1. Nicaea – The Defeat of Arianism
The main work of the Council of Nicaea in 323 was the condemnation of Arianism. Arius, a priest in Alexandria, maintained that the Son was inferior to the Father, and, in drawing a dividing line between God and creation, he placed the Son among created things: a superior creature, it is true, but a creature none the less. His motive, no doubt, was to protect the uniqueness and the transcendence of God, but the effect of his teaching, in making Christ less than God, was to render impossible our human deification. Only if Christ is truly God, the council answered, can He unite us to God, for none but God Himself can open to humans the way of union. Christ is ‘one in essence’ (homoousios) with the Father. He is no demigod or superior creature, but God in the same sense that the Father is God: ‘true God from true God,’ the council proclaimed in the Creed which it drew up, ‘begotten not made, one in essence with the Father’.
The Council of Nicaea dealt also with the visible organization of the Church. It singled out for mention three great centres: Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch (Canon VI) It also laid down that the see of Jerusalem while remaining subject to the Metropolitan of Caesarea, should be given the next place in honour after these three (Canon VII) Constantinople naturally was not mentioned, since it was not officially inaugurated as the new capital until five years later; it continued to be subject, as before, to the Metropolitan of Heraclea.