inhabited by Greeks, in distinction from the barbarian countries ; finally, with the Romans, the orhis Hotnanus, the political limits of which coincided with those of the ancient Grasco-Latin church. But as the bishops of the barbarians outside the empire were admitted, the ecumenical councils represented the entire Catholic Christian world. ' Acts XV., and Gal. ii. Comp. my History of the Apostolic Church, §§ 67-69 ^Engl. ed., p. 245-257). Mansi, 1. c. tom. i, p. 22 (De quadruplici Synodo Aposto- lorum), and other Roman Cathohc writers, speak of four Apostolic Synods : Acts i. 13 sqq., for the election of an apostle ; ch. vi. for the election of deacons ; oh. xv, for the settlement of the question of the binding authority of the law of Moses ; and ch. xxi. for a similar object. But we should distinguish between a private confer- ence and consultation, and a pubhc synod. " It is usually supposed there were only four or five different kinds of council. But Hefele reckons eight (i. p. 3 and 4), adding to those above named the irregular 332 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. Ill the earlier centuries the councils assembled without fixed regularity, at the instance of present necessities, like the Montanist and the Easter controversies in the latter part of the second century. Firmilian of Cappadocia, in his letter to Cyprian, first mentions, that at his time, in the middle of the third century, the churches of Asia Minor held regular annual synods, consisting of bishops and presbyters. From that time we find an increasing number of such assemblies in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul, The council of Nicsea, a, d. 325, ordained, in the fifth canon, that the provincial councils should meet twice a year : during the fast season before Easter, and in the fall,' In regard to the other synods no direction was given. The ECUMENICAL councils were not stated, but extraordinary assemblies, occasioned by the great theological controversies of the ancient church. They could not arise until after the con- version of the Roman emperor and the ascendency of Christi- anity as the religion of the state. They were the highest, and the last, manifestation of the power of the Greek church, which in general took the lead in the first age of Christianity, and was the chief seat of all theological activity. Hence in that church, as well as in others, they are still held in the highest veneration, and kept alive in the popular mind by pictures in the churches. The Greek and Russian Christians have annu- ally commemorated the seven ecumenical councils, since the year 842, on the first Sunday in Lent, as the festival of the triumph of orthodoxy ; ^ and they live in the hope that an eighth ecumenical council shall yet heal the divisions and in- firmities of the Christian world. Through their symbols of avvo^oL iv5riuod(Tai, also the synods of the bishops of two or more provinces, and