions of faith, episcopal legitimacy, and the emerging rank of the capital therefore converged when the council assembled.[1]

Convocation and participants

Theodosius summoned the bishops of his eastern empire to Constantinople in May 381. About 150 bishops committed to the Nicene cause took part. Thirty-six bishops associated with the Pneumatomachian position also appeared during the effort at reconciliation but withdrew rather than accept the Nicene confession. No western bishops or papal legates attended, and the assembly was not initially constituted as a geographically universal representation. Its later ecumenical authority arose through reception by the whole Church.[2]

Saint Meletius of Antioch first presided and took part in Gregory Nazianzen's installation as bishop of Constantinople. When Meletius died during the council, Gregory assumed the presidency. He urged recognition of Paulinus to end the Antiochene division, but many eastern bishops opposed him. Bishops from Egypt and Macedonia then challenged Gregory's transfer from Sasima to Constantinople under the Nicene prohibition on episcopal translations. Weary of faction and unwilling to become a cause of division, Gregory resigned both the see and the presidency.

Nectarius, a senator and catechumen, was selected, baptized, ordained through the ecclesiastical grades, and installed as bishop of the capital in rapid succession. His elevation shows how imperial and episcopal judgment could operate through procedures that later ages would find extraordinary. Nectarius presided over the closing work. The sequence from Meletius through Gregory to Nectarius also explains why summaries assigning the council one president flatten its eventful history.

Proceedings and surviving evidence

The council's full acts have not survived. Its creed, doctrinal tomos known indirectly from the synodal letter of 382, canons, later citations, and narratives by church historians provide the evidence. The loss requires caution: vivid modern reconstructions of daily debates can exceed what the sources support. The central result is nevertheless clear. The bishops reaffirmed Nicaea, rejected families of anti-Nicene teaching, defended the Holy Spirit's divine glory, and established an eastern ecclesiastical settlement favored by Theodosius.[3]

The council is traditionally associated with the creed now called Nicene-Constantinopolitan. The text is longer than the creed of 325: it gives fuller expression to the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, the Church, baptism, resurrection, and the life of the world to come, while omitting Nicaea's attached anathemas. Scholars have debated its precise literary origin because no surviving act narrates its composition and related baptismal formulas existed earlier. Chalcedon's solemn reading of it as the faith of the 150 fathers anchors its conciliar reception.

The confession of the Holy Spirit

The creed confesses the Holy Spirit as Lord and giver of life, proceeding from the Father, worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son, and speaking through the prophets. Each phrase bears doctrinal weight. Lord places the Spirit within the divine identity; giver of life attributes a divine work; common worship excludes creaturehood; and prophetic inspiration identifies the same Spirit throughout the economy of salvation.

The council did not use the word homoousios of the Spirit in the creed, but its confession entails equality in divinity. Catholic doctrine receives the Spirit as one God with the Father and the Son, the same substance and nature while personally distinct. The restraint of the formula also aided reunion by stating the Church's worship before imposing every term used by individual theologians. The dogma is not that the Spirit merely deserves high honor but that he truly possesses the one undivided divine being.

The original Greek text says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. It does not contain the later Latin liturgical addition Filioque. Catholic teaching holds that the Father is the first origin without origin and that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle. The Catechism presents the Greek formula through the Son and the Latin formula from the Father and the Son as legitimately complementary when neither is hardened into a caricature of the other.[4]

Christology, Church, and baptism

The expanded creed identifies the Son's Incarnation from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, his crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, burial, resurrection on the third day, ascension, glorious return, and everlasting kingdom. Its reference to the Virgin Mary supplies a creedal foundation that Ephesus would defend by confessing her as Theotokos. Its condemnation of Apollinarianism protects the complete humanity assumed by the divine Son.[5]

The final articles confess one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church; one baptism for the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the dead; and the life of the world to come. These are not a decorative appendix to trinitarian doctrine. The Trinity is revealed in the saving economy that forms the Church, grants sacramental rebirth, raises the body, and brings creation to its end. The creed joins dogma to the baptismal and Eucharistic life in which it is professed.

Canons and ecclesiastical order

The original four canons

The oldest textual tradition contains four canons. Canon 1 confirms Nicaea and anathematizes Eunomians or Anomoeans, Arians or Eudoxians, Semi-Arians or Pneumatomachians, Sabellians, Marcellians, Photinians, and Apollinarians. These labels cover distinct errors and alliances; the canon's purpose is to mark the boundaries of the received trinitarian and Christological faith, not to claim that every group taught an identical system.

Canon 2 restricts bishops from intruding beyond their civil dioceses and names the great regional spheres of Alexandria, Antioch, Asia, Pontus, and Thrace. Canon 3 accords Constantinople precedence of honor after Rome because it is New Rome. Canon 4 declares the attempted installation of Maximus the Cynic invalid and recognizes neither him nor clergy ordained through his intervention. Later Greek collections count three additional measures derived from related proceedings or later legislation, while ancient Latin collections commonly preserve only four.

Constantinople after Rome

Canon 3 linked Constantinople's rank to its civil status as the new imperial capital. Rome did not initially receive this canon, and Alexandria naturally resisted the rise of a see whose new precedence displaced it. The canon was disciplinary, not a dogmatic definition that civil promotion creates apostolic primacy. Its logic differed from Rome's account of Petrine succession, a difference made explicit when Chalcedon's canon 28 tried to give Constantinople broader privileges on the same political ground.

The eventual Catholic recognition of Constantinople's second place in the patriarchal order did not retroactively approve every jurisdictional claim or erase the distinct foundation of Roman primacy. Later councils and canonical practice received the ranking within a developed pentarchy. This history illustrates how genuine ecclesiastical institutions can mature through contested disciplinary reception without every stage carrying the same authority as the council's trinitarian confession.

Ecumenical reception and papal confirmation

Because the council was an eastern assembly without Roman delegates, its ecumenical standing was not simply obvious from attendance. A synod at Constantinople in 382 explained its faith to western bishops. The creed and doctrinal settlement spread, and Chalcedon in 451 solemnly acclaimed the creed of the 150 fathers alongside Nicaea. Rome received the council's dogmatic teaching while maintaining reservations about the disciplinary elevation of Constantinople.

By the sixth century, popes including Vigilius, Pelagius II, and Saint Gregory the Great named Constantinople I among the four ecumenical councils. Catholic recognition therefore distinguishes the council's infallible trinitarian teaching from canons that were disputed, partially received, or later superseded. Ecumenicity is neither a headcount nor a retrospective opinion poll; it is the authoritative reception of the episcopal college's act in communion with its head.

The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and Assyrian Church of the East receive Constantinople I. Their shared creed remains a profound bond despite divisions about later councils, the Filioque, primacy, and sacramental communion. That common reception gives ecumenical dialogue a concrete doctrinal foundation rather than a lowest-common-denominator spirituality.[6]

Legacy

Constantinople I completed the creed that ordinarily bears the name Nicene in Catholic worship. Its confession of the Holy Spirit shapes doxology, sacramental theology, prayer, and the Church's understanding of sanctification. The Spirit is not an impersonal force added to a theology of Father and Son; he is the divine person who gives life, inspired the prophets, forms the Church, and brings the baptized into communion with the Trinity.[7]

The council also exposes the human complexity through which providence guards doctrine. An imperial summons, regional rivalry, disputed successions, a saint's resignation, sparse surviving acts, and later Roman reception all belong to the history. None requires a mythology of flawless procedure. The lasting authority lies in the faith the Church recognized: one divine nature in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, confessed in the saving economy and worshiped in the one catholic and apostolic Church.

Background

When Theodosius I ascended to the imperial throne in 380, he began on a campaign to bring the Eastern Church back to Nicene Christianity. Theodosius wanted to further unify the entire empire behind the Orthodox position and decided to convene a church council to resolve matters of faith and discipline.[12], p. 45 Gregory Nazianzus was of similar mind, wishing to unify Christianity. In the spring of 381 they convened the second ecumenical council in Constantinople.[13]

Theological context

The Council of Nicaea in 325 had not ended the Arian controversy which it had been called to clarify. Arius and his sympathizers, e.g. Eusebius of Nicomedia, were admitted back into the church after ostensibly accepting the Nicene creed. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the most vocal opponent of Arianism, was ultimately exiled through the machinations of Eusebius of Nicomedia. After the death of Constantine I in 337 and the accession of his Arian-leaning son Constantius II, open discussion of replacing the Nicene creed itself began. Up until about 360, theological debates mainly dealt with the divinity of the Son, the second person of the Trinity. However, because the Council of Nicaea had not clarified the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, it became a topic of debate. The Macedonians denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. This was also known as Pneumatomachianism.[14]

Nicene Christianity also had its defenders: apart from Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers' Trinitarian discourse was influential in the council at Constantinople. Apollinaris of Laodicea, another pro-Nicene theologian, proved controversial. Possibly in an over-reaction to Arianism and its teaching that Christ was created and not eternal, he taught that Christ consisted of a human body and a divine mind, rejecting the belief that Christ had a complete human nature, including a human mind.[15] He was charged with confounding the persons of the Godhead, and with giving in to the heretical ways of Sabellius. Basil of Caesarea accused him of abandoning the literal sense of the scripture, and taking up wholly with the allegorical sense. His views were condemned in a Synod at Alexandria, under Athanasius of Alexandria, in 362, and later subdivided into several different heresies, the main ones of which were the Polemians and the Antidicomarianites.[16]

Geopolitical context

Theodosius' strong commitment to Nicene Christianity involved a calculated risk because Constantinople, the imperial capital of the Eastern Empire, was solidly Arian. To complicate matters, the two leading factions of Nicene Christianity in the East, the Alexandrians and the supporters of Meletius in Antioch, were "bitterly divided ... almost to the point of complete animosity".[17]

The bishops of Alexandria and Rome had worked over a number of years to keep the see of Constantinople from stabilizing. Thus, when Gregory was selected as a candidate for the bishopric of Constantinople, both Alexandria and Rome opposed him because of his Antiochene background.

Meletian schism

See of Constantinople

The incumbent bishop of Constantinople was Demophilus, a Homoian Arian. On his accession to the imperial throne, Theodosius offered to confirm Demophilus as bishop of the imperial city on the condition of accepting the Nicene Creed; however, Demophilus refused to abandon his Arian beliefs, and was immediately ordered to give up his churches and leave Constantinople.[18][19] After forty years under the control of Arian bishops, the churches of Constantinople were now restored to those who subscribed to the Nicene Creed; Arians were also ejected from the churches of other cities in the Eastern Roman Empire thus re-establishing Christian orthodoxy in the East.[20]

There ensued a contest to control the newly recovered see. A group led by Maximus the Cynic gained the support of Patriarch Peter of Alexandria by playing on his jealousy of the newly created see of Constantinople. They conceived a plan to install a cleric subservient to Peter as bishop of Constantinople so that Alexandria would retain the leadership of the Eastern Churches.[21] Many commentators characterize Maximus as having been proud, arrogant and ambitious. However, it is not clear the extent to which Maximus sought this position due to his own ambition or if he was merely a pawn in the power struggle. In any event, the plot was set into motion when, on a night when Gregory was confined by illness, the conspirators burst into the cathedral and commenced the consecration of Maximus as bishop of Constantinople. They had seated Maximus on the archiepiscopal throne and had just begun shearing away his long curls when the day dawned. The news of what was transpiring quickly spread and everybody rushed to the church. The magistrates appeared with their officers; Maximus and his consecrators were driven from the cathedral, and ultimately completed the tonsure in the tenement of a flute-player.[22]

The news of the brazen attempt to usurp the episcopal throne aroused the anger of the local populace among whom Gregory was popular. Maximus withdrew to Thessalonica to lay his cause before the emperor but met with a cold reception there. Theodosius committed the matter to Ascholius, the much respected bishop of Thessalonica, charging him to seek the counsel of Pope Damasus I.[23]

Damasus' response repudiated Maximus summarily and advised Theodosius to summon a council of bishops for the purpose of settling various church issues such as the schism in Antioch and the consecration of a proper bishop for the see of Constantinople.[24] Damasus condemned the translation of bishops from one see to another and urged Theodosius to "take care that a bishop who is above reproach is chosen for that see."[25]

Proceedings

Thirty-six Pneumatomachians arrived but were denied admission to the council when they refused to accept the Nicene creed.

Since Peter, the Pope of Alexandria, was not present, the presidency over the council was given to Meletius as Patriarch of Antioch.[26] The first order of business before the council was to declare the clandestine consecration of Maximus invalid, and to confirm Theodosius' installation of Gregory Nazianzus as Archbishop of Constantinople. When Meletius died shortly after the opening of the council, Gregory was selected to lead the council.

The Egyptian and Macedonian bishops who had supported Maximus's ordination arrived late for the council. Once there, they refused to recognise Gregory's position as head of the church of Constantinople, arguing that his transfer from the See of Sasima was canonically illegitimate because one of the canons of the Council of Nicaea had forbidden bishops to transfer from their sees.[27], pp. 358–9

McGuckin describes Gregory as physically exhausted and worried that he was losing the confidence of the bishops and the emperor.[27], p. 359 Ayres goes further and asserts that Gregory quickly made himself unpopular among the bishops by supporting the losing candidate for the bishopric of Antioch and vehemently opposing any compromise with the Homoiousians.[28], p. 254

Rather than press his case and risk further division, Gregory decided to resign his office: "Let me be as the Prophet Jonah! I was responsible for the storm, but I would sacrifice myself for the salvation of the ship. Seize me and throw me... I was not happy when I ascended the throne, and gladly would I descend it."[29] He shocked the council with his surprise resignation and then delivered a dramatic speech to Theodosius asking to be released from his offices. The emperor, moved by his words, applauded, commended his labor, and granted his resignation. The council asked him to appear once more for a farewell ritual and celebratory orations. Gregory used this occasion to deliver a final address (Or. 42) and then departed.[27], p. 361

Nectarius, an unbaptized civil official, was chosen to succeed Gregory as president of the council.[28], p. 255

Canons

Seven canons, four of these doctrinal canons and three disciplinary canons, are attributed to the council and accepted by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches; the Roman Catholic Church accepts only the first four[30] because only the first four appear in the oldest copies and there is evidence that the last three were later additions.[31]

  • The first canon is an important dogmatic condemnation of all shades of Arianism, and also of Macedonianism and Apollinarianism.[30]
  • The second canon renewed the Nicene legislation imposing upon the bishops the observance of diocesan and patriarchal limits.[30]
  • The third canon reads:The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome because Constantinople is New Rome.[32][31][30]
  • The fourth canon decreed the consecration of Maximus as Bishop of Constantinople to be invalid, declaring "that [Maximus] neither was nor is a bishop, nor are they who have been ordained by him in any rank of the clergy".[30][33] This canon was directed not only against Maximus, but also against the Egyptian bishops who had conspired to consecrate him clandestinely at Constantinople, and against any subordinate ecclesiastics that he might have ordained in Egypt.[34]
  • The fifth canon might actually have been passed the next year, 382, and is in regard to a Tome of the Western bishops, perhaps that of Pope Damasus I.[30]
  • The sixth canon might belong to the year 382 as well and was subsequently passed at the Quinisext Council as canon 95. It limits the ability to accuse bishops of wrongdoing.[30]
  • The seventh canon regards procedures for receiving certain heretics into the church.[30]

Dispute concerning the third canon

The third canon was a first step in the rising importance of the new imperial capital, just fifty years old, and was notable in that it demoted the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. Jerusalem, as the site of the first church, retained its place of honor. It originally did not elicit controversy, as the Papal legate Paschasinus and a partisan of his, Diogenes of Cyzicus, reference the canon as being in force during the first session of the Council of Chalcedon.[35] According to Eusebius of Dorlyeum, another Papal ally during Chalcedon, "I myself read this very canon [Canon 3] to the most holy pope in Rome in the presence of the clerics of Constantinople and he accepted it."[36]

Nevertheless, controversy has ensued since then. The status of the canon became questioned after disputes over Canon 28 of the Council of Chalcedon erupted. Pope Leo the Great,[37] declared that this canon had never been submitted to Rome and that their lessened honor was a violation of the Nicene council order. Throughout the next several centuries, the Western Church asserted that the Bishop of Rome had supreme authority, and by the time of the Great Schism the Roman Catholic Church based its claim to supremacy on the succession of St. Peter. At the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869), the Roman legates[38] asserted the place of the bishop of Rome's honor over the bishop of Constantinople's. After the Great Schism of 1054, in 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council declared, in its fifth canon, that the Roman Church "by the will of God holds over all others pre-eminence of ordinary power as the mother and mistress of all the faithful".[39][40] Roman supremacy over the whole world was formally claimed by the new Latin patriarch. The Roman correctores of Gratian,[41] insert the words: "canon hic ex iis est quos apostolica Romana sedes a principio et longo post tempore non recipit" ("this canon is one of those that the Apostolic See of Rome has not accepted from the beginning and ever since").

Later on, Baronius asserted that the third canon was not authentic, not in fact decreed by the council. Contrarily, roughly contemporaneous Greeks maintained that it did not declare supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, but the primacy; "the first among equals", similar to how they today view the Bishop of Constantinople.

Aftermath

It has been asserted by many that a synod was held by Pope Damasus I in the following year (382) which opposed the disciplinary canons of the Council of Constantinople, especially the third canon which placed Constantinople above Alexandria and Antioch. The synod protested against this raising of the bishop of the new imperial capital, just fifty years old, to a status higher than that of the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and stated that the primacy of the Roman see had not been established by a gathering of bishops but rather by Christ himself.[42][43][44] Thomas Shahan says that, according to Photius too, Pope Damasus approved the council, but he adds that, if any part of the council were approved by this pope, it could have been only its revision of the Nicene Creed, as was the case also when Gregory the Great recognized it as one of the four general councils, but only in its dogmatic utterances.[45]

Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

Traditionally, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed has been associated with the Council of Constantinople (381). It is roughly theologically equivalent to the Nicene Creed, but includes two additional articles: an article on the Holy Spirit—describing Him as "the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, and Who spoke through the prophets"—and an article about the church, baptism, and the resurrection of the dead. (For the full text of both creeds, see Comparison between the Creed of 325 and the Creed of 381.)

However, scholars are not agreed on the connection between the Council of Constantinople and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Some modern scholars believe that this creed, or something close to it, was stated by the bishops at Constantinople, but not promulgated as an official act of the council. Scholars also dispute whether this creed was simply an expansion of the Creed of Nicaea, or whether it was an expansion of another traditional creed similar but not identical to the one from Nicaea.[46] In 451, the Council of Chalcedon referred to this creed as "the creed ... of the 150 saintly fathers assembled in Constantinople",[47] indicating that this creed was associated with Constantinople (381) no later than 451.

Christology

This council condemned Arianism which began to die out with further condemnations at a council of Aquileia by Ambrose of Milan in 381. With the discussion of Trinitarian doctrine now developed, the focus of discussion changed to Christology, which would be the topic of the Council of Ephesus of 431 and the Council of Chalcedon of 451.

Shift of influence from Rome to Constantinople

David Eastman cites the First Council of Constantinople as another example of the waning influence of Rome over the East. He notes that all three of the presiding bishops came from the East. Damasus had considered both Meletius and Gregory to be illegitimate bishops of their respective sees and yet, as Eastman and others point out, the Eastern bishops paid no heed to his opinions in this regard.[48]

The First Council of Constantinople (381) was the first appearance of the term 'New Rome' in connection to Constantinople. The term was employed as the grounds for giving the relatively young church of Constantinople precedence over Alexandria and Antioch ('because it is the New Rome'). Later, after the Council of Ephesus, influence would shift to Alexandria from both Rome and Constantinople, which prompted Rome to intervene with its Council of Chalcedon.[49]

Liturgical commemorations

The 150 individuals at the council are commemorated in the Calendar of saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church on February 17.

The Eastern Orthodox Church in some places (e.g. Russia) has a feast day for the Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils on the Sunday nearest to July 13[50] and on May 22.[51]

References

  1. 1.Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 42 — Gregory's farewell discourse recounting his ministry, council conflict, resignation, and defense of trinitarian faith
  2. 2.1913 Catholic Encyclopedia: First Council of Constantinople — Historical account of the convocation, presidents, creed, original canons, canon 3, and later ecumenical reception
  3. 3.Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, book V — Ancient narrative and documentary evidence for Theodosius, the council, and the eastern settlement
  4. 4.Catechism of the Catholic Church, 232–267 — Nicaea, Constantinople, the divine person of the Holy Spirit, procession, and the Catholic account of the Filioque
  5. 5.Saint John Paul II, A Concilio Constantinopolitano I — Apostolic letter for the anniversaries of Constantinople I and Ephesus on the Holy Spirit, the creed, Mary, and conciliar continuity
  6. 6.Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils — The creed, doctrinal material, and canons associated with Constantinople I; English text based on Norman Tanner's critical edition
  7. 7.Saint Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit — Fourth-century theological defense of the Spirit's divine dignity, common glory, and work of sanctification
  8. 8.Socrates Scholasticus, Church History, book 5, chapters 8 & 11, puts the council in the same year as the revolt of Magnus Maximus and death of Gratian.
  9. 9.Hebblewhite, M. (2020). Theodosius and the Limits of Empire. pp. 56ff.
  10. 10.Richard Kieckhefer (1989). "Papacy". Dictionary of the Middle Ages. ISBN 0-684-18275-0.
  11. 11."Catholic Encyclopedia: First Council of Constantinople". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
  12. 12.Ruether, Rosemary Radford (1969), Gregory of Nazianzus: Rhetor and Philosopher, Oxford University Press
  13. 13."Theodosius I | Biography, Accomplishments, Coin, & Facts | Britannica". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 2026-03-10. Retrieved 2026-03-21.
  14. 14."CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pneumatomachi". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
  15. 15.McGrath, Alister (1998). "The Patristic Period". Historical Theology, An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20843-7.
  16. 16."Antidicomarianites". Academic Dictionaries and Encyclopedias. Retrieved 2025-05-10.
  17. 17.McGuckin, p. 235
  18. 18.Onslow 1911 cites Socr. H. E. v. 7.
  19. 19.Alban Butler (May 2006). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints; Compiled from Original Monuments, and Other Authentic Records. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 280–. ISBN 978-1-4286-1025-5. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  20. 20.Onslow 1911.
  21. 21.The Church standard. Walter N. Hering. 1906. pp. 125–. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  22. 22.McGuckin p. 318
  23. 23.Venables 1911 cites Migne, Patrologia Latina xiii. pp. 366–369; Epp. 5, 5, 6.
  24. 24.Christopher Wordsworth (bp. of Lincoln.) (1882). A Church history. Rivingtons. pp. 312–. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  25. 25.Joseph Marie Felix Marique (1962). Leaders of Iberean Christianity, 50–650 A.D. St. Paul Editions. p. 59. Retrieved 23 October 2011.
  26. 26.Herbermann, Charles (1907). Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  27. 27.[27.2][27.3]McGuckin
  28. 28.[28.2]Lewis Ayres (3 May 2006). Nicaea and its legacy: an approach to fourth-century Trinitarian theology. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-875505-0. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  29. 29.PG, 37.1157–9, Carm. de vita sua, ll 1828–55.
  30. 30.[30.2][30.3][30.4][30.5][30.6][30.7][30.8]"NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils". Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2005-06-01. Archived from the original on 2006-06-15. Retrieved 2013-08-25.
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  32. 32."NPNF2-14. Canon III". Christian Classics Ethereal Library. 2005-06-01. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
  33. 33.Venables 1911 cites Philippe Labbe, Concilia, ii. 947, 954, 959.
  34. 34.Carl Ullmann (1851). Gregory of Nazianzum. Translated by Cox, G. V. pp. 241ff. Retrieved 21 October 2011.
  35. 35.Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon Vol 1, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, p. 159
  36. 36.Richard Price and Michael Gaddis, The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon Vol 3, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, p. 89
  37. 37.Ep. cvi in P.L., LIV, 1003, 1005.
  38. 38.J. D. Mansi, XVI, 174.
  39. 39.The Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215
  40. 40.J. D. Mansi, XXII, 991.
  41. 41.(1582), at dist. xxii, c. 3.
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