Religion & Spirituality
“Arius, an Alexandrian presbyter, began teaching some time before 318 that the Logos, the Word of God who became man—Jesus Christ—is not the divine Son of God….but a created being—created out of nothing, like everything else, by God the Father….Soon after Emperor Constantine took up residence in Nicomedia, the eastern capital…he was chagrined to learn of this new controversy that was troubling the whole Eastern Church….[H]e summoned the largest council of bishops ever held up to that point. It opened on May 20, 325 in the city of Nicea, near Nicomedia.” “Emperor Theodosius the Great came to the imperial throne of the eastern part of the Roman Empire in 379….In 381 he called a Church council in Constantinople which would become to be known as the Second Ecumenical Council. This council condemned all forms of Arianizing doctrines by reaffirming the doctrinal statement or creed, which had been proclaimed at the Nicene Council. It also condemned Macedonianism, and proclaimed the divinity of the Holy Spirit in a paragraph added to the Creed of Nicea. It is this Creed, the combined work of the first two Ecumenical Councils, which orthodox Christians recite at baptismal services and the Divine Liturgy.” Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 3, Church History: Revised and Expanded by David C. Ford. (Yonkers, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981), pp. 49-50, 54-55.