Bannig reincarnation in christianity

In the year 553 A.D., 165 Church officials condemned reincarnation. Prior to that time, it had been a fundamental Christian teaching.

At the beginning of the Christian era, reincarnation was one of the pillars of belief.
Without it (as later happened), Christianity would lose all logic:
How could a benevolent, loving God give one person a silver spoon and leave the next to starve in their ostensibly only earthly life? Early Church elders and theologians, like Origenes, Basilides and St Gregory, taught reincarnation of the soul.
Nowadays, most Christians suspect blasphemy if someone references reincarnation.

The Council of 451 Emphasises the Law of Reincarnation

Reincarnation was held to be a fundamental dogma, which was even reinforced by the Council of 451. Who could have imagined then that Christian theology would so essentially change with the ascension of Justinian to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire in 527 and what profound repercussions the following centuries would suffer as a result?

The real actor in the shadows was a woman: Theodora, Emperor Justinian's wife. She had made a sharp social ascent-and this daughter of a bear tamer from the Constantinople circus had used a woman's oldest weapon to make her climb. Earlier, she had been a young and beautiful prostitute whose services were happily sought by the aristocracy. 

Hacebolus threw Theodora out of his palace and confiscated all her goods. With only the clothes on her back, she fought her way through to Alexandria. At the gates to the city, she was taken in by a hermit named Eutyches. It was the same Eutyches who had originated monophysitism and was now living out his exile there. Later, Theodora would remember this fallen monk and use him to carry out her dark plans.

Back in Constantinople, she purposefully slept her way up the ladder of society, becoming one of Justinian's concubines, then his favourite concubine, and, finally, in 523, his wife. Four years later, she and her husband assumed the highest position of power in the secular world: the imperial crown.

Empress Theodora Seeks Her Own Apotheosis

Theodora succeeded-well, almost. Her burning ambition pushed her ever further. There was one final step to be climbed: her own deification. Only then would she be equal with the Caesars of old. It wasn't really that long before that the Roman Emperors were automatically deified and received a place of worship in the temple halls. Christianity had brought an end to this custom. And it was precisely on this point that the biblically recognised fact of reincarnation provided a stumbling block: For how could a woman enter eternity as a goddess when everyone was supposed to be reborn?  And so the doctrine of reincarnation had to be completely blotted out.

Theodora selected the monophysitist monks, who were soon to be pardoned from their excommunications, as willing helpers. They were to ensure that every teaching of reincarnation completely disappeared from all church documents.

Theodora had spread her own network of agents over the entire empire and took care that 'her' monks, little by little, took over leadership of the Church. And the entire power of the Byzantine Empire was at her service, for Justinian had already become her willing tool.

Synod of Eastern Church of Constantinople (543 )

 In order to accomplish her plans, Theodora first had to bring the Western Church (of the fallen Western Roman Empire) under her control. Flavius Belisarius' armies helped her in this by securing Byzantine influence in Rome and enabling Theodora's perfidy of deposing the Pope. One of the empresses' favourites assumed the position.

After she had thus dispensed with the opposition of the Western Church, Theodora concentrated once again on Constantinople and, with the help of her puppet, the Patriarch Mennas, she convened the Synod of the Eastern Church of Constantinople (543 A.D.). This Council revoked the condemnation of monophysitism as well as the affirmation of reincarnation, codified in 451 A.D. This was the first deathblow to the doctrine of reincarnation.

The Synod, however, was not binding for the almost 3,000 bishops spread across the Empire. And so a Council was called to sanction the decisions. Invitations were sent to all bishops, but they were written so that one could hope that none of the bishops of the Western Church would participate. Pope Virgilius, Theodora's accomplice, condemned the letters in the harshest terms and thereby strengthened the resolve of many bishops not to attend.

Intrigues 

Emperor Justinius managed to manipulate the 5th Ecumenical Council in 553 which resulted in the ban against Origen: "Strangely enough, there was not one Roman bishop present at this conference; apart from six African notables there were only Eastern bishops present. A curious feature of this Council was that although Pope Vigilius was in Constantinople at the time of the Council he did not attend. 

There had previously been conflict between Vigilius and the Emperor and the Empress Theodora. Justinius refused to accede to the Pope's request for a stronger delegation of bishops from both West and East at the Council and then proceeded to convene the Council himself. The Pope did not attend, as a gesture of protest, and as an indication that he would not be held responsible for the Council. 

The ruling monarch did not have an entirely free hand, however, since official regulations drawn up during the eight sessions of the Council, which met over a period of four weeks, had to be officially endorsed by the Pope. This duly took place; the documents, however, only dealt with the so-called «Three Chapters' controversy - the work of three scholars considered by Justinius to be heretics. The Emperor had already issued an edict against these men. No mention was made of Origen. Research suggests that suspicions about Justinius were valid. Neither Pope Plagius I (556-561) nor Pope Gregorius (590-604) mentioned Origen when writing about the 5th Council."

Ban

But up to now it has been accepted tacitly that the following is the official ban of the Council: "Whosoever teaches the doctrine of a supposed pre-birth existence of the soul, and speaks of a monstrous restoration of this, is cursed."

"How did this come about? No-one can say with certainty, but there are strong indications that by some ploy the Emperor Justinius was able to insist on the convocation of a Council, which was delayed, however, by opposition from the Pope. Eventually the first meeting of the Council took place on 5 May 553, not before the Emperor had managed to call several bishops to a meeting at which he (Justinius) presented his «Fifteen Anathemata' refuting Origen's teachings, and gained the endorsement of the attending bishops. 

We can safely conclude that the Pope, who wished to boycott the Council, would certainly not have appeared at this meeting, which was precisely what Justinius had hoped for. The meeting prior to the Council was used by the wily Emperor to curtail the Pope's powers and to pronounce a ban on the teachings of Origen. 

His scheming succeeded far better than he could have imagined. The church accepted the ban as valid, having been imposed by the Council, and it then passed into established doctrine where it has remained for the past 1500 years. This makes the idea extremely difficult to correct. The subject of reincarnation has therefore not played any role in Christian doctrine, in contrast with other religions.