Augustin Sokolovski
We are in the period between Ascension and Pentecost. Exactly ten days separate these two feasts. There is only one Sunday during this period. To worthily receive the Holy Spirit, believers are called to meditate on the mysteries of our salvation. The main commemoration planned for the Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost is the memory of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.
Nicaea is a city in Asia Minor, in western Anatolia, whose name is now pronounced Iznik. A former Greek colony, its name, in homage to "Victory," is identical to that of the modern French metropolis of Nice.
We are happy. We have lived long enough to see the Great Jubilee. For this year marks the 1700th anniversary of that Council.
What is an Ecumenical Council? An Ecumenical Council is a meeting of the episcopate of the Roman Empire. In ancient language, "the universe," or "Oikumene" in Greek, was the name for the Empire.
The Council of Nicaea marks an important milestone in a series of events that led to the emergence of an entirely new situation. It is a true revolution. It took place in several stages.
First, there was the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared Christianity lawful and put an end to persecutions; second, there was "our" Council of Nicaea in 325; third, there was the refoundation of the city of Jerusalem and the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 326; fourth, there was the founding of Constantinople in 330. And finally, fifth, the baptism of Emperor Constantine the Great in 337.
After this, the world changed. The Empire, the Oikumene, began to transform into an Orthodox Christian superpower, as we say today. The Ecumenical Council had to take place one way or another.
However, historically, the convening of the Council of Nicaea is associated with the emergence of the Arius heresy. Arius taught that the Son of God, who became man in Jesus Christ, was created. The Council of Nicaea refuted this teaching. It definitively and irrevocably proclaimed that the Son of God is consubstantial with God the Father. He is equal to the Father, He was never created, He has always existed, He is constantly born of the Father, He is eternal, He is infinite, He is the true God.
This means that Jesus Christ, who addresses us in the pages of the Gospel and, above all, lives in the Church through the Holy Spirit, is God Himself. We hear directly, "with the naked eye," the pure word of God Himself, without intermediary, without distortion, without addition. We are saved by the Creator Himself. He hears us, and we hear Him.
The Council of Nicaea is a great event, which signifies for us the triumph of divine theology in the human word. Let us celebrate it with joy. Let us also celebrate it with a measure of sadness.
At that time, the idea took shape that there could be only one Empire. Since there was one God, one Lord Jesus Christ, one Gospel, one Church, there should therefore be only one Empire on earth.
Only three centuries later, a new Muslim empire emerged, legitimized by Islam, born at the beginning of the 7th century. The latter's conception of Jesus Christ perfectly aligned with Arianism, which, it seemed at the time, had been definitively surpassed at Nicaea. The New Empire needed a new religion, because there could only be one rightly and correctly believing empire!
Moreover, the idea of a single empire has survived in the modern world. It hasn't disappeared; it continues to exist in a hybrid form, but, strangely, no one wants to admit it. It is the source of many current controversies and even wars. It illustrates how, in everyday life, it almost always has its foundations in theological reality.
Finally, the adoption of Orthodox Christianity by the Roman Empire as its official denomination aroused suspicion towards Christians living outside the Roman Empire. If for Christians living from Morocco to Great Britain, from France to Mesopotamia, these borders of the Roman Empire, the emperor's Orthodox denomination meant peace and blessing, for Christians in the Persian Empire, another superpower of the time, it meant the beginning of a long period of persecution.
To dispel suspicions of disloyalty to their state, Persian Christians eventually called themselves Nestorians, after one of the later heresies condemned by the Third Ecumenical Council (431), the successor to Nicaea, which took place a century after Nicaea in the famous metropolis of Ephesus. In its mission, the Persian Church reached as far as China and, in its time, even founded dioceses in Tibet. Such are the ways of Divine Providence in the history of peoples.
Let us remember the many Persian martyrs and missionary saints and turn to them to ask for their intercession. Eternal memory to the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea, among whom is the patron saint of many parishes and churches, Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas, happy feast day to you!