The first Christian ecumenical or universal council, held at Nicaea in 325 AD, over a decade after the Roman emperor Constantine legalised Christianity, was a watershed in the history of the Catholic Church.
Convoked by the emperor, the council was nevertheless presided over by a bishop, St Hosius of Cordova. This maintained the distinction between church and empire even as the two collaborated at the dawn of Christendom, the term we give to what is at once the strained and complicated, but also fruitful and creative, relationship that would characterise much of late antiquity and Middle Ages.
The traditional number of attendees—318 bishops—many of whom had been persecuted and maimed by the imperial authorities in previous decades, gathering near what would become the new imperial capital of Constantinople, would have been an impressive sight.
The Roman papal legates who attended the council would have seen the imperial ratification of an ecclesiastical hierarchy that acknowledged Rome as first among other flourishing centres: Alexandria and Antioch, to which would eventually be added New Rome (Constantinople) and Jerusalem.
But perhaps even more significant was Nicaea’s common witness of the Church’s belief that Jesus, the Son of God, is truly divine—homoousios—of “one essence” with God the Father. This profound doctrinal statement is recited at every Mass in the Nicene Creed, and was completed at the second ecumenical council held in Constantinople in 381 AD. It is a statement that succinctly expresses a belief in Christ’s divinity that continues to unite Christians of various traditions, in spite of the vicissitudes of history that have led to estrangement and hostility.
The 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council of Nicaea is thus an opportunity to celebrate what unites us as found in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the “symbol of faith,” which is a doctrinal staple of Catholicism and which is still professed by many believers everywhere.
The University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA), along with the Catholic Institute of Sydney (CIS), invites you to this celebration with an academic day conference on Thursday, 15 May, which will reflect upon on the history, theology, and legacy of Nicaea.
There will be eight speakers from different scholarly backgrounds who will deal with various aspects of the council.
I shall speak on “Constantine, Athanasius, and the Politics of Nicaea.” Prof Carole Cusack, of the University of Sydney, will give a paper titled: On the Wrong Side of History: Homoian Christians in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.
Dr Peter John McGregor, of CIS, will speak on “Arius and Apollinarius: False Cataphatic Responses to the Humanity and Divinity of Christ.” “‘A Flesh-Bearing Man’: The importance of embodiment in the Nicene Christology of Athanasius and Antony” will be the topic of the Rev Fr Antonios Kaldas, of St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College.
“What Bearing Could the Nicene Creed Possibly Have on Interfaith Dialogue?” will be the topic addressed by Dr Vassilis Adrahtas, of Western Sydney University. Dr Robert Andrews, of CIS, will speak on: “‘In a Higher World it is Otherwise’: First Nicaea and the Development of Doctrine.”
“Haunted by the Spectre of Arius: Archetypal Heresy, Subordinationist Christology, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses” will be the title of a paper by Assoc Prof Bernard Doherty, of Charles Sturt University.
The conference, which will take place at the School of Philosophy and Theology at UNDA’s Broadway campus, is free, but participants should register here. See the conference flyer for details.
Dr Mario Baghos is Senior Lecturer and Post-Graduate Theology Co-Ordinator at The University of Notre Dame Australia