Though still set apart, retaining all His holiness and deity, God in His infinite wisdom became a man that first Christmas morning and chose to dwell intimately and personally amongst His creation. The God who created stars larger than our earth’s orbit and ten million times brighter than our sun, created the womb where He would grow and the manger where He would lay. The God who dwelt in perfect glory through eternity past would be wrapped in swaddling cloths to share space with barnyard animals. The God who deserved every right to born in a palace to royal people, humbled Himself and chose Bethlehem and a poor betrothed teenage couple named Mary and Joseph. Most humiliating was the fact that God, though without sin, took on human flesh with all its weaknesses and problems and chose to dwell among sinners.
Randy Smith

Church Councils

Church Councils

COUNCILS, CHURCH

The first seven Church Councils was summoned by an Emperor.

COUNCIL YEAR EMPORER PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

Nicaea 325 Constantine Hosius, Bishop of Cordova

Constan’ple 381 Theodosius Meletius of Antioch Ephesus 431 Theodosius II St. Cyril and Valentian Chalcedon 451 Marcian Marcian Constan’ple II 553 Justinian Eutychus, Bishop of Constantinople

Constan’ple III 680 Constantine II Constantine II

Nicaea II 787 Constantine IV Legate of Pope

The pope did not preside at any one of the first seven Councils. In 431, St. Cyril took the place of the pope, and not until the Second Council of Nicaea was there an official legate of the pope presiding.