Canons and Declarations
The Council denounced Nestorius' teaching as erroneous and decreed that Jesus was one person, not two separate people: complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body. The Virgin Mary was to be called Theotokos a Greek word that means "God-bearer" (the one who gave birth to God).
The Council declared it "unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa". It did not specify whether it meant the Nicene Creed as adopted by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, or as added to and modified by the First Council of Constantinople in 381.
In addition to its condemnation of Nestorianism, the council also condemned Pelagianism. Eight canons were passed:
- Canon 1-5 condemned Nestorius and Caelestius and their followers as heretics
- Canon 6 decreed deposition from clerical office or excommunication for those who did not accept the Council's decrees
- Canon 7 condemned any departure from the creed established by the First Council of Nicaea, in particular an exposition by the priest Charisius.
- Canon 8 condemned interference by the Bishop in affairs of the Church in Cyprus and decreed generally, so that no bishop was to "assume control of any province which has not heretofore, from the very beginning, been under his own hand or that of his predecessors ... the Canons of the Fathers be transgressed".
Read more about this topic: First Council Of Ephesus
Famous quotes containing the words canons and/or declarations:
“Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.”
—Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)
“I judge a man by his actions with men, much more than by his declarations Godwards—When I find him to be envious, carping, spiteful, hating the successes of others, and complaining that the world has never done enough for him, I am apt to doubt whether his humility before God will atone for his want of manliness.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)