The chief value of this Council now lies in the picture which it presents to us of the actual state and temper of the eastern Church at that time, the closing ten years of a century about which we possess so little detailed information. I am here concerned especially with two things—one, the position of the emperor as regards both the Pope and the Church; the other, the position of the patriarch of Constantinople; on both this Council casts light. As to the emperor, not only was it convoked(140) by his command and assembled in a hall of his palace, but its canons were subscribed by the emperor first with the imperial vermilion, and the second place was left vacant for the Pope’s signature.(141) Then followed the subscriptions of Paul of Constantinople, Peter of Alexandria, Anastasius of Jerusalem, George of Antioch; on the whole, of 211 bishops, or their representatives, all Greeks and Orientals, including Armenians. It styled itself ecumenical, and the emperor tried to impose it as such. In its address to the emperor it said by that it was called(142) by him “to restore to order the Christian life, and root out the remains of Jewish and heathen perversity,” while it ended by addressing to him the words, “as thou hast honoured the Church by convoking us, so also be pleased to confirm what we have decreed”. As to the Bishop of Constantinople, this Council said in its 36th canon, “renewing the decrees of the Second and Fourth General Councils, we decree that the see of Constantinople enjoy the same prerogatives as that of old Rome, and in ecclesiastical matters be as great as it, counting as the second after it. After it comes the see of Alexandria, then that of Antioch, then that of Jerusalem.”