Synaxarion for the Sunday of the 318 God-bearing Fathers in Nicæa

When our Lord Jesus Christ, Who for our sake had assumed flesh, completed His entire dispensation and sat ineffably on the throne of the Father, the saints, desiring to show that truly the Son of God was man, and that, perfect God-man, He ascended and sat at the right hand of Majesty in the heavens, and that the very Council of the holy fathers preached Him in precisely this way and acknowledged Him as consubstantial with the Father and equally worshipped, on this basis established this present feast to be celebrated immediately after the glorious ascension, as it were sending on in advance the council of the fathers who proclaimed Him, Who ascended in the flesh, the true God and perfect Man in the flesh. This Council was held in the time of Constantine the Great, during the twentieth year of his reign. After the cessation of the persecutions, he reigned first in Rome; but later, in the year 330, he established the magnificent city which beareth his name. It was at that time that the events concerning Arius began. He was a native of Libya, who went to Alexandria, where he was ordained a deacon by the holy hieromartyr Peter of Alexandria. He then began to utter blasphemy against the Son of God, preaching that He is a created being, created out of nothing, alien to the divine dignity, improperly called the Wisdom and Word of God. And this took place when he was drawn into debate with the ungodly Sabellius, who said that there is only one Person in the Godhead and one Hypostasis; and sometimes It is the Father, sometimes the Son, and sometimes the Holy Spirit. When Arius uttered such blasphemy, the great Peter, who one day beheld Christ at the holy altar-table in the form of a Babe clothed in a rent garment, Who said that Arius had rent it, deposed him from his clerical rank. Achillus, who occupied the hierarchal see after Peter, in return for a bribe restored Arius -- this was the least of it! -- ordained him a priest, and appointed him the head of the Alexandrian catechetical school. After the death of Achillus, Alexander was ordained. When he learned that Arius was continuing his blasphemy and even worse, he excommunicated him from the Church, casting him out with the assistance of a council. In the words of Theodoretus, he taught that Christ is mutable in nature, and he was also the first to vomit up the teaching that the Lord assumed flesh without capacities of mind and soul. Arius, having drawn many to his ungodliness, by his writings acquired partisans: Eusebius of Nicomedia, Paulinus of Tyre, Eusebius of Cæsaria, and others, and rose up against Alexander. For his part, Alexander, sending out to all the world an epistle concerning these blasphemies and the deposition of Arius, moved many to strict zeal. When the Church was in such turmoil and there seemed to be no cure for the altercation over this doctrine, then Constantine the Great, using the government courier system, summoned the above-mentioned fathers from all over the world to Nicæa, and went there himself. And when all the fathers had arrived, with their blessing he also took his place, though not on a royal throne, but on a simple stool, below his rank. Afterwards, following speeches against Arius, he, as well as all of like mind with him, committed him to anathema, and the Word of God was proclaimed by the holy fathers to be consubstantial, equally worshipped and equally without beginning with the Father. They likewise set forth the holy Symbol of Faith, up to the words: “and in the Holy Spirit”; for the rest of it was added by the Second Council. The First Council, moreover, also made a resolution concerning the celebration of Pascha, i.e., when and how we ought to celebrate it, and that such not be done with the Jews, as was previously the custom. The fathers of the Council set forth twenty canons of ecclesiastical governance. Constantine the Great, equal of the apostles, later had this holy Symbol of Faith written in red letters. Of these holy fathers, 232 were bishops, while 86 were priests, deacons and monastics -- in all, there were 318. The most prominent were the following: Sylvester, Pope of Rome; the ailing Bishop of Constantinople was represented by his proxies, Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius the Great, who was at that time an archdeacon; Eustathius of Antioch and Macarius of Jerusalem, the blessed Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, Paphnutius the Confessor, Nicholas of Myra in Lycæa, and Spyridon of Tremithus, who in Nicæa converted and baptized a certain philosopher, convincing him of the unity of the Holy Trinity by pointing to the three properties of the sun (roundness, light and heat in the single solar entity). When two of the fathers passed away to God during the Council, Constantine the Great placed the decision of the Holy Council in their coffin and sealed it tightly; yet in accordance with the ineffable judgments of God he found it signed and sealed by them. Since after the conclusion of the Council the construction of the city was brought to completion, Constantine the Great invited all those holy men thither. And going round about it with great prayer, they named it the royal city and, at the command of the emperor, dedicated it to the Mother of the Word, before they all returned to their own cities. Yet even before Constantine passed on to God, when he wielded the scepter with his son, Constantius, Arius went to the emperor and said that he renounced all his heresies and desired to enter into union with the Church of God. And so, having written down all his blasphemies and hung them about his neck as a sign of subjection to the Council, and striking them with his hand, he said that he was submitting to the resolutions of the Council. At that time Metrophanes was bishop after Alexander; and knowing the depravity of man, he hesitated and begged God to show him whether it would be in conformity with His will to admit Arius to communion. When the time drew nigh to serve the Liturgy with him, he prayed with particular compunction. Arius was walking to the church when he felt a pain in his belly near the column of the marketplace, and he entered a public latrine; and there, bursting open, nearly all his entrails spewed forth, just as had happened to Judas, who had burst open for a similar betrayal of the Word. He who separated the Son of God from the essence of the Father himself burst asunder and was taken up dead. Thus was the Church of God freed at last from his contagion. Through the supplications of the 318 God-bearing fathers, O Christ our God, have mercy upon us. Amen.

Translated from the Church Slavonic by Monk Joseph (Isaac) Lambertsen. Copyright Lambertsen Foundation. All rights reserved.