At length in 381 the work of local Synods and episcopal
conferences was completed and clinched by the Ruling of a Second
Ecumenical Council. It is true that the Council which Theodosius
summoned to meet at Constantinople could scarcely have regarded itself
as possessing Ecumenical authority; whilst in the West it certainly was
not regarded in this light before the Sixth Century. Nevertheless
the honours of Ecumenicity were ultimately awarded to it by the whole
Church, because it completes the series of Great Councils by which the
Doctrine of the Deity of the Holy Spirit was affirmed; and in fact it
expressed the final judgment of the Catholic Church upon the Macedonian
controversy. Its first Canon anathematises the Semiarians or
Pneumatomachi by name as well as the Eunomians or Anomœan Arians
(cf. Dict. Biog. Art. Gregory of Nazianzus, by Dr. H. B.
Swete).