From Nicaea to the present

Br. MichaelDavide Semeraro

Pope Francis has said that he wants to go to Turkey this year to celebrate 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. Why is this synod so important? M.D. The Council of Nicaea is a key moment in the history of Christian faith and for the ecumenical journey nowadays. The Council was called in large part to address Arianism, the teaching of the bishop Arius that Jesus was not divine but a created being. So the council enshrined the divinity of Christ by invoking the term homoousios (Greek: “of one substance”) in a statement of faith known as the Creed of Nicaea that established the equality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity. The bishops were convened by the emperor Constantine after the end of the persecutions against the Christians and it opened the time of Christianity. It represents the starting time of a communion of our faith that we share with all the Churches and it is a key moment for the unity we wish so much. The council attempted but failed to establish a uniform date for Easter and it discussed some questions concerning organisation and discipline that sometimes changed…