Council in Trullo (Quinisext)
The Quinisext council issued disciplinary canons after the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils, which had not produced comparable canonical collections.
Historical context
Its authority and particular canons had a different reception in East and West; it should not be counted as a separate eighth ecumenical council.
Reception
No ecumenical authority in Oriental Orthodoxy is assigned here. Read the named witnesses and differences in reception.
Perspective note
Comparative historical/source study. The original author's or church's reception is retained; inclusion does not make every claim Oriental Orthodox teaching. Historical documents retain their original claims. The reception label follows the selected church perspective; library access does not imply assent.
Key points
- Canon 2 receives earlier canonical collections.
- Canon 102 addresses pastoral judgment in penance.
- Read individual disciplinary canons in their social and regional setting.
Scripture
- Matthew 16:19 — Canon 102 begins from the entrusted power to bind and loose and directs its pastoral exercise toward healing.
Primary sources
The canon instructs:
Canon 102 directs pastors to consider both the sin and the person's readiness for conversion when applying penance.
It behooves those who have received from God the power to loose and bind, to consider the quality of the sin and the readiness of the sinner for conversion, and to apply medicine suitable for the disease
Passage context and translation
The final Trullan canon directs confessors to fit penance to the person and to seek healing without driving someone to despair or relaxing discipline into contempt.
After the excerpt
For the disease of sin is not simple, but various and multiform
Sources and further reading
- Council in Trullo — Canons of the Council in Trullo
Canon 102 - Reception: Eastern-Oriental Orthodox Joint Commission · Second Agreed Statement
Joint commission agreement. Section 8 explicitly distinguishes the families' reception of later councils; section 10 submits recommendations to churches for action. - Reception: Second Council of Nicaea · Decree of Nicaea II
Adopted conciliar definition; distinguish it from the rejected iconoclast definition printed above it on this page.