Councils & Creeds: How Christian Doctrine Was Defined
The Bible states that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Holy Spirit is God's own presence, but it never lays out, in one place and in technical terms, exactly how Father, Son, and Spirit relate to one another (see the Trinity and the Holy Spirit), or exactly how divine and human coexist in Christ (see Christology). Those precise formulations — the vocabulary most churches now treat as basic Christian orthodoxy — were worked out over four centuries of often-bitter dispute, at a series of councils convened, in this early period, by Roman emperors trying to hold a fracturing empire together as much as by bishops settling doctrine. The timeline below covers the seven councils historically recognized as “ecumenical” (universal) by both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition, alongside the parallel, less centralized development of the Apostles' Creed and the Western addition that still divides East and West today.
Seven Councils, Two Creeds, One Schism — AD 150 to 1054
Diamonds mark single dates; bars mark spans or ranges spread across sessions.
Worth Knowing, Event by Event
What each council or event actually decided, and why — also available by hovering any mark above.
Apostles' Creed takes shape (AD 150–750) — Grew from a short 2nd-century baptismal formula (the “Old Roman Creed”) to the fixed text used today; not written by the apostles themselves despite the name, and not a product of any single council.
Council of Nicaea I (AD 325) — Condemned Arius's teaching that the Son was a created being, not eternally divine. Produced the original Nicene Creed, including the word homoousios (“of the same substance” as the Father) — chosen specifically because vaguer, purely biblical language was already being read both ways by both sides.
Council of Constantinople I (AD 381) — Expanded the Nicene Creed into the form still recited today, adding language on the Holy Spirit's full divinity against the Pneumatomachi (who accepted the Son's divinity but not the Spirit's), and condemned Apollinarianism (Christ having a divine mind but no real human one).
Council of Ephesus (AD 431) — Condemned Nestorius's teaching that Christ's divine and human natures were distinct enough to amount to two loosely joined persons rather than one. Affirmed Mary as Theotokos (“God-bearer”) — primarily to protect the unity of Christ's person, though the title became foundational to later Marian devotion.
Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) — Defined Christ as one person in two natures, divine and human, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” This is the council where the Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian) parted ways with Rome and Constantinople, rejecting its two-nature formula for their own Miaphysite christology.
Third Council of Toledo (Filioque) (AD 589) — A regional Spanish council, not ecumenical, added “and the Son” (filioque) to the Latin West's Creed, describing the Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son rather than the Father alone. The East never accepted this unilateral change to a text set by an ecumenical council.
Council of Constantinople II (AD 553) — Condemned writings associated with Nestorianism (the “Three Chapters” controversy) in an attempt to reconcile with Miaphysite churches after Chalcedon — an attempt that largely failed.
Council of Constantinople III (AD 680–681) — Condemned Monothelitism (that Christ had only one, divine, will) in favor of two wills, divine and human, acting in perfect harmony rather than conflict.
Council of Nicaea II (AD 787) — Restored the veneration of icons after the Iconoclast controversy, distinguishing veneration given to icons from the worship due to God alone. Accepted in Catholic and Orthodox tradition; rejected or viewed with suspicion by most Protestant traditions.
East-West (Great) Schism (AD 1054) — Mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople formalized a split that had been widening for centuries — the filioque wording above was one standing point of contention among several, alongside authority, liturgy, and politics.
Which Tradition Accepts Which Council?
No single body of Christians accepts every council on this page as binding. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches agree on the same seven ecumenical councils through Nicaea II (787) — their later split came from other causes, not disagreement over these — while the Oriental Orthodox communion split off earlier, at Chalcedon (451) itself, and doesn't recognize anything decided afterward as ecumenical at all. Protestant traditions, having no single teaching authority, vary among themselves, but broadly treat the first four councils (through Chalcedon) as authoritative summaries of what Scripture already teaches about the Trinity and Christ's two natures, without granting any council the independent, binding authority Catholic and Orthodox theology gives it.
| Council | Catholic | Eastern Orthodox | Oriental Orthodox | Protestant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicaea I (325) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Constantinople I (381) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ephesus (431) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Chalcedon (451) | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
| Constantinople II (553) | Yes | Yes | — | Mixed |
| Constantinople III (680–681) | Yes | Yes | — | Mixed |
| Nicaea II (787) | Yes | Yes | — | — |
The Creeds Themselves
The Apostles' Creed is the oldest of the three quoted here in structure, though its final wording is later than the Nicene Creed's. It was never produced by a single council, growing instead from a short baptismal formula used in the church at Rome by around the 2nd century into the fixed text below, standardized across the Latin West by roughly the 8th century. It remains the most widely memorized creed in Western Christianity, Catholic and Protestant alike, and is essentially unused in Eastern Orthodox liturgy, which uses the Nicene Creed instead.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
The Nicene Creed below is technically the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed — the 325 original, produced against Arius, was considerably shorter; the fuller text below is what Constantinople I approved in 381 and what almost every liturgical church still recites today. The bracketed “and the Son” is the Filioque: present in most Western (Catholic and Protestant) versions since the early medieval period, absent from the text as the 381 council actually approved it, and still rejected by Eastern Orthodox churches as an addition no single regional council or later pope had the standing to make to a text an ecumenical council had already fixed.
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son], who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. And we believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
The Chalcedonian Definition (451) is longer and more technical than the other two, written specifically to rule out two rival ways of describing Christ's divine and human natures — Nestorianism (treating them as two separate persons) and Eutychianism (collapsing them into one blended nature). Its most quoted line is this:
…one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence…
Those four adverbs — without confusion, without change, without division, without separation — are doing all the work: each rules out one way theologians on various sides had proposed to simplify the relationship between Christ's two natures, without the definition itself explaining how the resulting paradox holds together. That's arguably the point: Chalcedon set the boundaries of acceptable language about Christ without claiming to fully resolve the mystery inside them.
Sources & Further Reading
- Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes, Vol. I–II (1877) — creed texts and translations quoted above
- J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. (1972)
- Leo Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787): Their History and Theology (1990)
- W.H.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (1972) — on the post-Chalcedon Oriental Orthodox split
- Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church (2003) — on the Filioque and the Great Schism