Representations of the Ecumenical Council
“Heresies”, or challenges to the authority of the Church in matters of dogma, have been constant presences in the history of Christianity
Steliu Lambru, 14.07.2025, 20:00
In 2025, it will be 1700 years since the first ecumenical council in Nicaea in 325, when Christian bishops met to debate the theses of Arianism. That assembly, along with six others until the split of the Roman and Constantinople churches in 1054, would establish the dogma of the Christian Church. In idealist rhetoric, the seven councils before the split of 1054 would represent the “golden” centuries in which Christianity was united.
“Heresies”, or challenges to the authority of the Church in matters of dogma, have been constant presences in the history of Christianity. They have been opportunities to clarify dogma, but also to protect the people from their seductions. The challenges to the authority of the Church from the 15th to the 18th centuries were formulated by Protestantism. And the seven councils were represented in the churches as models of unity and Christian living that had defeated Evil. In the Romanian space as well, especially in Moldova, political and religious leaders used the theme of the unity of the seven ecumenical councils as models. Art historian Tereza Sinigalia studied the iconography of the seven ecumenical councils in Romanian churches, and showed the societal climate in which they emerged.
“The historical context is defined by a new attempt to return to the unity of the Church of Christ, by the conditions in which the entire Eastern Christian area was under Ottoman rule, but especially by the reappearance in the western space of the Latin Church of some heresies that threatened the dogmatic unity of the Western world. The threat had reached close to the western and northern borders of Moldavia in the first decade of the 15th century in the form of the Hussites, a heresy that was condemned at the Council of Constance in 1417, a council attended by two representatives of the Church in Moldavia. Catholicism was protected by the ruler of the time, Alexander the Good, who had a Catholic wife in the person of the Lithuanian princess Rimgaila. The Christian world remains divided, and the emergence of Lutheranism in 1517 deepens the rift even within the Catholic Church. Even if these religious movements do not primarily affect Moldavia, Lutheranism on the border with Transylvania, deeply anchored in the new faith, was perceived as a threat. The appearance of exterior painting in a significant number of churches was interpreted as a reaction of the local church in Moldavia to the possible advances of excessive Protestantism, in its anti-Trinitarian form.”
The churches in northern Moldavia are the ones where the depiction of the seven ecumenical councils appears the most. Located on the border with Poland and under the influence of militant Catholicism there, Moldavian princes and religious leaders used art as a form of protecting their people. Paintings representing the ecumenical councils were usually in the churches of monasteries, very rarely appearing on churches outside monastic settlements. What characters can we see? Bishops, emperors and empresses, their bodyguards, servants, and heretics.
The oldest representation of the councils is in a church in the Rădăuți diocese. All the councils were represented in Aciolo, but only the first was preserved. On the church of St. Nicholas in Botoșani, founded in 1497, a princely court church, three councils were represented. Also, in a church in Botoșani, in a detail from a larger composition, the fourth council of Chalcedon from 451 was identified. In the churches of the village of Arbore, founded by hetman Luca Arbore, a boyar court church built around 1503, and that of Bălinești by the great logophate Ioan Tăutu from the end of the 15th century, there are other representations of the seven councils. The best preserved representation of all seven is on the church of St. Nicholas of the Probota monastery, founded by Prince Petru Rareș in 1530.
On the church of the Humor monastery, founded by the boyar Toader Bubuioc during the time of the same prince Petru Rareș, there are other representations of the seven councils. All seven synods can be seen at the Sucevița monastery, founded by the boyar Gheorghe Movilă during the reign of his brother, Ieremia Movilă, around 1600. In the other Romanian principality, Muntenia, the representations are fewer and worse preserved. In the 14th century, the assemblies appear on the princely church at Curtea de Argeș and on the monastery church at Cozia. In the 16th century we find them at the Snagov monastery, founded by Neagoe Basarab. They also appear on monastery churches during the Brancovan period from the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. Tereza Sinigalia says that art was not the only response to heresies.
“The commemoration of the unity of the Church in the first millennium, reflected in the documents of the seven ecumenical councils, is supported at a visual level by its illustration on the interior walls of some churches, including those painted on the outside. The presence of the illustration of the synods is proof of the response that the Church of Moldova gave to the challenges, threats and slippages from the Orthodox faith. Another Moldavian response, visible in other iconographic cycles, is reflected by the flourishing of hesychast monasticism, focused on the mysticism of achieving inner peace, hesychia.”
The churches in which the first ecumenical councils appear are today on the UNESCO heritage list. Other such paintings can be seen in other Orthodox spaces, but they are best represented in the Romanian one.
