num_pages: 440
description: On January 25 1959 Pope John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council initiating a series of history-shaping achievements and crises. Yet as The Church in A History of the General Councils 325-1870published one year after that convocationillustrates Vatican II is but one among many in that regard. Each of the twenty councils studied in this volume had its origin in a particular crisis within or around the Churcha crisis that by no means received an immediate or convenient resolution. Notable among Hughess surveys are those of the Council of Constantinople which affirmed the Nicene Creed; the Council of Chalcedon which struck down the heresy of Monophysitism; the First Lateran Council which adjudicated the separation of spiritual and temporal powers; and the Council of Trent which condemned the manifold errors of the Protestant Reformation. Objective in its analysis and compendious in its treatment of ecclesial political and theological matters alike The Church in Crisis is a fascinating and crucial guide to twenty of the most influential events in the history of the Roman Catholic Church from its beginnings to the end of the twentieth century.
language: English
title: The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325-1870
publisher: Image Books