[6] But even the Council of Jerusalem's decisions, known as the Apostolic Decree, in particular the obligation to abstain from eating blood or what has been strangled,[7] are not accepted by all Christian churches.
The Acts of the Apostles records, without using for it the term "council" or "synod", what has been called the Council of Jerusalem: to respond to a consultation by Paul of Tarsus, the apostles and elders of the Church in Jerusalem met to address the question of observance of biblical law in the early Christian community, which included Gentile converts.
[12] In times of greater toleration, Christian leaders felt sufficiently secure to hold councils governing their see or metropolitan area.
These include: Such councils began to appear only in the middle of the 2nd century, at first at local level, but from 175 onward they involved several communities together, with such activity particularly marked in Italy and Asia Minor.
In the second half of that century, councils were held at Antioch that gathered representatives of Christianity throughout the Middle East, from the Black Sea to Egypt.
[15][16] In 193, a series of councils was held in Palestine, Pontus and Osrhoene in the east, and in Rome and Gaul in the west concerning Quartodecimanism.
They all condemned the practice in the Roman province of Asia (Western Anatolia), where Easter was celebrated at the Passover full moon rather than on the following Sunday.
Sanctions include long delays before baptism, exclusion from the Eucharist for periods of months or years, or indefinitely, sometimes with an exception for the death-bed, though this is also specifically excluded in some cases.