Council of Nicaea inspires full Christian unityNicaea: 1700 years of a decisive councilJoseph Ratzinger's prophecyBy Cindy Wooden, CNS.
Christians should not view the Creed of Nicea simply as a list of things they believe in, but that they should look at it with awe because it tells of the greatness of God's love and the gift of salvation, said members of the International Theological Commission.
Nicea presents the reality of the redemptive work: in Christ, God saves us by entering history. He does not send an angel or a human hero, but enters human history himself, being born of a woman, Mary, among the people of Israel and dying in a specific historical period, 'under Pontius Pilate,'" the scholars said.
Document of the International Theological Commission
The members of the commission, who are appointed by the Pope and advise the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, published the document "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior: 1700th Anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325-2025)".
The document was approved by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the dicastery and president of the commission, and its publication was authorized by Pope Francis. The text was published on April 3 in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. An English translation is being prepared.
The Council of Nicaea met in 325 in present-day Iznik, Turkey. It was the first of the ecumenical councils that brought together bishops from all Christian communities.
"Its profession of faith and canonical decisions were promulgated as normative for the whole church," the members of the theological commission declared. "The unprecedented communion and unity brought about in the church by the event of Jesus Christ are made visible and effective in a new way through a structure of universal scope, and the proclamation of the good news of Christ in all its immensity is also given an instrument of unprecedented authority and scope."
Council of Constantinople
While the wording of the Creed was perfected at the Council of Constantinople in 381, the commission affirmed, its basic affirmations were defined at Nicaea and continue to form the essential profession of faith for all Christians.
In reciting what is technically the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, "we confess that the transcendent Truth is written in history and is at work in it," the document said. "Therefore, the message of Jesus is inseparable from his person: he is "the way, the truth and the life" for all, and not just a teacher of wisdom among others."
The celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council should give new impetus to evangelization efforts, the document states.
Using the Creed as a starting point for proclaiming Jesus as Savior, the Holy Father says, means above all "marveling" at the immensity of Christ's love and obedience "so that all may marvel" and "rekindling the fire of our love for the Lord Jesus, so that all may burn with love for him."
The divine and the human
"Proclaiming Jesus as our salvation from the faith expressed at Nicaea does not imply ignoring the reality of humanity," he said. "It does not distract us from the sufferings and upheavals that torment the world and that today seem to undermine all hope."
"Rather," he said, "face these difficulties by confessing the only possible redemption, acquired by the One who knew in the depths of his being the violence of sin and rejection, the loneliness of abandonment and death and who, from the abyss of evil, rose to bring us, in his victory, to the glory of the resurrection."
Moreover, said the theologians, "the faith of Nicaea, in its beauty and greatness, is the common faith of all Christians. All are united in the profession of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol, even if not all give identical status to this council and its decisions."
Still, they said, celebrating the anniversary together is "a valuable opportunity to emphasize that what we have in common is much stronger, quantitatively and qualitatively, than what divides us: all together, we believe in the triune God; in Christ true man and true God; in salvation in Jesus Christ, according to the Scriptures read in the Church and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; together, we believe in the Church, baptism, the resurrection of the dead and eternal life."
From Creed to hope
The Creed should also inspire hope among individuals by recognizing in several lines how God created them, loves them, saves them and will bring them to him at the end of time, the document states.
"Moreover," he said, "hope in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come" testifies to the immense value of the individual person, who is not destined to disappear into nothingness or into everything, but is called to an eternal relationship with that God who chose each person before the creation of the world."
– Supernatural International Theological Commission also asked people to consider its affirmation that the church is "one, holy, catholic and apostolic." Christians profess and believe, the commission said, that "the Church is one beyond its visible divisions, holy beyond the sins of its members and the errors committed by its institutional structures," as well as universal and apostolic in a way that goes beyond the cultural and national tensions that have plagued it at different times in its history.
The unity of the Church
One of the objectives of the council was to establish a common date for Easter that would express the unity of the church, according to the document. Unfortunately, since the reform of the calendar at the end of the 16th century, Easter according to the Julian calendar, used by some Orthodox churches, only occasionally coincides with Easter according to the Gregorian calendar, used in the West and by many Eastern Christians.
The different dates of celebration of "the most important feast" of the Christian calendar "creates pastoral unrest in the communities, to the point of dividing families and causing scandal among non-Christians, thus damaging the witness given to the Gospel," the document states.
However, in 2025 the calendars will coincide, which, according to theologians, should give more energy to the dialogue to reach an agreement.
At the end of January, Pope Francis reaffirmed the Catholic position, officially adopted by St. Paul VI in the 1960s: if Eastern Christians agree on a way to determine a common date for Easter, the Catholic Church will accept it.
