Wednesday, March 18, 2026

0:00It is the 18th of March, 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Aluminac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm Dan VanVoris. It's a perennial question. Dan, do you have any favorite characters in history? Oh, sure. I've got a bunch. But the best and easiest answer, well, she was born on this. The 18th of March in, well, let's just say more than 25 years ago, because we've been married for 25 years this August, she is Bethan VanVoris, Nehara daughter of Walt and Sherry. Happy birthday, Bethan. And Bethan was just asking me, how did the idea of a pope, a singular head, develop out of the early church tradition, which saw as many as five hits? If that pope calls a council, can it be truly ecumenical if everyone isn't present?

1:00Okay, she didn't ask that, but she's implied that question on so many occasions. And a good bit of that answer takes us back to her birthday, but many, many years prior. It was on this the 18th of March in 1123 that the first Lateran council was called. You may have heard of the first ecumenical councils following the council of Jerusalem in the book of Acts, the church met at Nicaea in 325 again at Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431, etc., etc. Of course, part of the problem with these ecumenical councils is that they become less and less ecumenical or of the whole house. The first major schism coming out of the great church tradition is over Calcedon in 451 with the Oriental Orthodox breaking off. So the question, how ecumenical does a council have to be in order to be called an ecumenical council?

2:01After the first seven in the fourth to eighth centuries, we start to see cracks in the borders of the old Roman Empire in between church leaders. You might remember that it was in 1054 that the great schism occurred between the Eastern and Western churches. The Byzantine Empire would be crippled by the Turks at Man's occurred in 1071. And then the first crusade to help the Eastern church, ostensibly, among other things, began in 1096. Of the former major centers of Christianity, Jerusalem and Antioch and Alexandria had fallen and the two remaining patriarchs were at Constantinople in Rome. But the Bishop at Rome, Ilpapa the Pope, had undergone something like a humiliation around this same time. The Holy Roman Empire, as we would call it, came into existence around 800 and the Emperor and Pope would become longstanding rivals. And with a series of scandals and antipopes, the papacy had been in decline.

3:02Until Pope Gregory VII, that great reforming Pope, around 1076, began to tackle the issue of lay investiture. It's a whole thing, but in short, lay rulers had installed and invested bishops and abbots, essentially saying secular authority is necessary for spiritual authority and therefore above it. The Pope would excommunicate the Emperor and it wasn't until the Concordate at Verms in 1122 that peace was established with one church leader to rule them all, the Bishop of Rome. And how might a new leader claiming sole authority for the universal or Catholic or Catholic coming out of Rome, church, establish himself as the leader? Well, by calling an ecumenical council. And so it was on this, the 18th of March, in 1123, at the palace of St. John, Lateran and Rome, that the first of five Lateran councils would be held. In Rome, they're called ecumenical. This would then be the first of those, the ninth in total, according to Roman counting,

4:05to take place in the West. The cannons are lost, but can be reconstructed based on other writings. No new doctrines were established, but it was affirmed that the Concordate at Verms against lay investiture would stand. It pronounced harsh statements against simony that is the buying and selling of church offices. The top line result of this so-called ninth ecumenical council is that it was the first in the West and called solely by the Pope and would set the stage for coming centuries and divisions between East and West, sacred and secular, and the eventual Protestant reformation. It began when the first Lateran council was called by the Pope on this day. In 1123, the last word for today comes from the daily electionary in Psalm 146. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have being. Put not your trust in princes and a son of man in whom there is no help.

5:06When his breath departs, he returns to his earth, on that very day his plans perish. He is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God who made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked, he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever thy God, O Zion, to all generations, praise the Lord. This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of March, 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. This show is produced by man who knows it was after man's occurred, and the Turkish victory

6:10that that land became known as Turkey, he, is Christ for Gillespie, the show is written and read by man who knows that it was the guinea fowl from Africa, brought by Ottoman trade, and called it Turkey after the land, and the people. I'm Dan, the fanforist, you can catch us here every day. And remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true. Everything is going to be okay.