The First Council of the Lateran was the 9th ecumenical council recognised by the Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Callixtus II in December 1122, immediately after the Concordat of Worms. The council sought to bring an end to the practice of the conferring of ecclesiastical benefices by people who were laymen, free the election of bishops and abbots from secular influence, clarify the separation of spiritual and temporal affairs, re-establish the principle that spiritual authority resides solely in the Church and abolish the claim of the Holy Roman Emperor to influence papal elections.
The Second Council of Constantinople is the fifth of the first seven ecumenical councils recognized by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. It is also recognized by the Old Catholics and others. Protestant opinions and recognition of it are varied. Some Protestants, such as Calvinists, recognize the first four councils, whereas Lutherans and most Anglo-Catholics accept all seven. Constantinople II was convoked by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I under the presidency of Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople. It was held from 5 May to 2 June 553. Participants were overwhelmingly Eastern bishops—only sixteen Western bishops were present, including nine from Illyricum and seven from Africa, but none from Italy—out of the 152 total.
The Second Council of the Lateran was the tenth ecumenical council recognized by the Catholic Church. It was convened by Pope Innocent II in April 1139 and attended by close to a thousand clerics. Its immediate task was to neutralise the after-effects of the schism which had arisen after the death of Pope Honorius II in 1130 and the papal election that year that established Pietro Pierleoni as the antipope Anacletus II.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the loss of clerical state is the removal of a bishop, priest, or deacon from the status of being a member of the clergy.
Clerical celibacy is the requirement in certain religions that some or all members of the clergy be unmarried. Clerical celibacy also requires abstention from deliberately indulging in sexual thoughts and behavior outside of marriage, because these impulses are regarded as sinful. Vows of celibacy are generally required for monks and nuns in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and other religions, but often not for other clergy.
In the medieval Roman Catholic church there were several Councils of Tours, that city being an old seat of Christianity, and considered fairly centrally located in France.
The Synod of Elvira was an ecclesiastical synod held at Elvira in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, now Granada in southern Spain. Its date has not been exactly determined but is believed to be in the first quarter of the fourth century, approximately 305–6. It was one of three councils, together with the Synod of Arles (314) and the Synod of Ancyra, that first approached the character of general councils and prepared the way for the first ecumenical council. It was attended by nineteen bishops and twenty-six presbyters, mostly resident in Baetica. Deacons and laymen were also present. Eighty-one canons are recorded, although it is believed that many were added at later dates. All concern order, discipline and conduct among the Christian community. Canon 36, forbidding the use of images in churches, became a bone of contention between Catholic and Protestant scholars after the Protestant Reformation.
In the Catholic Church, the Seal of Confession is the absolute duty of priests or anyone who happens to hear a confession not to disclose anything that they learn from penitents during the course of the Sacrament of Penance (confession). Even where the seal of confession does not strictly apply – where there is no specific serious sin confessed for the purpose of receiving absolution – priests have a serious obligation not to cause scandal by the way they speak.
The First Council of Orange was held in the diocese of Orange, then part of the Western Roman Empire, in 441. The meeting took place in a church called the ecclesia Justinianensis, under the presidency of Bishop Hilary of Arles. Seventeen bishops attended the meeting, among them Bishop Eucherius of Lyons.
The Councils of Carthage were church synods held during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries in the city of Carthage in Africa. The most important of these are described below.
A penitential is a book or set of church rules concerning the Christian sacrament of penance, a "new manner of reconciliation with God" that was first developed by Celtic monks in Ireland in the sixth century AD. It consisted of a list of sins and the appropriate penances prescribed for them, and served as a type of manual for confessors.
The Council of Agde was a regional synod held in September 506 at Agatha or Agde, on the Mediterranean coast east of Narbonne, in the Septimania region of the Visigothic Kingdom, with the permission of the Visigothic King Alaric II.
Paphnutius of Thebes, also known as Paphnutius the Confessor, was a dubiously historical early Christian figure, said to be a disciple of Anthony the Great and a bishop of a city in the Upper Thebaid in the early fourth century. He is accounted by some as a prominent member of the First Council of Nicaea which took place in 325. Neither the name of his see nor the precise date of his death are known.
The Second Council of Toledo was held by 8 bishops of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in the city of Toledo in 527 or 531, under the presidency of Montanus (Montà), the metropolitan bishop of Toledo. The chief issue with which the synod dealt was Arianism. This council was the first in which Toledo was identified as a metropolitan see. Five new canons were decreed.
Lay communion is a term applied in the Catholic Church, to describe the status of a cleric who is in communion with the Church, but only with the standing of a lay person. In modern times lay communion is sometimes imposed, but only in exceptional cases.
In the canon law of the Catholic Church, excommunication is a form of censure. In the formal sense of the term, excommunication includes being barred not only from the sacraments but also from the fellowship of Christian baptism. The principal and severest censure, excommunication presupposes guilt; and being the most serious penalty that the Catholic Church can inflict, it supposes a grave offense. The excommunicated person is considered by Catholic ecclesiastical authority as an exile from the Church, for a time at least.
In Christianity, Church councils are formal meetings of bishops and representatives of several churches who are brought together to regulate points of doctrine or discipline. The meetings may be of a single ecclesiastical community or may involve an ecclesiastical province, a nation or other civil region, or the whole Church. Some of those convoked from the Church as a whole have been recognized as ecumenical councils and are considered particularly authoritative. The first ecumenical council is that of Nicaea, called by the Emperor Constantine in 325.
The Synod of Rome (721) was a synod held in St. Peter’s Basilica under the authority of Pope Gregory II to establish canons to improve church discipline.
The Council of Toledo of 447 was the second Council of Toledo. It was a national council held against the Priscillianists, as called for by Pope Leo I. Nineteen bishops participated in the council, which condemned the heresy and the followers of Priscillian and affirmed the earlier First Council of Toledo, on which its Creed is based. It gave a profession of faith against all heretics with 18 anathemas attached against the doctrines of Priscillian. The council is notable for its successful subduing of Priscillianism, expressing a definition of dyophysitism before the Council of Chalcedon, its affirmation of the First Council of Toledo, and being the first known western council to include the "filioque" in its creed, following in the doctrine from Pope Leo I.
