The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

The seven ecumenical councils — lesson 2

Council 1: Nicaea, 325

The Son of one substance with the Father, the date of Pascha, and twenty canons.

  • Dogmatic definitionDefined by an ecumenical council or otherwise confessed by the Church as binding doctrine. Not every sentence a council wrote is a definition: its acts, letters and disciplinary canons are different things.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-08-29

What still needs checking (1)
  • Confirm the Orthodox catechetical presentation of this council against the OCA's The Orthodox Faith.

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What this lesson covers

  • Say what Nicaea confessed and what else it issued.
  • State plainly what it did not do.

About 5 minutes to read.

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The first council met in 325 at the summons of Constantine, in the first generation that could gather bishops from across the empire without risking arrest.

It confessed the Son homoousios with the Father against Arius, settled a principle for calculating pascha, dealt with the Melitian schism in Egypt, and issued twenty disciplinary canons.

It did not produce the Creed as it is recited today — that is the text of 381 — and it did not touch the canon of Scripture. Both claims are common and both are false, and the council's own documents are archived here so you can check.

What it settled took another fifty years to be received, during which the Nicene position was for long periods in the minority among bishops. Athanasius was exiled five times.

Key Scripture

  • John 1:1-3 — The Word who was with God and was God.
  • Colossians 1:15-17 — Firstborn of all creation — the passage Arius pressed hardest.

On Scripture references. References are given so you can read the passage in the translation your parish uses. This site does not reproduce a modern copyrighted Bible text.

Council and canon connections

  • The full guide, with the council's own documents, is at Nicaea, 325.

Why this matters in lived Orthodoxy

The Fathers of the First Council are commemorated on the Sunday after the Ascension, and the Creed that grew from their work is confessed at every Liturgy.

Review

What did Nicaea issue?
A creed, a synodal letter, a ruling on the date of Pascha, and twenty disciplinary canons.
Is the Creed recited today the Creed of 325?
No. The received text is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.

Your notes

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Going deeper

Sources for this page

  1. Tier C The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church Henry R. Percival (ed.); Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (series eds.) The Nicene Creed; The Canons of the 318 Holy Fathers; The Synodal Letter; On the Keeping of Easter annotated edition of conciliar texts Source record

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