Editing Ecumenical council (section)

===Catholic views on those circumstances===
The Catholic Church does not consider the validity of an ecumenical council's teaching to be in any way dependent on where it is held or on the granting or withholding of prior authorization or legal status by any state, in line with the attitude of the 5th-century bishops who "saw the definition of the church's faith and canons as supremely their affair, with or without the leave of the Emperor" and who "needed no one to remind them that Synodical process pre-dated the Christianisation of the royal court by several centuries".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QxhR9ihUAWkC&pg=PA69 |first=John Anthony |last=McGuckin |title=Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy |publisher=St Vladimir's Seminary Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-88141-259-8 |page=69 |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164808/https://books.google.com/books?id=QxhR9ihUAWkC&pg=PA69 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The Catholic Church recognizes as ecumenical various councils held later than the First [[Council of Ephesus]] (after which churches out of communion with the Holy See because of the [[Nestorian Schism]] did not participate), later than the [[Council of Chalcedon]] (after which there was no participation by churches that rejected [[Dyophysitism]]), later than the [[Second Council of Nicaea]] (after which there was no participation by the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]]), and later than the [[Fifth Council of the Lateran]] (after which groups that adhered to Protestantism did not participate).{{citation needed|date=December 2024}}

Of the twenty-one ecumenical councils recognised by the Catholic Church, some gained recognition as ecumenical only later. Thus the Eastern [[First Council of Constantinople]] became ecumenical only when its decrees were accepted in the West also.<ref>{{cite Catholic Encyclopedia |wstitle=General Councils |volume=4 |first=Joseph |last=Wilhelm}} cf. [https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM Catechism of the Catholic Church, 247] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130303003725/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM |date=3 March 2013 }}</ref>