By Fr. George Dorbarakis
We should first recall that the Ecumenical Synods constitute the highest and most important means available to the Church of Christ, in order to express and formulate its faith and life, to condemn any attempt to alter this faith and life, that is, heresy, as well as to determine the practical framework of its course. The expression of faith, when of course the occasion is given by the appearance of a heresy, in which case the faith is at stake – something that reveals that the ecumenical synod, although institutionally guaranteed, constitutes an extraordinary and charismatic event – is done with terms or dogmas, while the determination of the practical framework of life is done with the canons. In simple words, an ecumenical synod constitutes the mouth of the Church, which is why its decisions are absolutely binding on every member of it, which means that with the obedience of the member, his communion with the Church is kept alive, and therefore further, communion with Christ Himself and His Holy Apostles is kept alive. For certainly the struggle of the Fathers who constitute the ecumenical synod is how to present what the Church lives: Christ and His Spirit. In fact, where the faithful people, clergy and laity, diagnose that the synod did not express what the Apostles preached, there they protest and refuse obedience, and in this sense the faithful people are ultimately considered the guardians of the Orthodox faith.
