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

Study path

The canons of Nicaea

All twenty canons of the first council, studied one at a time, with the fourth-century problem beside each.

  • Canonical normEstablished by a received canon of a council, or of a Father whose canons the Church has received. Canons are applied within the Church's pastoral and conciliar life; a canon is not a rule a reader applies to themselves or to anyone else.
  • Pastoral applicationHow a teaching is ordinarily applied in practice, under the guidance of a priest and bishop. Never a substitute for that guidance.

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The twenty canons of the First Council of Nicaea are archived here in full, in a public-domain translation, and each has its own study page: the conciliar text, a clearly labelled plain-language summary, the problem it addressed, its vocabulary, its later reception, and a cautious note about the present day.

Read the three lessons in this path first. They give you the six questions to ask of any canon, a map of what the twenty cover, and an account of how the canons function now — which is not as a code that a reader applies.

Lessons

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  1. How to read a canon Six questions to ask of any canon, and the one mistake that causes most of the trouble. 8 min — Not yet read
  2. The twenty canons of Nicaea: an overview What the first council actually legislated about, in one pass, before you read them one by one. 8 min — Not yet read
  3. The canons today Akribeia, oikonomia, and the difference between a canon that has lapsed and a canon that has changed. 7 min — Not yet read

Canonical questions about your own situation belong with your priest and your bishop, not with a website. That is not a disclaimer; it is how the canons themselves work.

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 Seven Ecumenical Councils annotated edition of conciliar texts The principal primary source behind this path; individual lessons cite more specifically. Source record

Tiers are explained in the methodology. No page on this site has been reviewed or approved by any bishop, priest, synod or seminary.