What was the decisions of the Council of Nicaea?

Answer 1

There were two councils of Nicaea - one in 325AD and another in 787AD. By far the more important was theFirst Council, an ecumenical council set up for various reasons but mainly to consolidate Christian thinking and to dispel heresies that sprang up within the Church - most of which were known to be wrong because many of the members of the Council could trace their teaching back to the apostles themselves.

The main thrust of the Council was an ecumenical council set up to speak out against false teachings that had sprung up, notably Arianism, a doctrine that denied the divinity of Christ. Christ's divinity had been accepted right from the beginnings of the Church beginning with Paul's letters and teaching of the first Christian churches and also reflected in the Gospels and Acts. However, Arianism denied this and so it was necessary that all the churches meet to formalise Church teaching and doctrine. Heretical Arianism is still believed by some today, however, notably the Jehovah's Witnesses, whose founder Charles Taize Russell revisited Arianism and set up the Watchtower movement. That is one reason why Jehovah's Witnesses are not regarded as members of the Christian Church worldwide - they refuse to accept the divinity of Christ.

The First Council therefore did not invent the deity of Christ; this doctrine had long existed in the Church and in the Roman Empire and it had long been widely endorsed by the Christian community of the otherwise pagan city of Rome. Instead, the council affirmed what it had found to be the teachings of the Apostles regarding who Christ is; that Christ is the one true God in Deity with the Father.

To seal this, the Council drew up a statement of belief in the Nicene Creed which set out once and for all the beliefs of the Christian church. The worldwide Christian Church still uses this creed today. Copies of the Creed can be found online.

In addition to this, the Council also tackled many other issues. These included an agreement of when to celebrate Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Other issues included: prohibition of self-castration (practised by some pseudoChristian sects), rules surrounding the ordination of bishops, provision for two provincial synods to be held annually; authority acknowledged for the patriarchs of Alexandria and Rome, for their respective regions, and many other minor rules.

The Second Council of Nicaea took place in 787AD and was primarily concerned with the restoration of the use of icons - the veneration of icons was abolished under Constantine V - although there were doubts cast on whether or not the council abolishing icons in the first place as well as the ruling that they could be restored were valid as neither council was truly ecumenical, and therefore many declared the rulings void.

However, at no time, contrary to previous answers on this subject, was the role of the Virgin Mary as 'Queen of Heaven' discussed at either Council of Nicaea; this was a doctrine adopted by the Roman Catholic Church alone, along with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope, and decreed by Pope Pius XII in 1950 in his 'Munificentissimus Deus', much to the concerns and disdain of the rest of the Christian Church worldwide.