Word Finder - synods

definition

An ecclesiastic council or meeting to consult on church matters.

definition

An administrative division of churches, either the entire denomination, as in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, or a mid-level division (middle judicatory, district) as in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

definition

An assembly or council having civil authority; a legislative body.

definition

A conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies.

In 1869 and 1871 he was president of the first and second Jewish Synods at Leipzig and Augsburg.

Protestants were granted full civil rights and protection, and were permitted to hold their ecclesiastical assemblies - consistories, colloquies and synods, 1 Lindsay, Hist.

Synods were held in 1718, 1723, 1726 and 1727; and in a remote spot in Bas Languedoc in 1 744 a national synod assembled - the first since 1660 - which consisted of representatives from every province formerly Protestant.

In 1581 the Middelburg Synod divided the Church, created provincial synods and presbyteries, but could not shake off the civil power in connexion with the choice of church officers.

In 1864 the two associations or synods of North and South Wales were united in a general assembly.

In 1858 the associate synods of the north and west united with the Associate Synod as the United Presbyterian Church.

Its consistories are grouped into two special synods, one at Paris and one at Montbliard (for the department of Doubs and Haute-Sane and the territory of Belfort, where the churches of this denomination are principally situated).

As neighbouring dioceses coalesced into " provinces " and provinces into larger districts (corresponding to the civil " dioceses " of the later Roman Empire), the provincial synods of bishops and the synods of the larger districts acquired a criminal jurisdiction, still purely spiritual, of their own.

That this may be conveniently inquired into, synods are to be held, three in every year, in each province, and questions of this kind examined.

Any bishop, priest or deacon " importuning " the emperor, instead of exerting his right of appeal to synods, is to lose all right of appeal and never to be restored or pardoned.

The third and fourth oecumenical synods (Ephesus, 43 1; Chalcedon, 451) were primarily tribunals for the trials of Nestorius and Dioscorus; it was secondarily that they became organs of the universal episcopate for the definition of the faith, or legislative assemblies for the enactment of canons.

Consistories and synods have till near the end of the 18th century.

The cause of Ignatius and Photius was dealt with in the 9th century by various synods; those in the East agreeing with the emperor's view for the time being, while those in the West acted with the pope.

In provincial matters each province is independent, holds its own synods, makes its own laws, and elects its own governing board; but the General Synod meets, on the average, every ten years at Herrnhut, and its regulations are binding in all the provinces.

All the Maize - - - 1,39 more important questions of church discipline and all decisions regulating the doctrine and practice of the church are dealt with by the synods.

The first trace of system is in the limited right of appeal given by the first oecumenical council of Nicaea and its provision that episcopal sentences or those of provincial synods on appeal were to be recognized throughout the world.

The story of the administrative development of the Church in the 5th century is mainly the story of the final emergence and constitution of the great " patriarchates," as authorities superior to metropolitans and provincial synods.

Discipline over ministers and other office-bearers was exercised by administrative methods in the form of trials before consistories or synods.

He set himself in opposition to Novatian, a presbyter of Rome, who advocated their permanent exclusion from the church; and it was his influence which guided the tolerant measures of the Carthaginian synods on the subject.

The country was divided into five districts with five synods; and Josephus asserts that the people welcomed the change from the monarchy.

In the East, in the 5th century, the archdeacons were already charged with the proof of the qualifications of candidates for ordination; they attended the bishops at ecclesiastical synods, and sometimes acted as their representatives; they shared in the administration of sees during a vacancy.

He obtained the king's permission to deal with the affairs of the Church in synods which met apart from the Great Council, and were exclusively composed of ecclesiastics.

He acknowledged the royal right to veto the legislation of national synods.

Though the precise locality is occasionally uncertain, the majority of the medieval synods assembled in the chapter-house of old St Paul's, or the former chapel of St Catherine within the precincts of Westminster Abbey or at Lambeth.

In 1852 there was held the first of a series of synods of the newly organized Roman Catholic archdiocese of Westminster.

For the "Pan-Anglican Synods" see Lambeth Conferences.

This is why, besides the disciplinary measures which regulated the elections, the celebration of divine service, the periodical holding of diocesan synods and provincial councils, are found also decrees aimed at some of the "rights" by which the popes had extended their power, and helped out their finances at the expense of the local churches.

Gerbert proceeds to argue that the church councils admitted the right of metropolitan synods to depose unworthy bishops, but contends that, even if an appeal to Rome were necessary, that appeal had been made a year before without effect.

A " Scouts " Church was formed at the end of the war of1899-1902by burghers who had previously acted as " National Scouts " and were ostracized by the synods of their former Churches.

In 1559 it was the headquarters of the Lords of the Congregation, and in 1607 the scene of the meetings of the synod of Fife known as the Three Synods of Dysart.

Among these numerous synods the most prominent are those which the tradition of the Roman Catholic church has classed as ecumenical councils.

Provincial synods were held in the 2nd century, and were not completely organized before the advent of oecumenical councils.

The two terms are still used side by side; thus there are patriarchal, national and primatial councils, as well as provincial councils (under the metropolitan of a province) and diocesan synods, consisting of the clergy of a diocese and presided over by the bishop (or the vicar-general).

With the definite triumph of the church, the profanation of its sanctuaries became less frequent, and once robbery or seizure of ecclesiastical possessions or violation of its privileges tended to absorb the attention of synods and popes.

In the Western Church the title was hardly known before the 7th century, and did not become common until the Carolingian emperors revived the right of the metropolitans to summon provincial synods.

The summoning of provincial synods, which was made obligatory every three years by the council, was long neglected, but is now more common wherever the political conditions, e.g.

The Eastern Church has no general doctrinal tests beyond the Nicene Creed, but from time to time synods have approved exposi (without the words And the Son "), and the Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church.

He admonished the pope, appointed the bishops, watched over the morals and work of the clergy, and took an active part in the deliberations of church synods; he founded bishoprics and monasteries, was lavish in his gifts to ecclesiastical foundations, and chose bishops and abbots for administrative work.

On this point the provincial synods of Illiberis (Elvira) in 305 and of Ancyra in 315 subsequently came to conflicting decisions, the council of Elvira forbidding the reception of offenders into communion during life, and the council of Ancyra fixing a limit to the penalty in the same cases.

In the following year several African synods, held under the influence of Maximus, declared for orthodoxy.

The pax ecclesiae is first heard of in the year 990 at three synods held in different parts of southern and central France - at Charroux, Narbonne and Puy.

The peace decrees of these various synods differed considerably in detail, but in general they were intended fully to protect non-combatants; they forbade, under pain of excommunication, every act of private warfare or violence against ecclesiastical buildings and their environs, and against certain persons, such as clerics, pilgrims, merchants, women and peasants, and against cattle and agricultural implements.

Thus far, however, synods were still compatible with local autonomy and so with Congregationalism.

But as the idea that bishops were successors of the apostles came to prevail, presbyters, though sharing in the deliberations, gradually ceased to share in the voting; while synods insensibly acquired more and more coercive control over the churches of the area represented.

After his return to Rome he held (29th April 1050) another Easter synod, which was occupied largely with the controversy about the teachings of Berengarius of Tours; in the same year he presided over provincial synods at Salerno, Siponto and Vercelli, and in September revisited Germany, returning to Rome in time for a third Easter synod, at which the question of the reordination of those who had been ordained by simonists was considered.

In the 9th and 10th century it was even made obligatory, by the decrees of the synods of Mainz (813) and Tribur (895), on priests throughout the Frank Empire to wear it at all times, especially when travelling.

Some of the older baptisteries were very large, so large that we hear of councils and synods being held in them.

This view is confirmed by the evidence of the Synodicon Orientate (the collection of the canons of Nestorian Councils and Synods), which shows that the Great Syriac Church built up by the adherents of Nestorius and ever memorable for its zeal in carrying the Gospel into Central Asia, China and India cannot, from its inception, be rightly described as other than orthodox.

But this general unity became official, and expressed itself in organization, only with the rise of the conciliar and metropolitan systems. Already before the end of the and century local synods were held in Asia Minor to deal with Montanism, and in the 3rd century provincial synods became common, and by the council of Nicaea (canon 5) it was decreed that they should be held twice every year in every province.

Larger synods representing the churches of a number of contiguous provinces also met frequently; for instance, in the early 4th century at Elvira, Ancyra, Neo-Caesarea and Arles, the last representing the entire Western world.