Pope Leo has spoken about the importance of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea this year, and of his desire to make progress towards unity with the Orthodox Churches. What can you tell me about the Council?
The First Council of Nicaea was held in 325AD and is best known as the Council which gave us the first part of the Nicene Creed, proclaiming the divinity of the Word, Jesus Christ. The First Council of Constantinople in 381 gave us the second part of the Creed, which proclaimed the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Because of its origin in these two Councils, the Creed is often called the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, or simply the Nicene Creed.
The exact dates of the Council of Nicaea in 325 are not certain. Nonetheless, 20 May is generally celebrated as the anniversary of the opening and 25 July as the closing. The Council was held in Nicaea, today’s Iznik, a town of some 45,000 people on the Eastern shore of Lake Iznik, in the Eastern part of Turkey. The town is surrounded by ancient Roman walls.
The Council was called by Emperor Constantine I in an effort to bring unity and peace to the empire, which had become divided by the errors of Arius. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, taught that the Word, the second Person of the Trinity, had been created by the Father and hence was not God. Constantine wanted the Council to be held in Nicaea, where he could attend personally, since it was close to his capital at Nicomedia. It would also allow easier access for the bishops, especially those from the East.
The pope at the time, Sylvester I (314-335), did not attend but was represented by delegates. According to St Athanasius, 318 bishops from East and West, most of them from the East, attended the Council, which is regarded as the first Ecumenical Council. The word “ecumenical,” by the way, comes from the Greek word oikoumene, meaning the inhabited, or the whole world. It is derived from the verb oikeo, meaning “to inhabit.” Ecumenical Councils today are those convoked by the pope with all the bishops of the world invited to attend.
The Council rejected Arianism and formulated its belief in the divinity of the Word in a profession of faith agreed upon by the Council fathers. It is essentially what we profess today: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”. The Council issued a series of anathemas rejecting explicitly the teachings of Arius. Those who refused to accept the creed, including Arius, were excommunicated and exiled to Illyria.
The Council also agreed on a common date for the celebration of Easter. In the first centuries Christians celebrated Easter on a Sunday close to the Jewish celebration of the Passover. But in the late third century some Christians thought the Jews were identifying the wrong lunar month as the month of Nisan, so they made their own calculations and determined that Easter should always follow the Spring equinox in the northern hemisphere. The Council of Nicaea endorsed the Christian calculation, which had been in use for some time in Rome and Alexandria. Later, the date of Easter was specified as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox, which was 21 March.
The Council also issued 20 canons on matters of church discipline, most of which are not of interest today. However, an interesting one which bears on the posture for Mass decreed that the faithful were not to kneel on Sundays and on the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost. The reason was that these are festive days and kneeling was regarded as more appropriate for penitential prayer.
Pope Leo has expressed his desire that the church agree with the Orthodox on a common celebration of Easter, and also that progress be made towards full unity with the Orthodox Churches.
Pope Francis had wanted to travel to Turkey for the 1700th anniversary of the Council, and it is hoped that Pope Leo will do so, possibly around the feast of St Andrew on November 30, since St Andrew is considered the founder of the See of Byzantium-Constantinople.
