from Nisibis in the north to Fars by the Persian Gulf in the south, "to put a stop to all quarrels, schisms and divisions, and to establish proper canons for the regulation of the Catholic Church."
On the feast of Epiphany, 410, the council met at Seleucia; and after a brief formal sitting under the presidency of Isaac and Marutha, adjourned for nearly a month—an interval spent probably in discussions, and in the drawing up informally of the canons which were to be passed at a later session. On February 1 the second session opened. The letter of the "Westerns" was read and approved; the Nicene canons, including, of course, the creed, were read, adopted and signed by the council; and either then or at the next session the twenty-one canons of the council formally passed unanimously. A second adjournment followed, during which Isaac and Marutha had an audience of Yezdegerd, probably submitting the canons for his approval, as a preliminary to their publication; and finally, two royal commissioners of high rank the (Grand Vizier and the Commander-in-chief) summoned the synod to their presence, republished the Firman of Toleration, declared that Isaac had been established by the King as "Chief of all the Christians of the East," and that the joint decisions of the Catholicos and Marutha were to be final in all existing disputes and would be enforced by royal authority.
Thus, at this council the Church was put formally and finally into the position of a recognized melet in the Persian kingdom. It was subject to its own ruler (who was also its religious head), whose appointment must be at the least approved by the State. It could make its own laws in its own way, subject to State approval; and disobedience to them could be punished by State authority, if the moral and temporal power of the Catholicos
