JERUSALEM, Councils or Synods of, a number of councils held at Jerusalem after the meeting of the Apostles (Acts xv), of which six are of prime importance. (1) The first ecclesiastical council, believed to have been held about 47 and mentioned in Acts xv, discussed the extent to which Judaic law should be fol lowed in the Christian Church. The council gave three decisions: (a) abstention from meats which had been offered to idols; (b) from blood and strangled things; (c) from fornica tion. (2) In 335 an attempt was made to heal the differences in the church at the time of the meeting of the bishops to consecrate the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Arius was restored to fellowship and permitted to return to Alex andria. (3) In 349 Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem, and 60 other bishops met upon the return of Athanasius to Alexandria, rescinded the decree published against him and dispatched a synodal letter to the church in Alexandria. (4) In 399, held in response to an appeal from Theophilus of Alexandria to sustain the decree against the Origenists ; the decree was confirmed and the resolution to hold no communion with those who denied the equality of the Father and the Son was passed. (5) In 553 the acts
of the fifth Ecumenical Council of Constanti nople were received by all the bishops of Pales tine except Alexander of Abilene, who, being absent, was deposed. (6) In 1672 the most not able council was held, convened by Dositheus, patriarch of Jerusalem, with the object of eradicating Calvinism. It was attended by 53 prelates, six metropolitans and other officers and members of the church. It rejected uncon ditional predestination and justification by faith alone, and advocated the Roman Catholic doc trines of transubstantiation and of purgatory. Its decisions were the cause of considerable trouble in the Eastern church, charges of lean ings toward Romanism being made, although the council had specifically pronounced against the Roman Catholic affirmation that the Holy Ghost proceeds from both Father and Son. The pronouncements of this council are re garded on the whole as one of the most import ant expressions of f ith of the Eastern church.