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Nicaea and the Future of Christianity

  • Edited by: and
  • With contributions by: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025

About this book

Commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, this volume offers an original examination of the enduring impact of the single most famous gathering of Christians since the apostolic age

Despite the longstanding historical and theological study of the Council of Nicaea, several central questions remain. Was Nicaea a theological event or a political one? What does it mean if it was both? Was Constantine’s intervention without precedent, or was he simply continuing a long-standing role of a Roman emperor who was responsible for leading a religious cult (albeit now for a different faith tradition)? And what about the actual theological debates of Nicaea and our ability to understand them? Scholars might never exhaust this avenue of inquiry, despite the numerous studies in recent decades.

For many scholars and Christian activists today, the significance of Nicaea centers around the idea of conciliarity and what this has meant, both historically and theologically, for the Christian community. Why and how did Nicaea become foundational for thinking that the church operates in a conciliar manner? How did that work historically in different parts of the Christian world? And how should it work today?

Nicaea and the Future of Christianity offers a fresh, globally-diverse, ecumenically-minded approach to these questions with an impressive collection of both senior and junior scholars, reflecting a diversity of views within the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant traditions. The great benefit of this wide-ranging approach lies precisely in its ability to see the many ways in which Nicaea continues to speak to the future of Christianity.

• A wide-ranging, ecumenical reflection on the continued significance of the Council of Nicaea.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: George E. Demacopoulos George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is also a Co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He serves as a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and as President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America. He is the author of five monographs and dozens of scholarly articles of the history of Christianity in the premodern period. --- Contributor: Aristotle Papanikolaou Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes. --- Contributor: George E. Demacopoulos George E. Demacopoulos is Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University. He is also a Co-founding Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He serves as a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and as President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America. He is the author of five monographs and dozens of scholarly articles of the history of Christianity in the premodern period. --- Contributor: Aristotle Papanikolaou Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes. --- Contributor: John Behr John Behr is the Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, previously having been at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, New York, where he also served as dean. His recent publications include an edition and translation of Origen’s On First Principles and a study of the Gospel of John. --- Contributor: Brandon Gallaher Brandon Gallaher is senior lecturer of systematic and comparative theology at the University of Exeter. He is also a deacon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and served at the Eastern Orthodox Holy and Great Council as a Theological Subject Expert in the Ecumenical Patriarchate Press Office (Crete, 2016). --- Contributor: John Chryssavgis The Rev. Dr. John Chryssavgis is Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne and a clergyman of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, where he serves as theological advisor in the office of Inter Orthodox and ecumenical relations. He is also theological advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch on environmental affairs. He studied in Athens and Oxford, as well as taught in Sydney and Boston. The author of numerous books and articles on Orthodox theology, spirituality, and ecology, he has edited three volumes containing the selected writings of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Fordham University Press, 2010–12) and co-edited the signature anthology on Orthodoxy and the environment, Toward an Ecology of Transfiguration: Orthodox Christian Perspectives on Environment, Nature, and Creation (Fordham). He lives in Harpswell, Maine. --- Contributor: Vincent W. Lloyd Vincent Lloyd is associate professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University. He is the author of The Problem with Grace: Reconfiguring Political Theology (Stanford University Press, 2011), Black Natural Law (Oxford University Press, 2016), Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology (Fordham fUniversity Press, 2017), and In Defense of Charisma (Columbia University Press, 2018).

Reviews

This volume serves admirably as an entrance point for the status quaestionis on issues surrounding Nicaea. --- . . .[A] deeply impressive compendium of voices and perspectives, that manages to bridge the scholarly and the ecclesial, the past and the present, without sacrificing either academic rigor or contemporary relevance. . . Nicaea is not an end but a beginning, a goad or spur to further theological enquiry. This volume is a fine contribution to that ongoing endeavor. --- The editors of this excellent collection have drawn from the very best of historical scholarship and contemporary theology to provide a wide range of perspectives on the Council of Nicaea. Attentive to ecumenical questions, as well as to the phenomenon of “conciliarity” itself, the volume looks to the future as well as the past. It will become a landmark treatment of the most significant event in early Christian history.---David G. Hunter, Margaret O’Brien Flatley Chair of Catholic Theology at Boston College --- This volume is a must read. The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 is fundamental for the history of Christianity and the church, yet almost everything around it is controversial, including the so-called Nicene Creed, the proceedings of the Council and the part played by the Emperor Constantine. In the 1700th year after 325 a variety of leading scholars offer important new assessments of Nicaea’s significance today and for the future.---Dame Averil Cameron, author of Transitions: A Historian's Memoir --- An illuminating work that from a number of different perspectives stimulates readers of all levels to follow up exciting new lines of thought, Nicaea and the Future of Christianity is a landmark publication. It will no longer be possible to view councils simply as institutions for closing debates and producing definitions. The way in which councils from Nicaea onwards need constantly to be re-received is here brilliantly expounded by a star cast of authors.---Norman Russell, Honorary Research Fellow, St Stephen's House, University of Oxford --- If you wish to understand the contemporary significance of Nicaea, this is one of the top three books you need to read. You will find a wealth of insight on such issues as the development of doctrine, the authority of the creeds, and the importance of the synodal process for decision-making. Highly recommended!---Paul Gavrilyuk, Founding President of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA) --- In this timely volume, the editors have assembled a stellar cast of scholars from a range of perspectives and ecclesial commitments. Adopting historical, systematic, and cultural approaches to the first ecumenical council of 325, the authors explore not only the theology of Nicaea, but its ongoing reception and its meaning for the church in our world. The learned chapters challenge standard assumptions about the history and legacy of the council in hopes of providing a new vision of God’s action in the decrees, disputes, and dialogue that inform so much of Christian thought.---Brian Dunkle, Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry --- The Council of Nicaea is a grain of mustard seed from Jesus's parable. It started as a modest gathering to address a local theological issue that emerged in northeastern Africa and it grew to one of the most comprehensive frames for global Christianity. The volume explores this plant from its roots up to the crown, as well as the phases of its growth.---Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun, director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles

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    Frontmatter

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    Contents

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    Introduction

    1
    George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou
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  • PART I: NICAEAN THEOLOGIES
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    Under the Shadow of the Samosatene: From Antioch 268 to Nicaea 325 and Beyond

    9
    John Behr
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    Christophanic Exegesis in Defense of the Nicaean Faith: Patristic Authors and Scholars of Patristics

    22
    Bogdan G. Bucur
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    Nicaea in the Dogmatic Order of Late Antiquity

    42
    Emanuel Fiano
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    Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, and the Paradox of Nicaea

    52
    Francesca Aran Murphy
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    The Theologian, the Historian, and the Holy Spirit: Reflections Around Nicaea

    67
    Karen Kilby
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    God with Us: A Contemporary Sophiological Christology

    75
    Brandon Gallaher
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  • PART II: HISTORICAL MEMORY
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    The First Council of Nicaea: Golden Standard or Squandered Opportunity?

    97
    John Chryssavgis
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    Preaching Nicaea in Verse: The Legacy of the Council in the Writings of Jacob of Serugh

    117
    Erin Walsh
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    Civic Religion in the Long Roman Empire

    137
    Leonora Neville
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    Nicaea’s Digital Afterlives

    155
    Caroline T. Schroeder
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  • PART III: CONCILIARITY
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    The Council of Jerusalem and the Council of Nicaea

    177
    Leslie Baynes
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    Nature, Will, and Grace: The Council of Nicaea and the Ontological Presuppositions of Conciliarity

    191
    Demetrios Bathrellos
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    Conciliarity Beyond the Greco-Roman Empire: Thomas Christian Yogams and Lay Participation in Ecclesial Decision Making

    208
    Jaisy A. Joseph
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    Nicaea, Negative Theology, Democracy

    225
    Vincent Lloyd
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  • PART IV: ECUMENICAL IMPLICATIONS
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    A Symbol of the Whole: The Nicene Creed and Dogmatic Minimalism

    239
    Alexis Torrance
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    Nicaea, Pelikan, and the Legitimacy of Doctrinal Development in Orthodoxy

    250
    A. Edward Siecienski
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    Newman, Nicaea, and the Prerogatives of the Past

    260
    Cyril O’Regan
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    Nicaea and the Legacy of Truth: Bounded Virtue and Ascetical Spirituality

    281
    Stephen M. Meawad
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  • PART V: THE FUTURE OF NICAEA
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    Re-Reception of the Faith of Nicaea Then and Now: Reflections on the Role of Reinterpretation of Theology Through Conciliarity

    293
    Maxim Vasiljevic
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    The Future of Nicaea

    305
    Christophe Chalamet
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    Nicaea as a Task for the Future

    315
    Kathryn Tanner
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    List of Contributors

    329
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 5, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781531510183
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
View content
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781531510183
eBook ISBN: 9781531510183
Keywords for this book
Athanasius; Byzantium; Church-State; Constantine; Constantinople; Council of Nicaea; Ecumenical; Historicism; John Henry Newman; Orthodox; Roman Catholic; Theology
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
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