Any of five ecumenical councils of the Roman Catholic church held in the Lateran Palace in Rome. The First Lateran Council (1123), held during the papacy of Calixtus II, reiterated decrees of earlier ecumenical councils (condemning simony, forbidding clergymen to marry, etc.). The Second Lateran Council (1139) was called by Innocent II to end the schism created by the election of a rival pope. The Third Lateran Council (1179), held during the papacy of Alexander III, established a two-thirds majority of the College of Cardinals as a requirement for papal election and condemned the heresies of the Cathari. Innocent III called the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) in an effort to reform the church; its decrees obliged Catholics to make a yearly confession, sanctioned the doctrine of transubstantiation, and made preparations for a new Crusade. The Fifth Lateran Council (1512-17), convoked by Julius II, affirmed the immortality of the soul and restored peace among warring Christian rulers
or Lateran Pact (1929) Pact of mutual recognition between Italy and the Vatican, signed in the Lateran Palace, Rome. The Vatican agreed to recognize the state of Italy, with Rome as its capital, in exchange for formal establishment of Roman Catholicism as the state religion of Italy, institution of religious instruction in the public schools, the banning of divorce, and recognition of papal sovereignty over Vatican City and the complete independence of the pope. A second concordat in 1985 ended Catholicism's status as the state religion and discontinued compulsory religious education
the agreement signed in the Lateran Palace in 1929 by Italy and the Holy See which recognized the Vatican City as a sovereign and independent papal state