Truth Unites - Did Emperors Actually Run the 7 Ecumenical Councils?

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Gavin Ortlund explains the role of the Roman Emperor in the early ecumenical councils of church history.Videos Mentioned: The Papacy in the 3rd to 7th Centuries: Protestant Critique: https://youtu.be/iUROLXJbkR8?si=guWqSbRDMcZAUlM1Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

In the early church, Roman emperors played a significant role in the ecumenical councils. Some people are surprised how much this is the case. Generally speaking, leaving room for some qualification that will work through, Roman emperors convoked or summoned or called together, ecumenical councils. They funded and organized them. They presided over the procedures, sometimes through representatives. We'll talk through that one at great length. They enforced the decisions legally.

And sometimes they influenced or pressured outcomes. sometimes pretty tight control. We'll give some examples. I looked back into this topic more thoroughly this past week because there was a little flare-up on X where I had made a passing remark about emperors presiding over the seven ecumenical councils. And Joshua Charles quoted this and declared this to be a kind of ridiculous error. And he was questioning my honesty and calling me an internet troll and things like this. But what I said is correct. And as much as I don't like getting in the back, I don't like the online culture of, you know, who's owning who and this kind of thing. I'd much rather have open-hearted conversations with good-faith people, and there's so many

good-faith Catholics, even those who criticize me, some great people. But sometimes what I'm kind of learning is people watching can be swayed if you don't respond to these, because they're said so aggressively. So even though this is plainly incorrect, and what I said is the standard way of summarizing the data, let's work through that. What I thought I'd do is, you know, wait a few days and then just work through the data and just show people. You know, this is an important topic, and sometimes people can benefit from just seeing the facts. So not to prolong something, but for clarity for onlookers who may be swayed by this wondering, well, is that true?

Yes, Roman emperors presided over the early ecumenical councils. That is absolutely the case. What I said is correct. And let's just work through this. And I think people will be helped to see the results here, the details of walking this through. Francis Dvornik is an older Catholic priest and scholar. He taught at Harvard for several centuries, several decades, I meant to say. He looks old.

He's not that old. And he wrote a definitive article on this whole topic back in the mid-20th century. The scholarship's kind of moved on from him a little bit, but nonetheless, this is a helpful starting point. He starts off the article saying, the role played by the emperor in the first decommical councils is a question of greatest importance, all available documentary evidence shows that the convocation of the first ecumenical councils was made, not by the popes or bishops, but by the emperor himself. The emperors, or their assistants,

presided at synods, directed the debates at meetings, and confirmed the decisions made by the assemblies. By the way, we're going to get into why this is so important and why this matters ecclesially for our relation to church history at the end of the video. Note those words, though, or their assistance. That is one key reason why, we need to be careful. This does get tricky, and this is why I offered on X the terminological concession to say maybe we should use the word oversee, because that's a more general word. The word preside is accurate, but it's ambiguous, because some people can hear that as saying, it's thinking, well, the emperor is always personally running all the meetings,

and that did not happen at every ecumenical council. Nonetheless, the word preside is also fine, and that's a standard way to put it. The presidency of the emperor, you'll read about this if you get into the literature on this topic. Here's how the great Protestant church historian, Philip Schaff, puts it, to this presidency of the emperor or of his commissioners, the acts of the councils and the Greek historians often refer. Even Pope Stephen V, writes that Constantine the Great presided in the Council of Nicaea. That's a 9th century pope he's referencing there. But we need to, let's kind of work through this. We'll look at Nicaia and we'll look at the first several councils, just kind of looking at some of the nuances, because this does get tricky. With Nicaa in 325, this

This is important to start here because this council really became the model for subsequent councils that later councils then look back to. And here you have Emperor Constantine convoking the council. He paid for the bishop's travel and lodging. He opened the council with a speech. He chaired at least some of the proceedings and participated in the various discussions. And afterward, he enforced exile on dissenters. And so it's commonly stated that he presided over this council.

you'll find this language a lot, like here in the Encyclopedia, Britannica, in their entry on the Council of Nicaa, presided over the opening session and took part in the discussions as the language there. De Vornic notes that the proceedings at Nicaea are actually modeled after the Roman Senate. Quote, the emperor convoked the bishops as he convoked the senators presided at sessions of the council as he presided at the Senate. And after making Relatio called upon the members to state their point of view, the word Relatio there, refers to making a motion in the Senate, and then the subsequent phrase there is used for asking for opinions or taking votes in the Senate proceeding. That's how that Roman Senate would function. However, we need to be careful about Nicaa 1 because, and this is what the more recent scholarship talks about Nicaa 1, is that we don't have as much information about Nicaa 1 in terms of the

moment by moment unfolding from one session to another as we do at later councils like Kelsenon, the fourth ecumenical council. Richard Price notes, it used to be common to attribute the presidency at the Council of Nicaea to either the Emperor Constantine or Osius of Corduba. That's one of the more important bishops there. Though more recent studies admit that we have no real information on the identity of the chairman or chairman. So he's saying, you know, he's saying we don't know exactly how it's unfolding. And that's why I offered this more general term of oversee rather than presided. So because, and so he's just stepping back a bit because saying we don't know all the details.

but we can summarize it like this. Imperial presidency is true in the sense that the emperors oversaw the meetings, even if there's uncertainty or variation in terms of personal chairing of discussions. So that's what when you hear talk about the presidency of the emperor, that's what we're talking about, this imperial oversight. But, you know, you also do have emperors making their own personal and direct theological contributions. The emperors are not voting members, but sometimes they do steer things, theologically. And even at Nicaea 1, the early church historian Eusebius claims that the inclusion of the word

homo-usian was advised by Emperor Constantine. You can see what I've emboldened here in this quote, that the emperor advised all present to agree to it and to subscribe to its articles and to assent to them with the insertion of the single word, Homo Ucian, and then it gives his own interpretation and understanding of that. What DeVornec does is go through Constantine's letters to gather a sense of his own self-perception, and it's astonishingly high. Emperor Constantine construed himself to be the representative of God on earth. And so he claimed a kind of domain over both civil and ecclesiastical matters.

You can see on screen how Dvornec puts that. And this is significant because subsequent counsels then look to Nicaea 1 as a blueprint. Now, there's variation, okay? So there's imperial presidency in the sense of there's always imperial oversight of the councils, the seven ecumenical councils. That's constant. So that's just flatly correct. What I said is correct, you know.

And that's why I just want people to be clear about that. But the expression of that varies. Sometimes, for example, it's through representatives. Theodosius I still oversaw Constantinople 381, second ecumenical council. But this is arguably a little different. he had arguably less direct influence, and he'd already legislated Nicene Orthodoxy before the council began. And then leading up to that, there had been such struggle throughout the fourth century, and it was

contested. What are the exact roles of the emperor versus various church authorities and so on and so forth? Nonetheless, the basic role of the emperor really isn't in that much dispute. Dvornick discusses the disputes and then says, in spite of the bitterness, which this first conflict must have left in the minds of many bishops, there was no great change. in the general appreciation of the emperor's leading role in the church. So you can see, for example, the 150 bishops of the 381 council writing a letter to Theodosius after, saying, having rendered to God, thanks due to him, we must lay before your piety what has been decided in this holy council.

We therefore ask your clemency that a letter of your piety should ratify the decrees of this council as you honored the church by your letter of complications, so also lend your authority to our decisions. So this is like anything in history, you know, you get into the details of it and you see there's lots of nuance. But the big picture here of imperial presidency, imperial oversight, which is a significant role, is not really in dispute. Now, Ephesus in 431, Ecumenical Council number three, is really messy because Emperor Theodosius II worked through an imperial commissioner whose role was not to make theological contributions, but to oversee the proceedings, but things sort of got out of control. So Cyril of Alexandria opened the council before the Antiochene bishops

arrived, and then when they got there, they were furious and had their own counter-counsel. Nonetheless, both sides are appealing to imperial ratification, because it's that that determines which counsel's acts would have legal force in the empire. And Emperor Theodosius, the same, second sort of vacillates on this a bit, trying to determine which one is legitimate. He actually imprisoned bishops from both sides at points, but he eventually sided with the Cyrillian side. The Council of Calcedon in 451, arguably had the most direct imperial control, at least of these first four ecumenical councils. Emperor Marcian convoked the council, and then imperial commissioners presided and exercised tight procedural control. The only exception to that would be

session three. But basically, the imperial commissioners are determining who speaks. They're requiring concise speech, and they're steering the council toward overturning Ephesus II, the robber council of two years prior in 449. And so you can read through the acts of Calcedon and just see the imperial officials kind of strictly managing the floor. And this is interesting because here it is that Pope Leo I first has such a significant role. Nonetheless, Dvornik describes the role of the Roman bishop at this council as kind of like a speaker of the house, and then he notes the leading of the debates remained imperial prerogatives, and that's not exceptional. I quote from Dvornick a lot. I really kind of like his writing, but Henry Chadwick says the same thing about Calcedon.

John Mayendorf says the same thing. Richard Price. Many other historians say the same thing. This is not really in dispute. George Bevin has a good overview of these first four sessions at Calcedon, and you can see this longer text on screen. He talks about session three is an exception, but because the Roman Legates lead that session, nonetheless, other than that, Calcedon is presided over and run by the imperial commissioners. Here's how Philip Schaff puts it, in the Council of Calcedon in 451, the papal influences for the first time decidedly prominent, but even there. It appears in virtual subordination to the higher authority of the council, which did not suffer itself to be disturbed by the protest of Leo against his 28th canon in reference to the rank of the patriarch of

Constantinople. He's talking about the imperial authority there. And I have more on that particular canon that Shaft just referenced in this video on screen if you're interested in that. Pope Leo himself recognized the emperor's role with respect to both the civil and religious realms. on a 457 letter to Emperor Leo. He wrote, for example, royal power has been bestowed on you, not merely to rule the world, but chiefly to protect the church.

And this was a common way of thinking. Dvorne goes again through Pope Leo's letters, and he even suggests that Pope Leo believed in a kind of imperial infallibility because he evils this language about how the Holy Spirit protects the emperor from error in certain contexts and so forth. I was shocked by that sentence

from Dvornik. I don't know what to make of that myself. That's interesting. After Calcedon, you see even stronger forms of what some historians will call Cesaropapism, where the role of the emperor takes on a new kind of supremacy in various ways. And so you'll find more language about emperors as inspired by the Holy Spirit, along with all these exalted titles like Equal of the Apostles, Light of Orthodoxy, co-worker with God, guardian of the truth, all this kind of exalted language for the emperor in his role in the church as well as in the state. And during this time, you've got emperors giving theological edicts, exiling popes like Pope Martin I. And then the ecumenical councils during this time, numbers five, six, and seven have heavy imperial management.

Nicaea, too, for example, was basically an Empress Irene show. The council's proceedings and outcome are strictly determined by imperial pressure. And that's pretty much universally acknowledged. I don't think anybody really questions that, even if the ecumenical patriarch, Thereseus of Constantinople is sort of formally leading meetings. Nonetheless, here's how Richard Price puts it. The council was strictly controlled with the bishops acting the part that had been assigned to them. Again, Richard Price is not alone. So often this happens where I'm simply summarizing something that everybody says

and everybody sees in the scholarship and then people react really strongly to it. That's why I'm laying this all out in a video. to help onlookers realize, oh, what Gavin said is basically just correct, and you can just be settled in your view of that. So you can see why the language of the presidency of the emperor is standard in the literature. Again, the issue here, the only issue, the only qualification is just that whoever's hearing you say that won't misunderstand the presiding word. The nature of the presiding varied. It wasn't always, you know, direct managerial control over the proceedings. Sometimes it's through a delegate, and sometimes it's more of a hands-off approach, but he's still overseeing it,

convoking it, overseeing, ratifying, et cetera. So that's what you have to bear in mind when we speak of the presidency of the emperor. Okay, so why does all this matter? Well, it's a great example of the point that I was making in my initial video on Protestantism and church history about being honest about the changes that take place in church history and the impossibility of maintaining the same informal procedural methods from one time and place to another. And so, you know, because these changes happen to the most fundamental workings of the church, like ecumenical councils, and the appeal is we've got to be honest with these historical facts. And then we've got to find a way to just, basically we need a theory of ecclesial transmission, the movement of the true church from one

context to another, where we can account for that. And so what that forces you to get into is to distinguish between what's essential to the church and what's accidental to the church. And the point about the role of the Roman Empire is that things can be very significant in the church while still being accidental to her very essence. So, and I've said more about that in that video. So that's it, really? Now, this is not the first time and it certainly won't be the last time where someone seizes on something that I say and tries to sort of blow it up as this major error when it's actually fairly standard. But in this case, it's good because it just gives us a chance to drill into this

and work through some of the facts and kind of lay things out. And hopefully the goal here is just that onlookers who are curious about this, have a little more information about the significant role of the emperor in these early councils. All right, thanks for watching, everybody.