The Ecumenical Councils

The ecumenical councils — Nicaea I (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680–681), and Nicaea II (787) — gathered bishops from across the different churches of the early Christian world to settle disputes over the Trinity and the person of Christ.

Their creeds and definitions remain the common inheritance of Lutheran, Orthodox, and Catholic churches alike, even where those churches later divided over other questions.