And does that book mention what matter of Orthodoxy or Schism the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council was dealing with? I'd be interested.Haven't reached that one yet. IIRC, VatCon 2 dealt with the liturgy in the local vernacular, which way the priest faced during mass, etc. It lead to some quasi-schisms, like Traditionalists (
link) and Sedevacantists (
link). Now VatCon 1 actually caused a schism: the Old Catholic Church (
link) most of whom live in the Netherlands and some in the Rhineland. (There was an old Jesuit church that was an Old Catholic Church in Bonn when I lived there.) I seemed to have been unclear in my post. The various ecumenical councils throughout history were usually convened to decide on issues of orthodoxy (in the small-o sense of the word). Maybe dogma would have been a better term. They also convened to repudiate some heresies du jour. The official decisions usually lead to consequences, like schisms or heresies. For example, the First Council of Nicea (the one that created the Nicene Creed) led to the suppressed and extinct Meletian Schism. (Melitius may have ordained Arius (of Arian infamy).)
[For the record, I am a secular humanist and tend towards nontheism, I am just interested in the development of Christian dogma and questions of canonicity of books in the Bible.]
