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One of the earliest heresies to rear its head was Aranism. This council asserted that Christ was created by the Father and later adopted as his Son. The chef task of the council of Council of Nicaea was refuting the heresy (declaring Christ one in being with the father). During this, the Nicene Creed was born.
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This council confirmed the divinity of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity. It condemned a new heresy that claimed Christ was part man and part God but not completely one or the other.
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Chalcedon was a city southeast of Constantinople where the Byzantine Emperor Marcian convoked a council to resolve a number of minor spiritual disputes and to define the physical and spiritual nature of Jesus Christ.
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This council declared that venerating icons was not only permissible, but also necessary. And it lambasted anyone who claimed that veneration was akin to worship of God or that veneration of icons violated the Old Testament commandment against worshipping false idols.
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This council saw Pope Alexander III presiding over around 300 bishops in three sessions at the Papal Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome. Over the previous three decades there had been a severe schism between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who wanted to extend his influence into Italy. Catharism—which holds that there are two Gods, one good and one evil—was denounced and outlawed
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Both St. Dominic and St. Francis attended; a Holy Roman Emperor was named; the council helped launch a new crusade. In matters of strictly faith and morals, its achievements were equally staggering: the council defined the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the church, approved the use of the term transubstantiation, mandated that Christians go to confession at least once a year.
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The bitterest, most convoluted council the Church has ever held was convoked by Pope Martin V in Basel, moved to Ferrara and later Florence by his successor, and would last for 14 years in one form or another. It decided what books belong in the Bible. Second, it made a heroic attempt to reunite Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Greek churches that had broken off several hundred years earlier. But the reunion was short-lived—almost immediately dissolving after the council ended.
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This council lasted so long that it was convoked on three separate occasions by three separate popes (Paul III, Julius III, and Pius IV). Trent defined and defended a whole swath of Church dogmas and teachings about the Eucharist, the authority of the Church, the role of Scripture, and the nature of the Sacraments.
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Vatican I that the Church defined the dogma of papal infallibility. Two criteria were put in place: the Pope had to be speaking in an official capacity, that is, from the chair, or cathedra, of St. Peter and he had to be speaking about matters of faith and morals.
