As the title suggests, the present edition comprises those texts of the Councils’ decrees which are formally ‘ecumenical’, as well as those decrees of the main ‘general’ Councils, whose authority is recognized by many churches, or else is accredited with such status by Roman tradition.

These texts will be presented in four volumes, reflecting and respecting the perspectives of the various Christian traditions.

The first volume (publ. 2006) contains the texts of the decrees from the First Council of Nicaea (325) to the Second Nicene Council (767), including the council in Trullo (692), which had been omitted from earlier editions.

"Mentionnons l'importance de l'appareil critique et de la bibliographie, parfaitement à jour et réjouissons-nous, une fois de plus, de la qualité des travaux de l'Institut des Sciences religieuses de Bologne." (B. Basdevant-Gaudemet, dans : L'Année canonique, 48 (2006), p. 354)

"... un précieux outil de travail pour l'étude des conciles..." (B. Meunier, dans: Revue des Sciences philosophique et théologiques, 92 (2008), p. 799)

“This three-volume work in four parts has now come to an end, but it is not the end of the project as a whole. Indeed, there seems to be no limit to the enthusiasm of the editor-in-chief who in volume II announces similar volumes with the decrees of the councils and synods of the Orthodox and Eastern Churches, this too a most needed project in its own right.” (J. Verheyden, in Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 92/4, 2016, p. 733)