internet: Arianism

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THE DOGMATIC, PATRISTIC AND LITURGICAL VALUE OF THE FIRST ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF NICAEA (325 AD): THE FOUNDATION OF ORTHODOXY IN THE FACE OF THE ARIAN HERESY. The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD) represents a fundamental turning point in the history of the Orthodox Church, providing a clear dogmatic response to the Arian heresy. By adopting the term homoousios ("of one being with"), the Church affirmed the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, thus establishing the Trinitarian foundation of Orthodox faith.The article analyzes the historical and theological context of the synod, the contributions of the Church Fathers in the reception and deepening of the synodal decisions,…

Evidence: 65 • authority: 72

In the history of Christianity, the first seven ecumenical councils are as follows: the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the First Council of Constantinople in 381, the Council of Ephesus in 431, the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the Third Council of Constantinople from 680 to 681 and finally, the Second Council of Nicaea in 787. These seven events represented an attempt by Church leaders to reach an orthodox consensus, restore peace and develop a unified Christendom. Among Eastern Christians the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Church of the East (Assyrian) churches and among Western Christians the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Utrecht and Pol…

Evidence: 53 • authority: 72

The Arian controversy was a series of Christian disputes about the nature of Christ. It was the greatest internal struggle the Christian Church had so far experienced, and led to the acceptance of the Trinity doctrine, the church’s most fundamental doctrine. It began in 318 as a dispute between Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and a priest in his diocese named Arius, both Christian theologians from Alexandria, Egypt. The most important of these controversies concerned the relationship between the substance of God the Father and the substance of His Son. Arius argued that the Son of God did not always exist and that His substance is different from the Father's. This conflicted with the view ad…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Heresy in Christianity is the formal denial or doubt of a core doctrine of the Christian faith as defined by one or more of the Christian churches. As Christianity became established as a church, it defined orthodoxy and combated deviation from it by developing ecclesiastical, universal, and ecumenical councils. Excommunication, inquisition, and execution (by civil authorities) were used against heretics who refused to recant, and major heresies were sometimes dealt with by military crusades. With the growth of toleration and ecumenicalism, inquisitions have been abandoned. The first Christian executed for heresy was Priscillian in 385 AD, and the last was Cayetano Ripoll, (accused of Deism…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

Arianism (Koine Greek: Ἀρειανισμός, romanized: Areianismós) has traditionally been defined as a distinct Christological doctrine formulated by the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, which rejected the Trinity and taught that Jesus Christ was a created being subordinate to God the Father. However, modern patristic scholarship—including historians such as Lewis Ayres, R.P.C. Hanson, and Rowan Williams—has heavily critiqued the term "Arianism" as a misleading historiographical misnomer. Scholars emphasize that no single, coherent "Arian" party existed, nor was there a unified school of thought devoted to Arius's specific writings. Instead, those who opposed the First Council of Nicaea and the Nicene…

Evidence: 35 • authority: 72

According to the Catholic Church, a Church Council is ecumenical ("world-wide") if it is "a solemn congregation of the Catholic bishops of the world at the invitation of the Pope to decide on matters of the Church with him". The wider term "ecumenical council" relates to Church councils recognised by both Eastern and Western Christianity. In Catholicism, in addition to ecumenical Councils, there are "particular Councils". Current Canon Law recognises two kinds of particular Councils: plenary councils involve the bishops of an episcopal conference (usually a single country), while provincial councils involve the bishops of an ecclesiastical province. The Catholic Church recognizes as ecumeni…

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An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are convoked from the whole world (oikoumene) and which secures the approbation of the whole Church. The word "ecumenical" derives from the Late Latin oecumenicus "general, universal", from Greek oikoumenikos "from the whole world", from he oikoumene ge "the inhabited world" (as known to the ancient Greeks); the Greeks and their neighbors, considered as developed human society (as opposed to barbarian lands); in later use "the Roman world" and in the Chri…

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The First Council of Constantinople (Latin: Concilium Constantinopolitanum; Ancient Greek: Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, except for the Western Church, confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and dealt with sundry other matters. It met from May to July 381 in the Church of Hagia Irene and was affirmed as ecumenical in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon for Chalcedonian Christianity and the Seco…

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Nicene Christianity includes those Christian denominations that adhere to the teaching of the Nicene Creed, which was formulated at the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 and amended at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381. It encompasses the vast majority of today's Christian churches.

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The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, also known as the First Ecumenical Council. It met from May until the end of July 325. This ecumenical council was the first of many efforts to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all Christendom. Hosius of Corduba may have presided over its deliberations. Attended by at least 200 bishops, its main accomplishments were the settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, the mandating o…

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CHAPTER XIII. ARIANISM AND THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA

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The First Council of Nicaea. This chapter explores the unique and formative nature of the Council of Nicaea from the critical perspective of demythologizing a historical and groundbreaking event that invariably and indelibly shaped all ensuing councils of the early church through to this day, especially in Eastern Orthodoxy. Whether wittingly or unwittingly, Constantine provided a singular opportunity to the church leaders of the time to grapple with issues plaguing his empire. Unfortunately, as this keynote address argues, the bishops attending the council were caught up with internal, even esoteric, as well as doctrinal, even abstract arguments and contentions. This was sadly a squandered…