Editorial note — The Approaching General Council.

[Footnote 285: The following is a list of these eighteen ecumenical councils: 1. Nice, in 325, against Arius, who denied the divinity of the Word. 2. Constantinople, in 381, against Macedonius, who attacked the divinity of the Holy Ghost. 3. Ephesus, in 431, against Nestorius, who erred concerning the Incarnation, and refused to give the Blessed Virgin the title Mother of God. 4. Chalcedon, in 451, against Eutyches, who originated an error, the opposite of that of Nestorius. 5. Constantinople, in 553, against the three celebrated chapters which fostered the error of Nestorius on the Incarnation. 6. Constantinople in 680, against the Monothelites, who continued the error of Eutyches, in denying that Jesus Christ had a human will. 7. Nice, in 787, against the Iconoclasts, or breakers of images. 8. Constantinople, in 869, against Photius, the author of the Greek schism. 9. Lateran, in 1123, or the promulgation of peace between the ecclesiastical power and the empire, after the long quarrels of the Investitures, and also for the Crusades. 10. Lateran, in 1139, for the reunion of the Greeks and against the errors of the Albigenses. 11. Lateran, in 1179, for different questions of discipline, and against the heresies of the day. 12. Lateran, in 1215, against the Vaudois. 13. Lyons, in 1245, for the Crusade and the troubles with the Emperor Frederic. 14. Lyons, in 1274, for the Crusade, and for reunion with the Greeks. 15. Vienne, in 1311, for the Crusade, and different questions of discipline, and for the affair of the Templars. 16. Florence, in 1439, for reunion with the Greeks. 17. Lateran, in 1511, against the conventicle of Pisa. 18. Trent, in 1545, against Protestantism. Several sessions of the Council of Constance have also been considered ecumenical.]