The replace of the Council of Nicaea at the instance of the November 2025 commute of Pope Leo XIV to Turkey lets in us to replicate at the problems with this council for present geoecclesiology (the find out about of the Church’s courting to territories). The Pope promotes a dynamic way to Nicaea: what have an effect on at the harmony of the Church buildings and on ecumenical and interreligious discussion?
At the airplane that introduced him from Turkey to Lebanon on Sunday, November 30, 2025, Pope Leo XIV defined why he sought after to trip to the area:
“The first reason (…) was the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Council (…) to mark a great event: the agreement of the entire Christian community and the profession of faith, the Nicene-Constantinople Creed.”
Will have to we see on this transfer a easy homage to the resources of Christianity or, greater than that, a symbolic selection that says crucial route for the preach of this 70-year-old pope elected final Would possibly?
Evolution of the adjective “ecumenical”
On November 28, 2025, this “agreement of the entire Christian community” was once manifested in an ecumenical birthday celebration that collected a large number of Christian leaders – Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant – across the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople and Pope Leo XIV.
However the Council of Nicaea met prior to the entire separations between the Church buildings; So what’s the identify of the primary “ecumenical” meeting?
In Nicaea (present-day Iznik) in 325, the primary council was once an instantaneous results of the Edict of Milan, promulgated via the Roman rulers Licinius and Constantine in 313, which promoted devout tolerance and marked the top of the persecution of Christians via the Roman Empire.
The truth that they collect (“council” comes from the Latin concilium that means meeting) to agree on new problems is not anything new in itself, as it was once already a commonplace means of governing the Church buildings, together with all the way through the persecution, however on the native degree.
Alternatively, via drawing near Nicaea at the Roman roads, bishops surrounded via delegations may for the primary time constitute the “universal” Church. This truth is indicated via the adjective “ecumenical”.
Over the centuries, the adjective has modified its that means. In antiquity, it first had a geographical that means and supposed that the council was once meant to deliver in combination, no less than probably, the bishops of all of the Empire. As of late it acquires a extra technical that means and denotes other types of interfaith discussion inside other Christian church buildings. The reality stays that the Church buildings, separated over the centuries, proceed to have a good time in Nicaea a commonplace heritage that necessarily unites them.
Commonplace Credo
The primary factor, in 325, was once the association of phrases that might specific religion in Christ because the Son of God.
Whilst the Alexandrian priest Arius formulated a undeniable subordination of the Son to the Father on account of his human nature, the united bishops verify that this Son isn’t any much less God than the Father: he’s of the similar nature because the Father.
To put across this trust, they advanced a creed, the primary creed that each and every bishop would take house to move directly to the devoted within the 4 corners of the Empire.
Emperor Constantine (heart) with the bishops of the Council of Nicea anachronistically grasp the textual content of the Nicene-Constantinople Creed in Greek liturgical shape in line with the textual content followed on the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD). Wikimedia
Confessions of religion that alternated between narrative mode and theological precision had been already a commonplace means of formulating religion from the start; it’s exactly at the fashions of already present confessions of religion which are used all the way through baptism that the council develops its religion. However the bishops of Nicaea had been conscious that in this instance they formulated a confession of religion that would function a benchmark for the common Church. It’ll due to this fact be finished on the Council of Constantinople in 381 (therefore the identify Nicene-Constantinople Creed), however won’t basically exchange. “The Nicene-Constantinople Creed is, therefore, the common confession of all Christian traditions,” because the Pope underlines within the apostolic letter of November 23, 2025, In unitate fidei at the instance of the anniversary of Nicea.
This trust continues to be the conclusion of the more than a few Christian church buildings collected in combination; Due to this fact, it’s their commonplace heritage that those that participated within the 2025 commemoration sought after to focus on, with out denying their very own identification.
How does this adventure have a symbolic facet?
It’s exactly within the articulation between harmony and variety that Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Leo XIV put themselves very obviously, suggesting that they “walk together”: “We must walk together,” says Pope Leo XIV, “in order to achieve unity and reconciliation among all Christians.” (In unitate fidei 12.)
He continues: “The Nicene Creed can be the basis and reference standard for this journey. It truly offers us a model of true unity in legitimate diversity. (…) Because unity without multitude is tyranny.” (In unitate fidei 12.)
Due to this fact, this harmony is not at all understood as uniformity, which might additionally be kind of fantasized; the venture isn’t geared toward smoothing individuality however at discussion.
Some distance from being naive, the Nicene assembly due to this fact displays the will of the current devout leaders to provide Christianity the picture of a discussion for peace. “Because we are not gathered here just to remember the past,” mentioned Patriarch Bartholomew in his welcoming speech.
If it was once imaginable to get familiar (and is not that essentially the most tricky factor? the absence of the Russian Church, which hovers as a painful reminder of the political-religious facets within the present conflicts), then the gesture turns into “suggested” on the degree of interreligious discussion (in Turkey and past), or even on the political degree. The remainder of the Pope’s commute to Lebanon can thus be learn as a geoecclesiological end result of the residing reminiscence of Nicaea.
In a broader sense, the Nicene debates aren’t restricted to questions inside to the Christian religion, however are open to discussion with cultures. To precise the guts in their religion, the bishops of Nicaea subtle their vocabulary and boldly opted for a time period that’s not biblical, however comes from Greek philosophical tradition, succesful, in step with them, of decisively clarifying their pondering. The Greek adjective homoousios (then translated into French as “consubstantial” from the Latin consubstantialis) will galvanize greater than a century of discussion, however expresses an openness to discussion with secular tradition. Sons in their time and inheritors of this tradition, they come to a decision to “walk” with what it may be offering this is sure for them, thus illustrating what is going to later be known as the inculturation of religion, this is, the expression of religion in and because of the genius of each and every tradition that receives the Gospel.
The wager was once dangerous, and certainly the Council of Nicaea was once a ways from striking an finish to conflicting formulations in regards to the nature of the Son. It was once handiest on the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon, in 451, that we discovered a stabilized and non violent expression. However the means of inculturation exemplified at Nicaea marks historic Christianity in an irreversible means.
A majority of these vital “tendencies” in opposition to discussion and peace make Nicaea, as Pope Leo XIV’s first commute, a symbolic position that outlines the robust orientation of his preach. Between the roots in historical past and the carrier of peace on the planet, Leo XIV puts this primary adventure within the continuity of the nice paintings that Pope Francis opened on the synod. Does not the Greek phrase sin-odos imply precisely “to travel together”?
