What Makes A Council Ecumenical?

A protestant friend of mine was expressing his worry of the term "heresy" being thrown around too loosely among his other protestant friends. This is a fair worry. Even within Catholicism, the word gets tossed around too easily among the laity, in my opinion. However, there is a difference between my friend and I: our criteria for what counts as heresy. My protestant friend said, "If I am not contradicting any of the ecumenical councils, I am not a heretic." I pointed out he denies the Council of Trent. His response was that Trent was not ecumenical. "Which Orthodox bishops ratified Trent?" he asked me, which of course isn't really a question, but an argument. He believes that enough Bishops have to be present in order for a council to be ecumenical, and since the Orthodox were obviously not present in Trent, Trent cannot be ecumenical. This makes some sense. The big 7 ecumenical councils that all Christians believe, even the Protestants, were ratified by the Eastern bishops. No one can deny, say, the Council of Nicea and be a Christian, but you can deny Trent and be a Christian, and the difference is the absence of Eastern bishops. Or so the argument goes. 

A well known problem which plagues this theory, a theory sometimes called Conciliarism, is the so-called Second Council of Ephesus, which takes place in between the 3rd and 4th ecumenical councils. No one disputes the first 3 councils are ecumenical (and us Catholics and Orthodox agree that they are infallible). But when the monophysite heresy emerged, and tried to declare itself as being as orthodox as the Nicean creed at this new council, it suppressed the Papal Legates of Leo, and suppressed what we now know is truly orthodox teaching, and concluded monophysitism was true, and "restored" the heretic Eutyches. A few years later, at the Council of Chalcedon, what we now consider the 4th ecumenical council, monophysitism was condemned as heresy. So now we have a problem. We have two councils. And they both contradict each other. One says monophysitism is a heresy. The other says it is not. If councils are supposed to be infallible, they cannot contradict. What then? 

The answer to this problem is simply to say one of these councils aren't legit. But which, and on what grounds? For Catholics, the answer is simple: Deny the Second Council of Ephesus as being ecumenical because the Bishop of Rome (Pope St. Leo the Great at the time) did not ratify the council. For us Catholics, what makes a council ecumenical is the ratification of the Pope (it is at least a necessary condition). And since the Second Council of Ephesus was not ratified by Pope Leo, in fact Pope Leo directly contradicted it when his legate shouted, "Contradictur!", the Second Council of Ephesus is now known as the Robber Council, since Pope Leo has called it thus. Now no one accepts the Robber Council as ecumenical. So the criteria is clear enough for us Catholics. What then of the Orthodox? 

Perhaps they think that all bishops need to be represented for a council to be ecumenical. But this is clearly not the case since the historical record shows not all bishops are always present for the council (travel expenses and such). Perhaps they think that all bishops need to be in agreement. But this is also clearly not the case since some councils have condemned bishops, like the First Council of Constantinople condemning the Bishop Apollonaris. What happens when you have one bishop contradict another? How does one determine orthodoxy? My orthodox friends will say that the Bishop of Rome can officially teach error and the deposit of faith will still remain with at least some of the other bishops. But what is the criteria for that? It doesn't seem to be any better off than where protestants are. 

So it's a problem, for the Orthodox and the Protestants. And Trent remains an Ecumenical Council. 

I mentioned earlier the argument that says you can't deny Nicea and be a Christian but you can deny Trent and be a Christian. If, in our view, both are ecumenical and infallible, how is this so? Part of the answer is to simply say that you aren't actually a Christian if you deny Trent. Even my Orthodox friends can agree with this, if qualified. To say something is Christian is to say that it belongs to the deposit of faith, the faith which has been passed on from Christ, through his apostles, by the church, down through the ages. There is no distinctively protestant doctrine which fits this bill. Sola Scriptura is not part of the faith which has been given to us by Jesus. So, it is not a Christian doctrine. It is a Christian counterfeit. Protestants can be Christian not because of their Protestantism, but in spite of it. So, insofar as you are Protestant, or Orthodox for that matter, you simply aren't a Christian. Catholicism and Christianity are identical.