Wednesday, March 18, 2026

It is the 18th of March 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

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, we’ll just say more than 25 years ago because we’ve been married for 25 years this August- she is Beth Anne van Voorhis, nee Harrah- daughter of Walt and Sherry- Happy Birthday Beth Anne!

 

And Beth Anne was just asking me how the idea of a pope, a singular head, developed out of the early church tradition, which saw as many as five heads. And if that pope calls a council, is it truly “ecumenical” if everyone isn’t present?

 

Ok- she didn’t ask that- but she’s implied that question on so many occasions.

 

And a good bit of the 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, 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 Chalcedon in 451, with the Oriental Orthodox breaking off. So the question: how “ecumenical” does a council have to be in order to be called “ecumenical”?

 

After the first 7 in the 4th to 8th centuries, we start to see cracks in the borders of the old Roman Empire and 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 Manzikert in 1071, and the First Crusade, to help the Eastern Church (ostensibly and among other things) began in 1096.

 

Of the major centers of Christianity, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria had fallen, and the two remaining “Patriarchs” were at Constantinople and Rome.

 

But the Bishop (you can say patriarch- that’s fine) at Rome- Il Papa- the Pope had undergone something like a humiliation around this same time. The “Holy Roman Empire” (as we would later call it) came into existence around 800, and the Emperor and Pope would become longstanding rivals. And with a series of scandals and anti-Popes, the papacy had been in decline until Pope Gregory VII, the 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 Concordat at Worms in 1122 that the peace was established, and with it, one church leader- the Bishop of Rome.

 

And how might a new leader- now claiming sole authority for the universal (or Catholic… or Catholic coming out of Rome) cement this? Calling an Ecumenical Council. And so it was on this, the 18th of March in 1123, that the palace of St. John Lateran held the first of Five “Lateran” Councils- they are called “Ecumenical” in Rome- this would then be the first of those (the 9th in total according to Roman counting) to take place in the West. The canons are lost, but can be reconstructed based on other writings. No new doctrines were established, but it affirmed the Concordat of Worms, against “Lay Investiture”- it also pronounced harsh statements against Simony, the “buying and selling of church offices”.

 

The top line result of this so-called 9th Ecumenical Council and the first in the West called solely by the Pope would set the stage for the coming centuries and the division between East and West, Sacred and Secular rulers, and the eventual Protestant Reformation would be set when the First Lateran Council, called by the Pope, began on this day in 1123.

 

 

 

 

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and 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,
 in a son of man, in whom there is no help.

When his breath departs he returns to his earth;
 on that very day his plans perish.

Happy 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 for ever;

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 for ever,
 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.

The show is produced by a man who knows it was after Manzikert and the Turkish victory that the land became known as Turkey- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who knows that the guineafowl from Africa was brought by Ottoman trade routes and called a turkey after the land and people- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

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 ok.