JERUSALEM, COCNCILS or. A number of e.otneil, held in Jerusalem, of which the following are the most important: (1) The first Christian council, often called the Apostolic Council (Acts xv. 1-31). was held about A.n. 5i, to consider questions raised in the Church of Antioeh concerning the obligation of Gentile Christians to observe the Jewish law. By the decision of the council it. was declared to lie necessary for such Christians to abstain from (a) meats which had been offered to idols: (I) blood and strangled things: (e) fornication. This council seems to have comprised only one church• that in Jerusalem, though this church may have embraced several local congregations in that city. organized as a church in common. 121 In 335 a council, formed of the bishops who had assembled for the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, restored Arius to fel lowship and allowed him to return to Alex andria. (3) About 31G :Maximus, of Jel and sixty other bishops. on the return of Athana sius to Alexandria, revoked the decree against him and drew up a letter to his Church. ( )
in 399 a council held it: consequence of a letter trout Theophilus of Alexandria on the decree passed against the Origenists assented to it. and resolved not to have fellowship with any who denied the equality of the Son with the Father. (5) In 533 the acts of the fifth ecumenical coun cil (Constantinople) were received by all the bishops of Palestine assembled at Jerusalem, except Alexander of Abilene. who was conse quently deposed. (6) The most important coun cil held in Jerusalem was that of 167;2. It was convened by Dositheus. Patriarch of Jerusalem. and was composed of more than sixty bishops and other officers in his diocese. its object to oppose Calvinism, which had been introdueed into the East by Cyril Lucaris. Its measures led to its being charged with favoring Roman Catholicism. and occasioned considerable trouble in the Clmrch.