ecumenical council

American  

Or Ecumenical Council

noun

1. a solemn assembly in the Roman Catholic Church, convoked and presided over by the pope and composed of cardinals, bishops, and certain other prelates whose decrees, when confirmed by the pope, become binding.

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ecumenical council British  

noun

1. an assembly of bishops and other ecclesiastics representative of the Christian Church throughout the world. Roman Catholic canon law states that an ecumenical council must be convened by the pope

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ecumenical council

The town’s dominant monument is Little Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine church that in the eighth century hosted the last ecumenical council recognized by both the Eastern and Western churches.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025

In 325, for example, Constantine convened the first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicaea, to settle the question of Jesus’s divine nature and his relationship to God.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

In his homily at an ecumenical council, the politically conservative Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York, took away larger lessons from the anniversary.

From Slate ● Mar. 5, 2018

Since it expresses no division between Christianity and Judaism, he figures that it must predate the first ecumenical council in A.D.

From Time Magazine Archive

In 1881 he was sent to London, England, to represent the C. M. E. Church in the first ecumenical council.

From Twentieth Century Negro Literature Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro by Culp, Daniel Wallace