First Council of Nicaea
council · 325 · Nicaea
Constantine convened the bishops at Nicaea in 325 — tradition counts 318 fathers — to end the Arian dispute. The council confessed the Son homoousios (of one being) with the Father, condemned and exiled Arius, fixed a common Sunday for Easter, and issued 20 canons confirming the ancient precedence of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. The first council the whole church counts ecumenical.
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, also known as the First Ecumenical Council. It met from May until the end of July 325.
The Arian question — is the Son fully God, of the Father's own being? Also the date of Easter and the Melitian schism.
Arius condemned and exiled; the Son confessed homoousios — of one being with the Father — in the creed; Easter fixed on a common Sunday; 20 canons of order confirming the precedence of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch.
People
- Athanasius of Alexandria attended
- Basil of Caesarea significant
- Constantine the Great convened
- Gregory of Nazianzus significant
- Alexander of Constantinople attended
- Arius condemned
- Eusebius of Caesarea attended
- Eusebius of Nicomedia attended
- Eustathius of Antioch attended
- Pope Alexandros of Alexandria attended
- Saint Nicholas attended
- Aristaces I attended
- Caecilianus attended
- Hosius of Corduba presided
- Jacob of Nisibis attended
- Macarius of Jerusalem attended
- Spyridon attended
- Acesius attended
- John the Persian attended
Documents
Glosses
- Why Easter moves Nicaea ruled in 325 that the whole church keep Easter on one Sunday and stop taking its date from the Jewish calendar — but it fixed no arithmetic, and someone had to compute, every year and in advance, the Sunday…
What it decided
- Baptism outside the Church is void A baptism administered outside the communion of the Church confers nothing, and one who comes over must be baptized.
- Homoousios The Son is of one substance with the Father.
- The Son is created The Son is a creature, made out of nothing before all ages, and there was when he was not.
In the disputes
- The Arian crisis Sixty years of argument about whether the Son is God in the same sense the Father is.
- The dispute over the date of Pascha Whether Pascha follows the fourteenth of the moon on whatever day it falls, as the churches of Asia held, or waits for the Sunday.
- The rebaptism controversy Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen of Rome disagreed, sharply, about whether a baptism given outside the church's communion is a baptism at all.
Wikipedia · Catholic Encyclopedia — First Council of Nicaea · OrthodoxWiki — First Ecumenical Council · The Seven Ecumenical Councils — Nicaea I, a.d. 325 (NPNF II/14)