St George’s Cathedral
Nicaea Down Under
The Revd Dr Bill Leadbetter, Assistant Curate and Cathedral Scholar
This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. This was the first Ecumenical Council of the Church in which bishops and others from across the ancient world came together to discuss and determine matters of church teaching and church order.
We remember this Council every time that we say the Nicene Creed. While the Council did not produce the version that we use today, it began the process that led to the text that we find in our prayer books. As might be expected, much of the history of the Council is obscured by time and by controversy. Called by the Emperor Constantine, held in an imperial palace, and paid for by the Roman state, it represents that remarkable moment when the hostility of the ancient state to the church had ended but the shoots of what became Christendom were yet to emerge.
While the Council made many decisions alongside its formulation of the Creed, most of these address concerns of the day and have no lasting significance. But the principal theological issue that the Council had to address was the divine nature itself: the constitution of the Trinity. This had become a matter of deep controversy in that early fourth century when Arius, a priest and theologian from Alexandria in Egypt began publicly to argue that the person of Christ must be understood as subsequent to and therefore eternally subordinate to the Father. In this, he was opposed by his own bishop, Peter, and then by Peter’s successor to the see, Athanasius.
The controversy was not limited to scholarly debate. There was schism and violence. Communities were divided. Faithful Christians, hitherto in fellowship with one another, cut one another off as heretics and backsliders. For all of Constantine’s efforts, one ecumenical council was not enough to resolve this, but it did begin the process.
To mark this anniversary, the Cathedral Scholars of St George’s Cathedral, and the former Archbishop of Perth, The Most Revd Dr Peter Carnley, are presenting ‘Nicaea Down Under’: a series of lectures on Nicene themes over the course of the rest of the year. These lectures bring different disciplinary perspectives to bear in exploring issues that arise from the Council and its legacy.
All of the lectures will be held in St George’s Cathedral on Saturday mornings commencing at 9.15am We will be commencing on Saturday 21 June, the Saturday following Trinity Sunday. St George’s Cathedral extends a warm invitation to all Perth Anglicans, to their friends and to their neighbours, to join with us as we explore these themes together.
| 14 June | Revd Dr Bill Leadbetter Constantine and Nicaea: The Emergence of State Theology |
| 19 July | Revd Dr Sue Boorer The Council of Nicaea and the Old Testament |
| 16 August | Em Prof Chris Wortham The Trinity in English Poetry |
| 20 September | Prof Robyn Heckenberg Creedal Christianity: an indigenous perspective from the Wiradjuri heartland |
| 11 October | Dr Mark Jennings How a battle over sexuality has shifted Nicene orthodoxy to the margins |
| 15 November | Most Revd Dr Peter Carnley Nicaea Down Under: The Trinity in the Australian Church |