WHERE NOW FOR VISIBLE UNITY? COMMEMORATING NICAEA IN A WORLD WITH PEOPLE OF OTHER FAITHS

 

Martin Illert, First published: 20 March 2025 in The Ecumenical Review, 

Abstract

This article provides a short introduction to the activities and the spirit of the World Council of Churches for the ecumenical year 2025 by paying particular attention to the commemoration and anniversary celebration of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which will take place in October 2025 in Egypt under the theme “Where now for visible unity?” In its main part, this article looks at the theological issues that arise 17 centuries after the Council of Nicaea proclaimed its creed and made its decisions, for both churches and Christians in their bilateral and multilateral ecumenical contacts among themselves and in relation to their engagement with believers of other faiths. Starting from these questions, the article explores what it fundamentally means to speak of visible unity of Christians and churches within a multireligious world.

The Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order

Significant ecumenical anniversaries fall in the year 2025, which the World Council of Churches (WCC) has therefore declared an “ecumenical year.”1 Among these, the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is a key event inspiring the ecumenical movement, the Christian World Communions, Regional Ecumenical Organizations, local churches, and theological schools and faculties to reflect upon the issues of unity of the churches and unity of humankind.2 Closely related to the Nicaea jubilee is the 100th anniversary of the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work in Stockholm in 1925, which was perceived by some participants as a “Nicaea of ethics.”3 The year 2025 also marks the 40th anniversary of the South African Kairos Document, which condemned apartheid in the light of the biblical message and the Christian faith.4 Another event the WCC will recall is the first meeting of the Joint Working Group between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, which took place in 1985 and must be regarded as an important step on the way toward full Roman Catholic participation in the ecumenical movement.5

Nicaea resonates with the task of the WCC to inspire its member churches to “call one another to visible unity.”6 The WCC and the wider Christian fellowship have therefore recalled the common faith of the church expressed in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2025.7 Taking up another topic related to Nicaea, the WCC will also look to the common celebration of Easter and Pentecost by Eastern and Western Christians as an expression of its goal of visible unity.8 Most importantly, the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order will take place at the Logos Papal Centre near Alexandria, Egypt, from 24 to 28 October 2025 around the theme “Where now for visible unity?”9 By the invitation of the Coptic Pope Tawadros II, the conference is hosted near to the historically significant St Bishoy Monastery, highlighting Egypt's monastic heritage.10

With its broad composition, the Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC, comprising representatives of the 352 WCC member churches as well as the Roman Catholic Church and other non-WCC-member churches, is well equipped for the Nicaea commemoration. Bringing together church leaders and theologians of different traditions, one of the aims of the Faith and Order commission is to consider the reception of its work since the last world conference in Santiago de Compostela, in 1993. After the publication in 2013 of the convergence document “The Church: Towards a Common Vision,”11 Faith and Order received almost 80 responses in the last decade, and papers on 16 key theological themes have emerged from these responses,12 so that many theological impulses will be discussed at the conference. The reception-oriented view is complemented by a look ahead: a Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI) will be held in conjunction with the conference.13 It will offer space for a new generation of younger and emerging ecumenical theologians and educators to engage with the work of Faith and Order. Thus, the conference will offer a space for theological discernment and reflection on core issues of faith and mission that both unite and continue to divide the churches.14

As Nicaea in 325 CE “put the Christian Church on a global path,”15 the conference resonates with the WCC Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity. As the moderator of the WCC Nicaea steering group, Professor Sandra Beardsall, emphasized, the World Conference therefore offers an appropriate occasion to celebrate and reflect on the affirmation of faith in the Nicene Creed, the mission of God's triune love, and the implications this has for the common witness and service of the churches: “In the Spirit of that hope, both real and yet to come, we wend our way to Nicaea 2025. As our plans ripen and mature, as others join this journey, may our apostolic faith shine, and may the gospel be heard and seen and felt, in the churches and in God's beloved creation.”16

Visible Unity of Churches: The Key Theme of the World Conference

In its first in-person meeting in Indonesia in February 2024, the newly appointed Faith and Order commission brought together theologians and church leaders from Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions – women and men, lay and ordained – with several places reserved for younger theologians. The commission decided to address the theme of the World Conference, “Where now for visible unity?” from the interrelated perspectives of faith, mission, and unity. In collaboration with the Nicaea steering group, these plans were developed further:17 The faith section of the conference will explore the catholic and apostolic faith and ways to illuminate the Nicene Creed to allow for clarity and understanding across cultures and traditions. The mission section of the conference will offer an opportunity to reflect on the outpouring of God's triune love as a missiological model urging churches to reconsider their historical relationships with colonial and imperial powers, exploring the decolonizing perspective. And the unity section will consider the significance of ecumenical councils as places where Christians can face together the issues on which they are separated. Among the themes that are closely related to these key topics, further aspects such as the common celebration of Easter, models of church unity, conciliarity and synodality, and the question of the role of women and Nicaea were also identified.18

A conference on the ecumenical legacy of Nicaea jointly organized by the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and the Faith and Order commission in November 2024, together with further academic and ecclesial encounters, further deepened many of these aspects and added new perspectives.19 At Bossey, the conference highlighted the theological aspects of conciliarity and synodality, recognizing the council as a “very successful attempt to work at Christian unity by obtaining theological consensus on often divisive doctrines and theological beliefs” and as helping to “create a sense of peace and togetherness among Christians” nowadays and bring to convergence “deeply contentious theological views.”20 Focusing on synodality, Nicaea can inspire to “to ascertain further steps that might be necessary and beneficial on the path to unity.”21

At the same time, critical questions addressed the “wounds” inflicted by old controversies and the legacy of “the intricate relationship that arose between creed, sword, and empire.”22 From an intercultural perspective, the concern is to “contextually reappropriate” the Nicene legacy “in the different histories, cultures, and traditions among the living communities.”23 And from an antiracist perspective, the conference highlighted the tendency to “paint Nicaea as a purely Christian faith gathering,” ignoring “the colonial and decolonial tendencies surrounding the first ecumenical council and how these tendencies might open new opportunities for ecumenism.”24 Regarding the interreligious potential of the Nicene Creed, it was held that a renewed emphasis on the aspect of the humanity of Christ can offer a solid basis for further ecumenical collaboration, bringing together people of every faith.”25

Other unity-related aspects may also be explored, of which I will mention only two here: First, immediately after the Council of Nicaea, Constantine's mother, Helena, embarked on a pilgrimage to the holy land.26 Especially among women, Helena found followers.27 Can the motif of the Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity be related to these expressions of – often female – mobility and exploration of sacred space? Second, if we look at the debates about the Nicene Creed during the 4th century, it becomes obvious that an emerging charismatic movement – monasticism – overwhelmingly supported the Nicene Creed.28 The monks were bearers of prophetic gifts, and they shared the charismatic experience of the physical reality of salvation.29 Can the integration of the charismatic movement of monasticism into what was then the church in the Roman Empire (and beyond) be related to the initiative of “broadening the table” toward our charismatic sisters and brothers, especially from the emerging churches of the global South?30

Listening to both critical and creative ideas and observations, one would indeed agree that these diverse perspectives show how many current questions regarding the unity of churches can be related to Nicaea.31 While some churches regard Nicaea as normative,32 others “regard Nicaea as emblematic of Christianity's fall from the radical and subversive faith of Jesus’ teaching.”33 If “the story of Nicaea” is nevertheless to “bring hope,”34 these differences have to be taken seriously, since they show how closely the self-understanding of the churches and their confessional identities are related to their respective descriptions and interpretations of the Council of Nicaea – which is exactly why it makes sense that the Faith and Order commission deals with the anniversary of the Nicene Creed.

Visible Unity of Churches in a Multireligious World

From the beginning of the Faith and Order movement in the 1920s until now, this unity was understood to be first and foremost the unity of the churches. But at the same time, Faith and Order's vision of church unity was always considered as part of a larger vision reaching out to other faith communities and even beyond that, uniting humanity as a whole.35 The Faith and Order convergence document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV), emphasized this by dwelling on the relation between witnessing the fullness of life and expressing mutual respect in dialogue.36 The majority of the churches responding to TCTCV agreed and underlined the importance of interfaith dialogue.37 To deepen this, following the WCC's 110th Assembly in 2013, Faith and Order devoted its paper Love and Witness to the interfaith dimension and asked what it could do to “Recognize the co-pilgrimage of all creation.”38

Looking at the current challenges in the world, the commission underlined the importance of dealing with “violence carried out in the name of religion”39 and reflected upon the biblical and patristic tradition regarding religious plurality: It highlighted God's covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:20) “as a sign of God’s eternal providential grace for those outside the bounds of the nation”40 and emphasized the importance of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), in which Jesus “commands his audience to be like the religious other in their ethical behaviour even at the potential cost of religious and ritual purity.”41 The commission emphasized in particular that in their history, Christians had underlined the importance of dialogue especially in situations of insecurity and religious persecution, both in antiquity, when the Christian apologist Justin Martyr related Christ to the logos spermatikos, thus emphasizing the possibility of each and every person to obtain the truth, and also in the history of the ecumenical movement, when the first churches that pressed for consideration of interreligious dialogue in the ecumenical movement were those that were themselves in a context of being a minority as Christians.42 Analyzing the current situation, characterized by “economic and social globalization and changing demographics introduced by migration and refugees,” the commission urged churches to resist the call for violent action in the name of religion since “according to Christian teaching God is love, and those who abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16).43 At the same time, Christians need to intercede for and show solidarity with those who lack religious freedom,44 as intercession is a sign of ecclesial unity: “Our co-suffering as Christians with those who suffer affirms our sense of being one body.”45

Beyond these important observations, one might ask whether the topic of Nicaea itself can provide specific impulses. Since with its decision on the Easter date, the council of Nicaea not only relates to the question of unity between the churches but also touches the relationship between Christianity and Judaism,46 it has correctly been remarked that “Nicaea marks a watershed in relations between Christians and Jews – both specifically the Ecumenical Council itself and also more generally the decades around and following 325.”47 A second Nicaea-related question refers to Christian–Muslim relations, because in later centuries, Arianism provided the blueprint, as it were, for medieval Christian discourses on Islam.48 Realizing these two “wounds,” what then does it mean to speak of “visible unity” of Christian churches within the context of Nicaea commemoration in a multireligious world? In the final part of this article, I would like to explore four related aspects in answering this question.

First, meeting in Egypt to commemorate Nicaea reminds us of how important it is to contextualize both interchurch and interfaith dialogue. Love and Witness has made clear that contextualization, both in terms of hermeneutics and in terms of getting to know the political, social, and cultural framework, is of paramount importance.49 Although the Nicaea commemorations will concentrate on interchurch exchange, experiencing Christian life in Egypt and in the Middle East through the lens of the Christians from that region, which is one of the main themes of the opening day of the conference, by necessity entails contextualization. Contextualization will help participants to become aware of the complex challenges of our hosts’ minority existence. Their sharing with us on that point may at first glance not make future interfaith dialogue easier. However, the reality of Christian life in the Middle East cannot be excluded but needs, to use a metaphor of Nicaean Christology, a form of “incarnation” taking place within the conversation.50 Listening to the witness of our Christian sisters and brothers from Egypt may enrich future dialogue in other regions with experiences both of pain and of joy of cultural and religious interaction at the same time. If those of us who come from other regions keep the testimony of our sisters and brothers from the Middle East in our hearts and minds, this may even inspire churches to “broaden the table of interreligious conversation” in the future by mentally triangulating, as it were, and giving the experiences of our fellow Christians from the Middle East a mental space.

Second, in the view of the contemporaries of Nicaea, the experience of a world traumatized by violence is central. Constantine himself expresses this in his letter to Arius and Alexander shortly before the Council: “The body of the inhabited world,” he writes about the political conflicts of his age, was “suffering from a deep wound.”51 The emperor related the external wound to a second, more intimate and more terrifying, wound, which the disunity of Christians and their quarrelling inflicts on the heart: the “wound caused by the disunity you have created,”52 which “tore the holy people out of the harmony of the one body.”53 To settle the dispute, the emperor recommends that the disputants grant each other forgiveness.54 Here, unity among Christians is closely related to the unity of humankind. If we compare the experience of traumatization and this vision of healing from the time of the Council of Nicaea to the experiences and the hopes of our present day, we realize that both inner-Christian and interfaith dimensions of reconciliation and forgiveness belong together. Instead of violent action, Christ's disciples are called to be witnesses of his love, since, according to Christian teaching, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:16). Both ecumenical and interfaith dialogue require an attempt at self-critical perception, and thus are related to an ecumenical and interreligious hermeneutical approach. This approach does not see the enemy in the other; rather, within the context of dialogue, it is prepared to “identify such virtues as love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”55 in the other. If our Nicaea commemoration can inspire us to have a critical look at the images of the self and of the other, the insights made will contribute to greater self-awareness in future ecumenical and interfaith discourse.

If we ask how this awareness can be achieved, a third, related point becomes relevant: The canons of the council of Nicaea place the motif of philanthropy – in its meaning in Greek of love for humanity – at the centre.56 In the canons, philanthropy describes the diaconal actions of the churches as well as leniency toward those who have violated the church's rules and harmed the community. But philanthropy also has a value as a specific form of Christian witness, since ultimately, philanthropy is Christologically rooted in God's love for humankind and philanthropy is shown in Christ's incarnation, which therefore inspires Christian philanthropy as a reaction to God's philanthropy. Philanthropy as an inspiration both for the quest of unity between the churches and for interfaith dialogue is described in the paper “Church, Kingdom, World: The Church as Mystery and Prophetic Sign.”57 The paper understands diakonia in the sense of both charity and Christian witness and highlights the term philanthropia in terms of its charitable and at the same time its Christological dimensions.58

One of the most inspiring passages for such a process of philanthropic love, peaceful healing, and forgiveness comes from an early Christian tradition handed down by Macarius the Egyptian, a desert father and close disciple of St Anthony of Egypt, and received among many Christian traditions, including Orthodox, Oriental, Catholic, and various Protestant traditions.59 Our writer was aware that he was living in a multireligious world and, while other members of the ascetic movement in the 4th century destroyed temples and synagogues, Macarius emphasized that the “true Christian” should love and revere everyone, including Jews and pagans. He did this by using the “Nicene” Christology of the incarnation interpreted as a motivation for the condescension of the faithful:

After I received the experience of the sign of the cross, grace now acts in this manner: It quiets all my parts and my heart so that the soul with the greatest joy seems to be a guileless child. No longer am I a man that condemns Pagans or Jews or sinner or worldling. Truly the interior man looks at all human beings with pure eyes and finds joy in the whole world. He really wishes to reverence and love all Pagans and Jews.60

This is a striking passage because in accordance with Nicene incarnation theology, Makarios calls for a “kenotic” human response. He does this exactly at a time when the Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the state religion in the Roman Empire and passed laws against Jews, pagans, and Arian non-conformists.61 For Macarius, the “Nicene” Christological humility of the incarnation and the crucifixion stands in the centre of the Christian experience and permeates the existence of the believer. For him, this experience is intimately related to a completely new quality of the encounter between God and humans in Jesus Christ, which also stands at the centre of the Nicene homoousios:

At certain times he, like the son of a king, places all his trust in the Son of God as his father. Doors are opened to him and he enters inside into many mansions (John 14:2). And the further he enters again new doors are open in progression. From a hundred mansions he enters into another hundred. He becomes rich and yet ever richer.62

How indeed could it be expressed in a better way what it means to “recognize the co-pilgrimage of all creation”?63