Council of Elvira

The Synod of Elvira (Latin: Concilium Eliberritanum, Spanish: Concilio de Elvira) was an ecclesiastical synod held at Elvira in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, now Granada in southern Spain. Its date has not been exactly determined but is believed to be in the first quarter of the fourth century, approximately 305–6. It was one of three councils, together with the Synod of Arles and the Synod of Ancyra, that first approached the character of general councils and prepared the way for the first ecumenical council. It was attended by nineteen bishops and twenty-six presbyters, mostly resident in Baetica. Deacons and laymen were also present. Eighty-one canons are recorded, although it is believed that many were added at later dates. All concern order, discipline and conduct among the Christian community. Canon 36, forbidding the use of images in churches, became a bone of contention between Catholic and Protestant scholars after the Protestant Reformation.

It is one of a number of pre-ecumenical ancient church councils and synods. The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia refers to this as a "council," conveying a wider scope than a synod. The Vatican refers to it using both terms.

The place of meeting, Eliberri, rendered as Elvira, was not far from the modern Granada, if not, as A.W. Dale and Edgar Hennecke think, actually identical with it. There the nineteen bishops and twenty-four presbyters, mostly from Hispania Baetica and Carthago Nova, assembled, probably at the instigation of Hosius of Córdoba, but under the presidency of Felix of Accitum (Guadix) in Baetica, probably by virtue of his being the oldest bishop present, with a view to restoring order and discipline in the church. The canons which were adopted reflect with considerable fullness the internal life and external relations of the Spanish Church of the 4th century. The reputation of this council drew to its canons further canons that came to be associated with the Synod of Elvira.

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