At long last I have completed the entry for the 4th Œcumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon. It took a year of hard but rewarding work. This takes me part way through the christological controversy that troubled the church for over a century, from the 3rd Œcumenical Council, held at Ephesus in 431, to the 5th Council, held at Constantinople in 553. Studying the controversy has deepened my knowledge of my Christian faith. It has also impressed me with the learning, piety and courage of the church fathers, in particular of that towering figure, St Cyril of Alexandria.
This July is the 1700th anniversary of the 1st Œcumenical Council, the Council of Nicæa. The fathers of the Council of Chalcedon witnessed that the Nicene faith cannot be added to or subtracted from. One of the decrees of Nicæa concerned the feast of Great and Holy Pascha, that all the churches should celebrate it on the same day. Sadly, this has not been the case for many centuries. However, the impending anniversary has encouraged discussion of the date of Easter between the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Francis. This year, both the western and eastern churches celebrate it on the same day, 20 April, as happens about one year in four.
Of course it gives the journalists the opportunity to repeat the usual misapprehensions about the date of Easter, for example, that the difference in dates has something to do with the difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, which it does not. And the National Catholic Reporter on 27 January 2025 stated that ‘[the Nicene] Council decided … [that Easter should be celebrated] on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox,’ which it certainly did not do.
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