1,700th anniversary of First Council of Nicaea

 

On 20 May 2025, the Christian world will commemorate the 1700^th anniversary of the opening of the Council of Nicaea, which took place in Asia Minor in the year 325.  This was the first ecumenical council in history, and it produced the creed that, completed by the First Council of Constantinople in 381, has become the distinctive expression of the Church’s faith in Jesus Christ.  This anniversary occurs within the Jubilee Year, which is centred on the theme “Christ our Hope,” and it coincides with the common celebration of Easter by Christians of both East and West.  As Pope Francis has emphasized, in this historic moment—marked by the tragedy of war along with countless anxieties and uncertainties—what is essential, most beautiful, most attractive, and also most necessary for Christians is precisely the faith in Jesus Christ proclaimed at Nicaea.   Indeed, the proclamation of this faith is “the fundamental task of the Church” (Address to Participants in the Plenary Assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, 26 January 2024).

The International Theological Commission has now published an important and comprehensive document entitled, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior: The 1700^th Anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.”  It aims not only to recall the nature and significance of the Council, given its great historical importance for the Church, but also to highlight the extraordinary resources that the Nicene creed, continuously professed up to our own time, contains and re-proposes, especially in view of the new phase of evangelization that the Church is presently called to undertake.  The document also highlights the relevance of these resources for a responsible and shared approach to addressing the epochal changes that are impacting culture and society worldwide.  For the faith professed at Nicaea makes us see the explosive and enduring newness of the coming of the Son of God among us.  It encourages us to expand our hearts and minds in order to welcome and engage with the gift of this decisive insight into the meaning and direction of history in light of the God who, through his only-begotten Son, to whom he communicates the fullness of his own life, makes us participants in that life through the Incarnation, and generously bestows on all the breath of the Holy Spirit, which overcomes all barriers: a breath of freedom from selfishness, of openness to reciprocal relationships, and of communion with others.