When we talk about ecumenical councils, we generally talk about the councils themselves, but it is also interesting to consider their aftermaths. For one reason, it quickly cures any notion that ecumenical councils provide clean and clear resolutions to disputes. For instance, some people seem to be surprised that Catholics are still working through the problems of the Second Vatican Council, with no definite end in sight; but in fact we shouldn't expect otherwise. I've previously noted that the Council of Constance, while solving the Western Schism, creates the conditions for almost all of the problems that we associate with the Renaissance papacy and the precedents it set are at least significant factors in why Protestants could not be reconciled much later. The Council of Constance also had the literally insane idea of governing the Church by an ecumenical council every ten years; given that the aftermath of an ecumenical council even under ideal circumstances takes longer than a decade to work through, the mind boggles at the chaos that such a plan would have caused if it had turned out to be even remotely practicable.
I've thought for a while of doing a series on the aftermaths of ecumenical councils. I don't think I'll be doing it like clockwork, but sporadically, at least, I'll put up posts on the subject, and see if I can get through all of them in a year or two. 'Aftermath' is vague, but a hundred years is a decent arbitrary number, and it allows for an artificial division into quarters that makes it easier to follow. My summaries will be rough, but I'll try to be as accurate as a non-expert can be.
First Nicaea (325)
First Quarter (325-350)
Athanasius was deposed by the First Synod of Tyre in 335 and as a result was exiled by Constantine until Constantine's death in 337.
Constantine was succeeded by his son Constantius II, with his sons Constantine II and Constans as co-emperors. Constans favored the Nicene position, but Constantius was sympathetic to Arianism and attempted to force the Nicenes to compromise. This was taken up by some bishops; in 341 a council was held at Antioch in order to dedicate a church built by Constantius; they produced what is known as the Dedication Creed or the Second Creed of Antioch. This was an attempt to push a compromise, avoiding the homoousios while slightly toning down some Arian statements. It was fairly successful in the near term; the serious defenders of Nicaea were split over whether it was orthodox or not, although opposition to it increased over time. The attempt to find a compromise position of this sort would heavily influence the course of the next half-century, leading to several varieties: Eunomianism, Homoianism, and so forth. Constantius, attempting to consolidate some version of compromise, convened the First Council of Sirmium in 347 to condemn particular vociferous opponents of Arianism.
Second Quarter (350-375)
In 350 Constantius became the sole emperor, and now had a much less hindered path to pushing his preferred compromises with Arianism. As a result, Arianism reached its high point in the Second Quarter of the aftermath of Nicaea. The Second Council of Sirmium in 351 drafted what is known as the Sixth Arian Confession. Athanasius was forced into exile yet again due to being condemned by the Council of Arles in 353 and a Council of Milan in 355. In 357, the Third Council of Sirmium drafted the Seventh Arian Confession, which St. Hilary would call the Blasphemy of Sirmium, claiming that homoousios and homoiousios were neither of them derived from Scripture and that the Father was greater than the Son. The Fourth Council of Sirmium in 358 drafted but did not formally proclaim a definition that said that the Son was like (homoios) the Father. The proposal of Fourth Sirmium, however, was furthered when Constantius called the Council of Ariminum (Rimini) in 359 and the Council of Selecuia in 360, and Arianism began spreading, as council after council was called to consolidate the position of Arian-Nicene compromises; the pagan Ammonius Marcellinus sarcastically noted that the highways seemed to be covered in bishops going to and from councils. Because of this, St. Jerome would say, "The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian." Pope Liberius rejected the Sirmian creed, and was deposed. A Fifth Council of Sirmium was held in 359 and produced another version of compromise creed, which later became known as the Dated Creed (because unlike most conciliar documents it gave its date). While not important in itself, it served as the basis for several other councils. The most notable of these was the Council of Nike, where Constantius would not let the bishops go home until they signed a slightly modified version of the Dated Creed. When the Creed of Nike was confirmed again by the Council of Constantinople of 360, it effectively became the official creed of the Empire. It would not stay so for long, because Constantius died in 361.
Constantius was succeeded by Julian the Apostate, who pushed for a pagan religion over both Nicene and Arian Christianity; Jovian, who had a brief reign after Julian's death, restored Christianity's status as a tolerated religion and returned Athanasius to his see, but while he himself supported Nicaea, he did nothing against the Arians in general, but restored churches they had lost under Julian. Valentinian I became emperor in 364 and, needing for political reasons a co-emperor, chose his brother Valens; neither was particularly devoted to theological positions, and Valentinian would carefully try to remain neutral, but Valens had been baptized by the Arians and supported the pre-Julian compromise positions.
Third Quarter (375-400)
It is only in the Third Quarter of the aftermath of First Nicaea that the Nicene position begins to consolidate and gain the clear upper hand over Arians and various proposed Nicene-Arian compromises. The turning point was Theodosius I coming to the throne in 379. He was strongly pro-Nicene, issuing the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 officially recognizing only Nicenes as Catholic Christians for purposes of law. His most significant move was to call the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which consolidated and confirmed Nicaea. As Theodosius continue to reign until 395, he had plenty of time to enforce it, and from then on the Roman Empire was Nicene. However, Arianism continued outside the Empire among the various Germannic and Gothic tribes. Most notably, the Visigoths converted to Arianism in 376.
Fourth Quarter (400-425)
During the Fourth Quarter, Nicene orthodoxy begins to dominate; the compromisers, given every opportunity to succeed, had failed to come to the kind of general agreement that would have been required to provide a real alternative to the Creed of Nicaea, and now that the political advantages had shifted to the Nicene camp, which had only become more coherent, unified, and organized over time, they were simply unable to compete. But other disputes were already heating up...
First Constantinople (381)
Macedonius I became Patriarch of Constantinople in 342 due to Constantius having deposed and exiled Paul, the previous patriarch; Macedonius was pro-Arian. For various reasons he fell out of favor and was removed himself, but after his removal, he seems to have begun a movement to reject the idea that the Holy Spirit was divine. The movement caught the attention of various sees, and after some discussion (the Nicene Creed said nothing about the Holy Spirit except, "We believe in the Holy Spirit"), various councils began to condemn, in part due to pushes by St. Athanasius and St. Basil. Theodosius called the First Council of Constantinople in 381 to deal with the issue; it condemned the Macedonians and (although it is a disputed matter, see below in the Fourth Quarter) seems to have given us the version of the Nicene Creed that became the standard one.
First Quarter (381-406)
Of all the early ecumenical councils, First Constantinople seems to have had the least contentious doctrinal reception; the heresy it condemned had been caught relatively early and before it could get a strong grip on any part of the Empire. In addition, the First Quarter of the aftermath of First Constantinople overlaps the Third Quarter of the aftermath of First Nicaea; Nicene orthodoxy was beginning its firm consolidation, and all the major Nicene Fathers considered support for the doctrine of First Constantinople to cohere with their broader concerns in defending Nicaea. But this broader defense created a number of other controversies, which would take up much more attention. There was one significant crack that serves as a sort of omen of later problems: one of the canons of First Constantinople gave the See of Constantinople status as second see after Rome, with the same privileges that Rome had been recognized as having 'by the Fathers' because it was 'the imperial city'. This was firmly rejected by both Rome and Alexandria, Rome because it saw itself as having its privileges for theological reasons rather than civil ones, and Alexandria because First Nicaea had explicitly made it the second see and it held that an upstart council could not overturn Nicaea's decision. This led to few immediate effects, but it is arguably a reason why Alexandria in particular began to play a much more aggressive strategy of ecclesiastical politics wherever Constantinople was concerned, which would lead eventually to a much bigger blow-out than anything to do with the Macedonians.
In 397, St. John Chrysostom became Patriarch of Constantinople. A brilliant speaker and pious man, he nonetheless was not a diplomatic person, and alienated many of his potential allies in the Imperial court by uncompromisingly condemning their lifestyles and engaging in clerical reforms that led the court to being flooded by complaints from the clergy. A crisis began to brew when Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, disciplined a group of monks for Origenism, which he had condemned in 401 at a local synod in Alexandria. They fled to Constantinople, where Chrysostom supported them. The monks begged the intervention of the Emperor, who summoned Theophilus to answer for himself. Theophilus came, making a slow leisurely way in which he gathered supporting allies -- not at all difficult for a clever politician preparing to face down an opponent who was notorious for making enemies. He arrived in Constantinople in 403, where he completely ignored Chrysostom's invitations to sit down and talk. Instead, at the Synod of the Oak, Theophilus smoothly managed to take charge of the council and have Chrysostom deposed. Chrysostom was exiled; St. Innocent I of Rome refused to recognize the deposition, which he considered an act of arrogance on the part of Alexandria, but Chrysostom would die in exile.
Second Quarter (406-431)
In 428, a man named Nestorius became Patriarch of Constantinople. A highly educated man who would later be mocked for his tendency to introduce pedantic distinctions, he had a few views, one of which was that strictly speaking, you could not say that the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary or that Mary bore God in her womb. St. Cyril of Alexandria rebuked him for this, and Nestorius tried to respond in a high-handed way, not understanding that Alexandrians were seasoned brawlers. Alexandria was a city literally famous for its endless disputations and rough-and-tumble, riot-heavy politics; nobody became Patriarch of Alexandria without being a forceful personality and a rather ruthless politician, and St. Cyril was not an exception.
Third Quarter (431-456)
The Council of Ephesus was called in 431 to deal with the controversy over Nestorius's claims. The Emperor Theodosius II actively supported Nestorius, and it is clear from how he attempted to organize it that the purpose the council had been to put Cyril in his place. But Nestorius was no match for Cyril either intellectually or in political acumen; Cyril did not merely show up to the council. He showed up having already received the authority to act on the behalf not just of Alexandria but also of Rome until the papal legates made it to the council; he showed up with a large number of Egyptian bishops, taking advantage of the fact that Alexandria had a large number of missionary bishops whose basic function was to look after scattered hermits and the like in the Egyptian desert and who could more easily attend a council than a typical diocesan bishop; and, with the Alexandrian talent for sudden improvised organizing, he moved very quickly. The Emperor's representative had been instructed not to convene the council until Nestorius and his allies had all arrived, but Cyril outmaneuvered him procedurally, tricking him into reading the convening letter aloud, so Nestorius arrived at the council to find it already going, his major allies not yet arrived, and himself already summoned to stand trial for heresy. What had been as a triumph for Constantinople had turned into a complete rout, handing the victory to Rome and Alexandria.
However, ever since the event of the exile of Chrysostom, cracks had repeatedly been showing in the Rome-Alexandria alliance; they did not quite see things the same way anymore, and Cyril's organization of a unified stance at Constantinople is at least as much a tribute to his diplomatic skill as to any lingering sympathies between the sees.
St. Cyril died in 444, and a new slate of controversies arose, this time around a priest in Constantinople named Eutyches. He had been a supporter of Cyril at Ephesus, and was a vehement anti-Nestorian. His exact position is difficult to determine, but he was interpreted as having taken Ephesus to have implied that Christ was both God and man in such a way that his divinity and humanity were blended together into a new nature. He was condemned for this at a synod in Constantinople in 448 under St. Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople. Eutyches found a supporter in Patriarch Dioscurus of Alexandria, and at their request, the Emperor Theodosius II convoked a new council in 449, the Second Council of Ephesus to resolve the matter at the level of an ecumenical council. Flavian was beaten by a bunch of Alexandrian monks, deposed and exiled, dying in exile shortly afterward from complications arising from his wounds. However, the Emperor happened also to die shortly afterward, and Pulcheria and Marcian came to power. They summoned a new council in 451, the Council of Chalcedon, which branded the Second Council of Ephesus a 'Robber Council' and deposed Eutyches, who was exiled. The Council of Chalcedon used a modified Creed that it attributed to First Constantinople. It's unclear how this version of the Creed arose; Chalcedon is the first council whose surviving works even mention it (Ephesus had used First Nicaea's version), and it seems clear that many of the people in attendance at the council had never even heard of it. However, it was in the archives at Constantinople. Whatever its origin, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is usually thought not to be a direct variant of the Nicene Creed but an independent baptismal creed that was reworked at some point to make it more like the Nicene Creed. Chalcedon's affirmation of the Creed, however, also consolidated First Constantinople's position as an ecumenical council.
Fourth Quarter (456-481)
Chalcedon created a sharp rift between Alexandria and other sees that people on both sides would then struggle to heal. They would largely fail, despite the attempts. Part of the issues were doctrinal, but part of them were political: for the first time in its struggle with Alexandria, Constantinople had the upper hand, and it was not ready to yield much of its advantage on any point, while on the Alexandrian side the idea of significant concession to Constantinople was equally difficult to bear. The crack that First Constantinople seems to have opened up between Alexandria and the other sees continued only to widen.
