The Pope, the Council and the Emperor at the time of the seven Ecumenical Councils
Article summary proposed by the Contacts review with LLM assistance
This article by Olivier Clément examines the relationships between the pope, the council, and the emperor during the period of the seven Ecumenical Councils, from the fourth to the eighth century. Drawing primarily on Wilhelm de Vries's work *Orient et Occident*, the study adopts a historical and theological approach, analyzing conciliar and patristic sources to reconstruct the actual functioning of ecclesial authority. The central idea is that these three institutions, though driven by contradictory claims, constantly overcame their oppositions in order to cooperate within a living communion, without any one of them having the final word. The contribution of the article is to show that the ecclesial *praxis* of the first millennium exceeds any subsequent juridical systematization, whether Catholic or Orthodox, and that this period constitutes an irreducible point of reference for rethinking today the question of primacy and collegiality.
This article has not been translated yet — it is available in its French version here.
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