Editing Ecumenical council (section)

===Protestantism===
====Lutheran Churches====
The [[Lutheran World Federation]], in [[ecumenism|ecumenical]] dialogues with the [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople]], has affirmed all of the first seven councils as ecumenical and authoritative. It teaches:
{{blockquote|Both Orthodox and Lutherans affirm that apostolic authority was exercised in the ecumenical councils of the Church in which the bishops, through illumination and glorification brought about by the Holy Spirit, exercised responsibility. Ecumenical councils are a special gift of God to the Church and are an authoritative inheritance through the ages. Through ecumenical councils the Holy Spirit has led the Church to preserve and transmit the faith once delivered to the saints. They handed on the prophetic and apostolic truth, formulated it against heresies of their time and safeguarded the unity of the churches.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Ecumenical Councils and the Authority in and of the Church |url=https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/1993-Lutheran_Orthodox_Dialogue-EN.pdf |publisher=[[Lutheran World Federation]] |access-date=9 March 2021 |language=English |date=10 July 1993 |archive-date=9 October 2022 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/1993-Lutheran_Orthodox_Dialogue-EN.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

====Anglican Communion====
Article XXI of the [[Thirty-nine Articles of Religion]] of Anglicanism teaches: "General Councils ... 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 sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to 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."<ref>''An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles V2: Historical And Doctrinal'' by Edward Harold Browne.</ref>

The 19th Canon of 1571 asserted the authority of the Councils in this manner: "Let preachers take care that they never teach anything ... except what is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected from the same doctrine."<ref>''The Sufficiency of Holy Scripture as the Rule of Faith'' by [[Daniel Wilson (bishop)|Daniel Wilson]], [[Anglican Diocese of Calcutta|Anglican Bishop of Calcutta]].</ref> This remains the [[Church of England]]'s teaching on the subject. A modern version of this appeal to catholic consensus is found in the Canon Law of the Church of England and also in the liturgy published in ''[[Common Worship]]'':

{{blockquote|The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, ''The Book of Common Prayer'' and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

I, AB, do so affirm, and accordingly declare my belief in the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness; and in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon.<ref>See ''Common Worship'' {{ISBN|0-7151-2000-X}}</ref>|}}

The 1559 [[Act of Supremacy 1558|Act of Supremacy]] made a distinction between the decisions of the [[First seven ecumenical councils|first four ecumenical councils]], which were to be used as sufficient proof that something was [[heresy]], as opposed to those of later councils, which could only be used to that purpose if "the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the ... canonical Scriptures".<ref>G. R. Elton (ed.), The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1960), p. 368. Via Dr Colin Podmore, "Blessed Virgin: Mary and the Anglican Tradition", [https://www.forwardinfaith.com/uploads/Blessed_Virgin_-_Assumptiontide_Lecture_PRINT_2.pdf  p. 15, note 12] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412003938/https://www.forwardinfaith.com/uploads/Blessed_Virgin_-_Assumptiontide_Lecture_PRINT_2.pdf |date=12 April 2021 }}, Assumptiontide Lecture 2014, St Mary and All Saints, Walsingham</ref> As such, the Anglican tradition accepts the first four ecumenical councils, though they "considered subordinate to Scripture".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Olson |first1=Roger E. |title=The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition Reform |date=1 April 1999 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |isbn=978-0-8308-1505-0 |page=158 |language=English|quote=The magisterial Protestant denominations such as major Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican (Church of England, Episcopalian) denominations recognize only the first four as having any special authority, and even they are considered subordinate to Scripture.}}</ref>

While the Councils are part of the "historic formularies" of [[Anglicanism|Anglican]] tradition,<ref>For additional references to this section and for more on the Anglican position, see Dr CB Moss [http://anglicanhistory.org/cbmoss/seventh.pdf ''The Church of England and the Seventh Council''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081205020233/http://anglicanhistory.org/cbmoss/seventh.pdf |date=5 December 2008 }}</ref> it is difficult to locate an explicit reference in Anglicanism to the unconditional acceptance of all Seven Ecumenical Councils. There is little evidence of dogmatic or canonical acceptance beyond the statements of individual Anglican theologians and bishops. Anglican cleric of Anglo-Catholic churchmanship Bishop Chandler Holder Jones, [[Society of the Holy Cross|SSC]], explains:

{{blockquote|We indeed and absolutely believe all Seven Councils are truly ecumenical and Catholic—on the basis of the received Tradition of the ancient Undivided Church of East and West. The Anglican formularies address only particular critical theological and disciplinary concerns of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that certainly by design. Behind them, however, stands the universal authority of the Holy and Apostolic Tradition, which did not have to be rehashed or redebated by Anglican Catholics.<ref name=CHJ>[http://philorthodox.blogspot.com/2008/10/seven-ecumenical-councils-in.html The Seven Ecumenical Councils in Anglicanism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110916060450/http://philorthodox.blogspot.com/2008/10/seven-ecumenical-councils-in.html |date=16 September 2011 }}. Philorthodox.blogspot.com (27 October 2008). Retrieved on 2012-05-15.</ref>|sign=|source=}}

He quotes William Tighe, Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, (another member of the Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism):
{{blockquote|...despite the fact that advocates of all sides to the 16th-century religious conflict, Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed alike, were given to claiming that their particular doctrinal stances and, in some cases, distinctive practices, were in accord with those of the Early Church Fathers, or at least with those of high standing (such as St. Augustine), none [but Anglicanism] were willing to require, or even permit, their confessional stances to be judged by, or subordinated to, a hypothetical "patristic consensus" of the first four or five centuries of Christianity. But Anglicanism most certainly did, and does so to this day.<ref name=CHJ/>|title=|source=}}

====Methodist Churches====
Methodist theologian Charles W. Brockwell Jr wrote that the first "four ecumenical councils produced and clarified the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Symbol (Nicene Creed), the most important document in Christian history after the Bible itself."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brockwell |first1=Charles W. Jr. |title=The United Methodist Church as a Connectional Covenant Community |url=https://oimts.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/2002-8-brockwell.pdf |publisher=Oxford Institute |access-date=9 March 2021 |page=10 |language=English |date=2002 |archive-date=25 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925105620/https://oimts.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/2002-8-brockwell.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Manual of the [[Church of the Nazarene]], part of the Wesleyan-Holiness movement within Methodism, states "Our denomination receives the creeds of the first five Christian centuries as expressions of its own faith," including the Christological doctrines formulated during the first four Ecumenical Councils.<ref>{{cite web |title="Historical Statement" Manual, 2017-2021 |url=https://2017.manual.nazarene.org/front_matter/historical-statement/ |publisher=Church of the Nazarene |access-date=2 June 2022 |archive-date=16 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316065243/https://2017.manual.nazarene.org/front_matter/historical-statement/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Other Protestant denominations====
Some, including some [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Christians]], condemn the ecumenical councils for other reasons. Independency or [[congregationalist polity]] among Protestants may involve the rejection of any governmental structure or binding authority above local congregations; conformity to the decisions of these councils is therefore considered purely voluntary and the councils are to be considered binding only insofar as those doctrines are derived from the Scriptures. Many of these churches reject the idea that anyone other than the authors of Scripture can directly lead other Christians by original divine authority; after the [[New Testament]], they assert, the doors of revelation were closed and councils can only give advice or guidance, but have no authority. They consider new doctrines not derived from the sealed [[Biblical canon|canon]] of Scripture to be both impossible and unnecessary whether proposed by church councils or by more recent [[prophet]]s. Catholic and Orthodox objections to this position point to the fact that the [[Biblical canon|Canon of Scripture]] itself was fixed by these councils. They conclude that this would lead to a logical inconsistency of a non-authoritative body fixing a supposedly authoritative source.{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}