The councils.
Bishops assembled seven times between 325 and 787 and produced the sentences most Christians still say aloud on Sunday. The councils are also where the splits are dated from: the churches that could not accept Chalcedon in 451 have been separate ever since.
Seven councils between Nicaea in 325 and Nicaea again in 787 are recognised as ecumenical by both Rome and the Orthodox churches, and they produced the sentences most Christians still recite: the Nicene Creed is a conciliar document, hammered out with imperial pressure in the room. Constantine called the first one and emperors called most of the rest, which is a fact the tradition has never been entirely comfortable with. The councils are also where the divisions are dated: the Council of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451 produced the Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox churches respectively, both of which have existed separately ever since over questions of how to state the relation of divine and human in Christ — questions on which modern joint declarations have found the disagreement was substantially about vocabulary. Rome counts twenty-one councils, including Trent and both Vaticans; the Orthodox recognise the first seven, and whether an eighth is possible without Rome is itself disputed.
The same ground, other faiths
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