1215–1215 · Rome
Fourth Lateran Council
Why this council matters
Lateran IV combines a doctrinal profession with extensive pastoral and disciplinary legislation. It is especially relevant to Eucharistic teaching and the history of confession and communion obligations.
Read its confession of faith and canon 21 in context. Other enactments reveal the social and political assumptions of medieval Christendom, including measures affecting non-Christians. Historical honesty requires discussing those provisions rather than treating the council only as a source of isolated modern apologetic quotations.
Read and investigate
The constitutions are currently available through an external primary edition.
Controversies
Doctrinal clarification, pastoral reform and the ordering of medieval Christian life.
Decrees
Its constitutions addressed the faith, the Eucharist, confession, preaching and many disciplinary matters.
Definitions
The confession of faith uses transubstantiation; canon 21 concerns annual confession and Easter communion.