Article XXI: Of the Authority of General Councils

General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.

How may the Church, or a church, express its authority – the principles we have seen put forward in Article XX? In the history of the Christianity, the concept of a ‘General’ Council has had a great appeal as a response to this very question. In the Reformation period the possibility of summoning such a Council to resolve the crisis was debated. In the end, Pope Paul VII called the Council of Trent in 1545 – but didn’t invite the Reformers.

The word ‘General’ in this context means ‘universal’. The vocabulary which is sometimes used is ‘ecumenical’. That is: if a council is properly a ‘General’ Council - and to accrue to itself the authority that this name implies - the whole Church is to be represented.

The biblical model for meeting as a council is found in Acts 15, at the Council of Jerusalem, where the apostles met to discuss the acceptance of the Gentiles into the new faith. Notably, the council met to clarify and respond to a new state of affairs – the conversion of the Gentiles – rather than to create such a state. There was discussion, which was vigorous, and a decision handed down – which itself was a kind of compromise.

Those councils that are called ‘General’ or ‘Ecumenical’ occurred much later than this. The number of councils which may rightly hold this title, and bear this authority, varies between the different traditions. There is, however, broad consensus about the first six of these: Nicea (325), Constantinople I (381), Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), Constantinople II (553), and Constantinople III (680). At these meetings the great statements and creeds of Christian doctrine were hammered out, and the great heresies – Arianism, Nestorianism and so on - were repelled.

The Article insists that only secular Princes can summon a General Council. In the context of the Reformation, it is possible to see why this was thought a necessary statement to append to the Article as a way of limiting Papal authority, and of ensuring lay involvement. But it is hard to see how it may be justified theologically. Certainly, this was the pattern of the six Ecumenical councils, all of which were called by Emperors.

In any case, the Article is suspicious of appeals to the authority of General Councils as an absolute foundation for theological understanding. No council could ever claim inerrant status. Though the Article is thin on particulars, it is confident that even these great Councils of the church have not produced infallible rulings. These words of Gregory of Nazianzen were included in a statement that Archbishop Cranmer himself signed in 1536:
If I must write the truth, I am disposed to avoid every assembly of bishops; for of no synod have I seen a profitable end; rather an addition to, than a diminution of, evils; for the love of strife and the thirst for superiority are beyond the power of words to express.
It is quite clear from the history of the Councils that, despite their wonderful achievements, they were often bitter power struggles conducted with threats of force and the practice of skulduggery. All the members of the councils, it was quite obvious, were not ‘governed with the Spirit and Word of God’.

It is not merely the particulars of history that matter here, however; the Article is in principle pointing to the fact that the rulings even of General Councils are themselves only authoritative insofar as they are subject to holy Scripture. Their rulings have no independent authority; neither does their authority consist in the status of the participants, whether popes, bishops or princes. Though the clarifications and articulations of the councils may indeed gain status as authoritative expressions of the Church’s reading of Scripture, it is only in this derivative sense authoritative.

It would indeed be an extraordinary thing if a new Ecumenical Council were to be called today. But even then, the Article asserts, its decisions would not be infallible and would be subject to Scripture rather than to a show of hands.