section_path: Organisation and leadership/Church councils
section_name: Church councils
paragraph_text: Church councils
  
  The ecumenical councils followed a democratic form, with each bishop having one vote. Though present and allowed to speak before the council, members of the Imperial Roman / Byzantine court, abbots, priests, deacons, monks and laymen were not allowed to vote. The primary goal of these great synods was to verify and confirm the fundamental beliefs of the Great Christian Church as truth, and to remove as heresy any false teachings that would threaten the Christian Church. The pope of Rome at that time held the position of primus inter pares ("first among equals") and, while he was not present at any of the councils, he continued to hold this title until the East–West Schism of 1054.
  
  Other councils have helped to define the Eastern Orthodox position, specifically the Quinisext Council, the Synods of Constantinople, 879–880, 1341, 1347, 1351, 1583, 1819, and 1872, the Synod of Iași, 1642, and the Pan-Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem, 1672; the Pan-Orthodox Council, held in Greece in 2016, was the only such Eastern Orthodox council in modern times.
  
  According to Eastern Orthodox teaching the position of "first among equals" gives no additional power or authority to the bishop that holds it, but rather that this person sits as organisational head of a council of equals (like a president).
  
  One of the decisions made by the First Council of Constantinople (the second ecumenical council, meeting in 381) and supported by later such councils was that the Patriarch of Constantinople should be given equal honour to the Pope of Rome since Constantinople was considered to be the " New Rome ". According to the third canon of the second ecumenical council: "Because is new Rome, the bishop of Constantinople is to enjoy the privileges of honor after the bishop of Rome".
  
  The 28th canon of the fourth ecumenical council clarified this point by stating: "For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of Old Rome because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops (i.e. the second ecumenical council in 381) actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is."
  
  Because of the schism, the Eastern Orthodox no longer recognise the primacy of the pope of Rome. The patriarch of Constantinople therefore, like the Pope before him, now enjoys the title of "first among equals".