The First Council of Nicaea

325 · Nicaea, in Bithynia

Received by the Coptic Orthodox ChurchFirst Ecumenical Council

Convened by: Emperor Constantine
Who came: about 318 bishops

What it answered

Arianism, which denied that the Son is of one essence with the Father

What it settled

That the Son is of one essence with the Father, homoousios, and the first part of the Creed the Church still prays.

Who was there

St. Alexander of Alexandrialedsaint
19th of Alexandria: 312-328
One of the key figures at the Council of Nicaea (325)
St. Athanasius the Apostolicattendedsaint
Born: ca. 297 Pope: 328
He accompanied Pope Alexander to the Council of Nicaea in 325
Eustathius of Antiochattendedwriter
bp. 324-326
He was the first to speak at the Council of Nicaea in 325
Jacob of Nisibisattendedwriter
End of 3rd century
In 325, he was summoned to the council of Nicaea
Ariuscondemnedcondemned
ca. 256 – 336
the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea was convened, in which Arius and Meletius were condemned
An Alexandrian priest whose teaching that the Son is a created being — not eternal, nor of one essence with the Father — was condemned at the Council of Nicaea (325). The arch-heresy the Nicene Fathers arose to answer.
Eusebius of Caesarearesistedwriter
ca. 260 – ca. 340
At the Council of Nicaea in 325, he advocated a recognition of the true divinity of Christ in simply biblical terms and refused the Homoousian doctrine of St. Athanasius
The father of Church history, whose Ecclesiastical History is an indispensable record of the early Church; he is not venerated as a saint, owing to the semi-Arian sympathies of some of his writings.

The documents

The Creed, as Nicaea issued it

The Creed AS NICAEA ISSUED IT IN 325. It ends at the Holy Spirit; the clauses that follow were added at Constantinople in 381. It has never carried the filioque, which is a later Western addition the Coptic Church has not received.

We believe in one God: the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth: the visible and the invisible.

We believe in one Lord Jesus the Christ, the only begotten Son, born of the Father before all ages. Light of light, very God of very God; begotten not created. Consubstantial with the Father; by whom were all things made. This is he who for us humans, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was made man by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

He was incarnate; crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, was buried and rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures.

He ascended up to heaven and sitteth at the right hand of his Father, from whence he shall come in glory to judge the living and the dead; for whose kingdom there is no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit.

HIS 102, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States, 2004

The anathema against Arius

The statement appended to the Creed at Nicaea, against Arius.

And as for them that say concerning the Son of God, there was a time when He was not, and He was not before He was produced, and He was produced from things that are not, and He is of another substance or essence, or created, or subject to conversion or mutation, the Universal-Apostolic Church says let them be anathema.

HIS 102, Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Southern United States, 2004

Canon 6, on the ancient jurisdictions

Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also.

This canon is sometimes read as though it granted Rome something. It does the reverse. It settles jurisdiction by ancient custom, confirming the Bishop of Alexandria's authority over Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, and it mentions Rome only as a parallel case of the same regional custom. Nicaea knows bishops with authority over their own provinces. It knows no bishop with authority over the whole Church.

Schaff, NPNF Series II Vol. 14 (1900), public domain