This year, 2025, marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea (the photo above shows architecture in Nicea that is still standing, was present in the days of the Council of Nicea).
So, what’s the big deal about that?
The apostles were expecting Jesus’ second coming during their generation. Also, Christ died at a time when the Jews were just starting to supplement their oral tradition with more written texts. Thus, it didn’t occur to the apostles and the early Christian communities to immediately, after Jesus’ death, write down the essentials of Christianity for future generations. Why write down the essentials of Jesus’ faith when Jesus was coming back soon?
Thus, It took several decades for the gospels to start to be written. The earliest church didn’t have the New Testament that we have today….
So, by the year 325, any number of things were being said to be Christian teachings that were theologically “all over the map.” The Council of Nicea (the council happened in the then-community of Nicea, in what is now Turkey) was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine to definitively settle “What we believe.” Bishops from both the Eastern and Western churches met over the summer to hammer out “What we believe” [between approximately 250 – 318 bishops attended. Bishops traveled to Nicea from across the Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia, Jerusalem, etc. without the benefits of automobiles or airplanes, though they did have ship travel).
Among the matters that came out of that Council was the Nicene Creed.
Today, 1,700 years later, we recite either the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed at every mass. That’s our big deal about the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea.
Have you taken time to reflect on our Creed? If we were to read the Creed with strictly modern sensibilities, there’s enough to give just about anyone heartburn. Jesus was born of a virgin? Physically rose from the dead?
I grew up believing in having a personal relationship with a monotheistic deity and I loved church ritual. I struggled with what I would later call “biological implausibilities” (virgin birth, the Assumption, etc.). It took me decades to work through these “implausibilities.” Now that I am largely on the other side of working through these matters, I have a faith that is richer and deeper. It turns out that developing a maturing faith requires that we really figure out how we personally relate to our Catholic faith.
1700 years into the Creed, have you reflected on the Creed? For Lent this year, maybe try writing a line-by-line explanation of what the Creed means (Lent starts on March 5th this year) If you’d like resources to assist with this Lenten project, a book that I read in college might prove helpful – a book by Fr. John A. Hardon called ”Pocket Catholic Catechism.”
Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).
