Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta. Editio critica. Volume I: The Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II (325– 787) (review)

The decisions and canons of the ecumenical councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II, including the Council in Trullo, have been collected in a new critical edition titled, Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta. The Oecumenical Councils from Nicaea I to Nicaea II (325–787), Corpus Christianorum, general editor, Giuseppe Alberigo. The first of four volumes containing the texts of the decisions and canons of selected councils from Nicaea I to Vatican II, the present volume is a useful and accessible resource for students and scholars interested in the history of canon law and,more generally, in the discipline and doctrine of the Church. It replaces the first part of the one-volume collection of conciliar canons and decisions from Nicaea I to Vatican II, Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta (COD), published by the Bologna Institute for Religious Sciences (1962, rev. 1973), edited by Alberigo, P.-P. Joannou, et al. The current volume expands upon and updates the COD by including the canons of the Council in Trullo, which was omitted from previous editions, as well as slightly longer introductions to and bibliographies for each of the ecumenical councils. Because summaries of the councils can be found readily elsewhere, the introductions are most informative when they focus on the relevant history of the manuscript tradition. Among this volume's most important contributions are the updated critical edition of the canons of the Council in Trullo, edited by G. Nedungatt and S. Agrestini (the definitive critical edition is being prepared by R. Riedinger for the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum), and the excellent new critical edition of the decisions and canons of Nicaea II, edited by E. Lamberz and J. B. Uphus, who have collated several manuscripts not included in previous editions and who are currently preparing a new critical edition of the complete acts. Although the texts for the remaining councils have been taken, without significance changes, from existing critical editions, as they were in the COD, the current volume improves upon the COD by listing each of the critical editions clearly. Students and scholars of canon law will find the indices of scriptural, conciliar, patristic, and canon law sources especially useful.