The First Ecumenical Synod: Description and Significance (St. Nektarios of Aegina)

The First Ecumenical Synod: Description and Significance

By St. Nektarios, Metropolitan of Pentapolis

Arius

Arius was born in Libya around the middle of the third century A.D. He studied in Alexandria and became a follower of Origen, of Meletius, and of Lucian the Presbyter, head of the Antiochian School. His broad education, his philosophical training, and his skill in the knowledge of the divine Scriptures made him very well known, while his grave appearance, his somewhat proud manners, his imposing stature, and his handsome countenance inspired in all respect and sympathy. At first, after leaving Meletius, he was ordained deacon of the Church of Alexandria by its Bishop Peter.

From this period already there appears the strength of his character and his persistence in his convictions. Later, when Peter of Alexandria denounced the associates of Meletius and did not accept their baptism, Arius rose up for the first time, reproaching what had been done and protesting against this measure of his Bishop. Consequently, he was expelled from Alexandria. But afterwards, when the mild-mannered Achillas succeeded the deceased Peter, Arius, having asked forgiveness, was received back into the Church, and in the year 312 was ordained Presbyter.

Discourse on the Venerable 318 God-Bearing Fathers and on Constantine the Most Pious Emperor (Gregory the Presbyter of Caesarea)

Discourse on the Venerable 318 God-Bearing Fathers and on Constantine the Most Pious Emperor 

By Gregory the Presbyter of Caesarea in Cappadocia*

Having been permitted by the apostolic exhortation to obey those who rule, O lover of God, and, as it were, having forgotten my own weakness, and having overlooked the lack of elegance in my discourse, I submitted myself to the honored Father, who was proposing to me that I should write briefly concerning the gathering at Nicaea of the holy three hundred and eighteen Fathers, and that I should present it also to the most holy Church in Nicaea under his care; so that the narratives might preserve in written form both the spiritual struggle of those whose bodily presence it had enjoyed. And indeed, the things spoken by me according to my own ability, in comparison with the surpassing greatness of the virtuous conduct of the Fathers, I would say resemble the smallness of dew contending against ocean waves; but of his perfection it would be fitting not to direct the mind toward the grandeur of the words, but rather to measure the zeal of sympathy by the eagerness of obedience.

When Maximian and Licinius and Maxentius had ruled impiously in Rome, and had subjected to tortures and death many who refused to sacrifice to demons and abandon the faith of the Christians, and had themselves found in the destruction of their lives a fitting reward for their madness toward idols, then wondrously from the regions of the West there arose, like the morning star, Constantine the most Christ-loving, the leader of orthodox rule and the champion of the spotless faith; who, at the same time that he transferred the imperial scepters from the West to the East, had his soul illumined by the divine light. And having anointed his mind with piety, he entered first into contest against the devil; and he established everywhere decrees granting freedom to Christians; he dissolved the dejection that had fallen upon the faithful from the lawless; he cast down the revered objects of the idols; he triumphed over the nonexistence of falsehood; he made manifest the proclamation of the truth; he bestowed honor and boldness upon those who honored the Lord; the bodies of the faithful, injured by scourges, were restored, while those devoted to demons were subjected to torture and exile. And it was possible to behold both the recall of the faithful from persecution and the recovery of those from demonic delusion, resembling an angelic choir, while all with boldness glorified the Lord.

THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PASCHA - SUNDAY OF THE HOLY FATHERS OF THE FIRST ECUMENICAL SYNOD

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

The High-Priestly Prayer of Jesus Christ

While celebrating the final Passover with His disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ prayed at the end of the Passover supper in these words: “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You” (John 17:1–13). This Gospel passage, in which the teaching concerning the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father — and thus His Divinity — is set forth so clearly in the very words of Jesus Christ Himself, is appointed to be read on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, who synodically affirmed and restored the true teaching concerning the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father against the heretic Arius.

On the Ecumenical Synods

On the Seventh Sunday after Pascha, the Orthodox Church yearly commemorates and glorifies the Holy and God-bearing Fathers who were present at the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea. An Ecumenical Synod is the gathering of the shepherds and teachers of the Church of Christ, insofar as possible from the whole inhabited world, for the confirmation of true dogma and good order among Christians. The great authority and importance of synodal deliberations and decisions are founded upon the words of Jesus Christ Himself, Who said: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).

Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod

On Preserving the Orthodox Faith

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one!” (1 John 5:7)

Christ is Risen!

Beloved faithful,

Today, on the Seventh Sunday after Holy Pascha, the Orthodox Church celebrates the First Ecumenical Synod of the Christian world, which took place in the year 325 in the city of Nicaea, in order to condemn the heresy—that is, the false and heretical teaching—of Arius. The Synod was organized by Holy Emperor Constantine the Great together with his mother Helen, at the request of the Holy Fathers of that time, for he was the first Christian emperor in the world (306–337).

What is an Ecumenical Synod? It is the gathering of all the great Orthodox hierarchs—bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs—from the whole world, with the purpose of discussing certain teachings of the Christian faith that had not yet been fully clarified, and establishing them in fixed and unchangeable laws called dogmas. An Ecumenical Synod also judges and condemns all deviations from the faith that are foreign to the teaching of the Holy Gospel and the Holy Fathers, and excludes from the Church—that is, anathematizes—all heretics who tear apart the unity of faith of the Church, symbolized by the seamless tunic of the Lord, woven in one piece, as the Holy Gospel says: “The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout” (John 19:23). By the word “synod” we mean assembly or council; by the word “heresy” we mean someone’s personal opinion or teaching about God that stands against the true teaching of the Church of Christ.

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily Two on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of Nicaea 

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1967 at the Monastery of Ćelije)

Here is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod. Why is this so? After the wondrous and unprecedented events, after the Resurrection of the Savior, after the Ascension, after Golgotha, after the whole earthly life of the Savior lasting thirty-three and a half years, the Church glorifies the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod. Why? Because the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod were, together with the Holy Apostles and after the Holy Apostles, the greatest fighters for one truth — the truth that Christ Jesus is the True God. This was their chief struggle, this was their chief battle: Christ is the True God! In this lies all their preaching, in this lies their heart, their soul, their conscience. Christ is the True God, Christ is the God-man. Behold, this is the whole truth which the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod fearlessly preached and confessed. In the beautiful hymns they are called divine warriors, warriors who fought fearlessly, fighting for the most important truths in all worlds and for the most important Person — the True God.

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers 

By St. John of Kronstadt

“And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them” (John 17:10)

Today, beloved brothers and sisters, we have gathered together two or even four feasts: first, the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the memory of the Holy Fathers of the Nicene Synod, who confirmed the teaching about the Divinity of Jesus Christ against the heretic Arius, who blasphemed the Son of God by denying His Divinity and His eternal equality with God the Father. That already makes two feasts. The third is the feast of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, the great servant of God, and the fourth is the memory of the great Prophet Isaiah, who proclaimed the Divinity of Jesus Christ seven hundred years before His birth.

So, my brethren, there were heretics who, taught by the devil, dared to deprive people of the hope of salvation, to deprive them of the Savior, the Destroyer of death and hades, the Lord Jesus Christ, reducing Him — the Creator and God — to the level of a creature. Against these bold and senseless men, led by the Alexandrian presbyter Arius, the Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine convened the Ecumenical Synod in the city of Nicaea in the year 325 after the Birth of Christ. There the blaspheming Arius was refuted, removed from the priesthood, and excommunicated from the Church of God together with his followers, and soon afterward he died a shameful death.

Constantine the Great and the First Ecumenical Synod (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Constantine the Great and the First Ecumenical Synod 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

(Transcribed Homily. Delivered during Great Vespers of Saints Constantine and Helen, Makynia of Nafpaktia, on May 20, 2025.)

Beloved fathers and brethren, Mr. Mayor, Mr. President of the Municipal Council, Mr. Vice-Mayor and members of the Municipal Council, beloved brethren in Christ, tonight we celebrate the memory of the Holy God-crowned Emperors and Equals-to-the-Apostles Constantine and Helen, and this sacred church of Saints Constantine and Helen in Makynia, here in Nafpaktos, is holding its feast. We celebrate and solemnly honor the memory of these Holy God-crowned Emperors and Equals-to-the-Apostles, and indeed, concerning Saint Helen one may say that she was a woman of virtue, because despite the difficulties she faced in her marriage, she was deemed worthy to bear and raise such a child, who became Emperor and Sole Ruler of the then united Roman Empire, both in East and West. I will not say more about Saint Helen, for on another occasion we have spoken about her. What is of great importance is that Saint Constantine the Great proved himself truly to be a great Emperor, not only for that era, but on a universal and timeless scale.

The First Ecumenical Synod and the Contribution of the Cappadocian Fathers to the Symbol of Faith

 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpktos and Agiou Vlasiou

This year we celebrate the anniversary of 1,700 years since the convocation of the First Ecumenical Synod, which was convened in 325 A.D. in Nicaea of Bithynia in order to confront the heresy of Arius. Arius, drawing on principles of Greek philosophy, taught that the Son and Word of God is the first creature of the Father’s creation and that “there was a time when He was not,” that is, there was a time when He did not exist. Therefore, according to Arius, the Son is a creature of the Father, created by the will of the Father. The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod condemned the heresy of Arius and composed the first seven articles of the Symbol of Faith, the well-known “Creed.”

When the First Ecumenical Synod was convened, Basil the Great had not yet been born; he was born five years after the Synod, in 330. Saint Gregory the Theologian was born in 329, four years after the Synod, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa had not yet been born either, since he was born ten years later, in 335. All three were Cappadocians and became exponents of what is known as Cappadocian theology. They accepted the decisions of the First Ecumenical Synod and played a significant role in the triumph of its decisions; most importantly, they played a decisive role in the decisions of the Second Ecumenical Synod, which took place in Constantinople in 381 A.D. This Synod completed the Symbol of the First Ecumenical Synod, which is why it is called the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed.

The Prophetic Voice of Saint Justin Popovich on the Anniversary of the First Ecumenical Synod

 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

With the year 2025 there has dawned a special feature, because we celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, Bithynia, in 325 AD, which confronted the heresy of Arius and his followers who maintained that Christ is not God, but the first formation of creation. Thus, the 318 God-bearing Fathers compiled the first articles of faith, the so-called “Symbol of Faith”, the well-known “Creed”, which was supplemented and completed by the Second Ecumenical Synod in the year 381 in Constantinople.

For this anniversary of the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Synod, Theological Conferences have been and will be held, and speeches will be given to present its entire theological work.

On this occasion, I would like to present the basic thoughts of a text by Saint Justin Popovich the New Confessor, which he wrote in 1925, that is, one hundred years ago, when even then they were celebrating the 1,600th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod, and which is still relevant today with the new anniversary of 1700 years.

The First Ecumenical Synod and Its Significance

At the Synodal Divine Liturgy celebrated on Sunday, June 1st 2025, at the Sacred Metropolitan Church of Athens, presided over by His Beatitude Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Hieronymos, for the 1700th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 in Nicaea of Bithynia, His Eminence Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou, Hierotheos, Vice-President of the Permanent Holy Synod, spoke on the topic: “The First Ecumenical Synod and Its Significance.”

The Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, during this Easter period, leading up to the feast of Pentecost, is wonderful, and rightly the Sacred Synod of the Church of Greece determined to celebrate it magnificently. This is done with a Synodal Divine Liturgy, with hymns and speeches meet for God, with a convocation of the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece and with events befitting this great feast, with the completion of 1,700 years since the convocation of the First Ecumenical Synod, which was called “Holy” and “Great” and became the model for the other Ecumenical Synods that followed, in which we, the Bishops, gave a confession that we will abide by their decisions.

This brief eucharistic homily, by decision of the Sacred Synod, also falls within this framework.

Saint Alexander, Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Mystery of the Holy Trinity

By Metropolitan Panteleimon of Beroia, Naousa and Kampania

(Delivered on August 30th 2025 in the Church of Saint Alexander, Patriarch of Constantinople, in Alexandreia of Imathia)

"You were seen, O all-glorious, as the performer of secret rites to the Most Divine Trinity on high, worshiping them with purity and singing unceasingly, O Hierarch Alexander."

Today our Church celebrates the memory of three Holy Archbishops of Constantinople, among whom is Saint Alexander, to whom this beautiful church of our city is dedicated. And we especially honor Saint Alexander this year, as this year we celebrate the anniversary of the completion of 1700 years since the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, in which our Saint also participated.

The Cave Chapel of the 318 Holy Fathers in Archimandrita, Cyprus

Located in the southwest of Cyprus is the community of Archimandrita in the district of Paphos, where there is the Cave Chapel of the 318 Holy Fathers, which has been restored by the Cyprus Department of Antiquities and declared an ancient monument.

There are ancient frescos preserved on its internal walls. The small chapel is a cave carved into a rock with relics of saints within a tomb in the cave. The chapel celebrates on the 5th Sunday after Easter, when the Orthodox Church commemorates the 318 Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod. There is also a Doxology that takes place every Monday of the Paschal season at the cave area. In the past the chapel functioned as a community church with many worshippers gathering from the neighboring villages.

The First Ecumenical Synod and Its Significance (Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

At the Synodal Divine Liturgy celebrated Sunday, June 1st 2025, at the Metropolitan Church of Athens, presided over by His Beatitude Archbishop Hieronymos of Athens and All Greece, for the 1700th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 AD in Nicaea of Bithynia, His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou, Vice-President of the Permanent Holy Synod, spoke on the topic: “The First Ecumenical Synod and Its Significance.”

 

The First Ecumenical Synod and Its Significance 

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

The Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, during this paschal period, leading up to the feast of Pentecost, is a wonderful one and rightly the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece determined to celebrate it magnificently. This is done with a Synodal Divine Liturgy, with hymns and God-befitting speeches, with a convocation of the Hierarchy of the Church of Greece and with events befitting this great feast, with the completion of 1,700 years since the convocation of the First Ecumenical Synod, which was called “Holy” and “Great” and became the model for the other Ecumenical Synods that followed, in which we, the Bishops, gave a confession that we will abide by their decisions.

This brief eucharistic homily, by decision of the Holy Synod, also falls within this framework.

Homily Two for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Two for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers 

By St. John of Kronstadt

"This is eternal life, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3)

My priestly office compels me and this Sunday to converse with you about very important matters that we all must know in order to please God and save our souls. Today the Holy Church remembers the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod of Nicaea, who affirmed the true teaching about the Divinity of the Son of God, or the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father, against the heretic Arius and his associates, who falsely taught that the Son of God is not of one essence with God the Father and is allegedly not the true God, but was created by God the Father. They, the blasphemers, wanted to shake the Christian faith at its very roots and foundations: for if we were to admit that Jesus Christ is not the consubstantial Son of God and not the true God, then our redemption and salvation would be a dream, we would be more wretched than all men, for we would all be in sin, without purification and sanctification, we would have no hope of resurrection from the dead and eternal life. The Holy Fathers demonstrated the complete absurdity of this heretical teaching, for, in fact, it was impossible for anyone other than the only-begotten and consubstantial Son of God to renew the corrupted nature of man and cleanse its immeasurable sins, and no one else, except the only-begotten Son of God, could offer himself as a sacrifice for the whole world and take upon Himself its sins. The heretics wanted, through their impious teaching, to take away from men their hope, refuge, consolation, purification, sanctification, their strength and their glory, which the Lord Jesus Christ was and is for all believers. This heretical teaching, destructive to souls, was publicly and wisely refuted and condemned by the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, which took place under the Equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine and in his presence, in the year 325 after the Nativity of Christ in the city of Nicaea, and the Orthodox teaching about the Son of God, our Savior, was solemnly renewed; it is found in the Creed and reads thus: “I believe... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Who was begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by Whom all things were made.” 

Homily on the Seventh Sunday After Pascha: Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod (Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov)

Homily on the Seventh Sunday After Pascha: 

Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod

By Archimandrite Kirill Pavlov

(Delivered in 1964)

"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ! Today the Holy Church remembers and glorifies the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, which took place in the city of Nicaea in the year 325 after the Nativity of Christ. This Synod of the Holy Fathers, gathered from all corners of the Christian world, condemned and publicly anathematized the impious teaching of Arius and his like-minded people, who taught unjustly about the Person of Jesus Christ, humiliated His Divine dignity and reduced Him to the level of a lower creature: as if Jesus Christ is not the true God, but a creature created by God. This impious teaching, inspired by the devil in Arius and his followers, overthrew the Christian faith and its entire essence at its very foundation. For if we admit that Jesus Christ was not consubstantial and co-enthroned with the Father, if He is not the true God, then our redemption remains a dream, we are still in sin and have no hope of salvation and resurrection from the dead. For the whole strength of the Christian faith lies in the recognition of Jesus Christ as the true God, Who by His suffering and death redeemed the human race, granted people the remission of sins and eternal life. Therefore, the Holy Fathers, 318 in number, having gathered in the city of Nicaea, proved the entire lie and absurdity of the Arian teaching, since in fact it was impossible for anyone other than the Only Begotten Son of God to accomplish the redemption and salvation of the human race and take upon Himself the sins of the whole world.

Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical Issued on the Occasion of the 1700th Anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea

+ B A R T H O L O M E W

By God’s Mercy, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome
and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Plenitude of the Church: May God’s Grace and Peace be with you!

We offer a hymn of thanks to the almighty, all-seeing, and benevolent God in Trinity, who vouchsafed that His people reach the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, which bore spiritual witness to the authentic faith in divine Word born without beginning and truly consubstantial with the Father, “who for us and for our salvation descended, was incarnate and became human, suffered and arose on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

The Council of Nicaea constitutes an expression of the synodal nature of the Church, the culmination of its “earliest conciliarity,” which is inseparably linked to the eucharistic realization of church life as well as of the practice of assembling together for decisions “with one accord” (Acts 2:1) on current matters. The Council in Nicaea also signifies the emergence of a new conciliar structure, namely of Ecumenical Councils that would prove definitive for the development of church affairs. It is noteworthy that an Ecumenical Council does not comprise a “permanent institution” in the life of the Church, but an “extraordinary event” in response to a specific threat to the faith, aiming at restoring the ruptured unity and eucharistic communion.

Saint Oikoumenios the Wonderworker, Bishop of Trikki

St. Oikoumenios of Trikki (Feast Day - May 3)

Verses

Although dead I honor the discourses of Oikoumenios,
You were successful in producing great discourses.
On the third of May the body of Oikoumenios was hidden under the earth.

There is a long debate among researchers about Saint Oikoumenios, both about his identity and about when exactly he lived.

According to the prevailing view, Saint Oikoumenios lived at the end of the 10th century. He studied all the Fathers of the Church and emerged as an excellent interpreter of the Holy Scriptures. At the same time, he is said to have wrote Commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles, on the 14 Epistles of Paul, on the 7 Catholic Epistles, and a Commentary on the Apocalypse, though these are disputed to have been the work of another author from Asia Minor from the seventh century. After being appreciated by his contemporaries for his impeccable ethics and his great external education, he qualified for the episcopal throne of Trikki (in Thessaly), which he adorned as a good shepherd and disciple of the Chief Shepherd Christ, and he reposed peacefully around 995 AD.

Saint Hypatios of Gangra Resource Page

St. Hypatios of Gangra (Feast Day - March 31)

Verses

A woman slays by casting a stone in a vital area,
Hypatios, alas wretched woman!
On the thirty-first Hypatios was carried off to life.

 

Synaxarion of the Holy Hieromartyr Hypatios, Bishop of Gangra

Holy Hieromartyr Hypatios the Wonderworker and Bishop of Gangra

 

March: Day 31: Teaching 1: Hieromartyr Hypatios, Bishop of Gangra

 

Holy Hieromartyr Hypatios of Gangra in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church 

 

Saint Hypatios of Gangra and the Dragon

The Veneration of Saint Hypatios of Gangra in Greece and Cyprus

 

Relics of Saint Hypatios of Gangra

 

Memories of Gangra of Paphlagonia Before the Population Exchange of 1922
 

February: Day 12: Teaching 2: Saint Meletios, Archbishop of Antioch

February: Day 12: Teaching 2:
Saint Meletios, Archbishop of Antioch
 
(Stand Firm in the Faith!)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. In the fourth century, strife and various heresies disturbed the peace of the Church. In particular, the heresy of Arius, who denied the consubstantiality of the Son of God with God the Father, spread. Rejected and condemned by the Ecumenical Synod of Nicaea, this heresy nevertheless found many followers. The Greek Emperor Constantius, one of the sons of Constantine the Great, was inclined toward Arianism and persecuted bishops who disagreed with him. Everywhere, enmity, revenge, and often bloody strife replaced the love and peace bequeathed by Jesus Christ.

2025 Pastoral Encyclical for the New Year (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

Pastoral Encyclical

Sacred Metropolis of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

New Year's Day 2025

Beloved children in the Lord,

A new year of the Lord's goodness has dawned, which is offered to us by the love of God so that we may better live the Christian life, repent and come to know Christ within the space of the Church.

The new year 2025 has a special feature, because it will celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the convening of the First Ecumenical Synod in Nicaea, Bithynia, in 325 AD, which confronted the heresy of Arius and his followers who maintained that Christ is not God, but the first formed of creation. Thus, the 318 God-bearing Fathers compiled the first articles of faith, the so-called “Symbol of Faith”, well-known as the "Creed" or the “I Believe”, which was supplemented and completed by the Second Ecumenical Synod of the year 381 in Constantinople.

For this anniversary of the 1,700 years since the First Ecumenical Synod, Theological Conferences have been and will be held, and speeches will be given to present its entire theological work.