Poland: Conference explores legacy of Council of Nicaea

Left to right: Johannes Oeldemann, Sara Gehlin, Angela Berlis, Myriam Wijlens, Stephen Brown, Andrej Jeftić. Photo: Andrej Jeftić/WCC

Source: WCC

An academic consultation of the Societas Oecumenica, the European Society for Ecumenical Research, has been exploring the significance of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea, whose 1700th anniversary will be celebrated in 2025, for the search for Christian unity today.

Meeting from 5-10 September near Warsaw, the consultation gathered about 80 participants to explore recent research on the history, interpretation, and contemporary significance of the council, which brought together representatives of the whole of Christendom to reach agreement on Christian faith and witness.

This led to the adoption of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in 381, an affirmation of faith that is used by Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches today.

Opening the conference, Dr Johannes Oeldemann, president of the Societas Oecumenica, Ecumenical Council at Nicaeafrom Germany, set out how the Council of Nicaea, other early church councils, and the Nicene Creed had been the topic of bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogue in the 20th century.

Oeldemann is director of the Johann-Adam-Möhler-Institute for Ecumenism in Paderborn and since 2023 has been a member of the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which is organizing the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order in 2025 to coincide with the Nicaea anniversary.

Explaining the Sixth World Conference, the director of the Faith and Order commission, Dr Andrej Jeftić, told the gathering: "This is intended to be not only an academic event but also an ecumenical moment, where the worldwide fellowship of churches will gather to reflect on the ecumenical relevance of Nicaea, consider how we live the apostolic faith together today, and ponder the question of 'where now for visible unity."

In his address to the meeting, Jeftić discussed the conflicting interpretations of the imperial legacy of the Council of Nicaea, which met under the patronage of the Roman Emperor Constantine.

Dr Angela Berlis of the Institute of Old Catholic Theology at the University of Bern and also a member of the Faith and Order commission discussed the council's continuing impact for the way the relationship between church and state is understood by the church.

During the meeting, Rev Dr Simone Sinn of the University of Münster was elected president of the Societas Oecumenica to serve until 2026. Until February, she was the academic dean of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and a member of the WCC's Faith and Order secretariat.

The conference included a meeting with the Archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, and representatives of the Polish Ecumenical Council, led by its president, Bishop Andrzej Malicki, of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Poland.

The Societas Oecumenica was founded in 1978. Its members come from university departments for ecumenical studies, church-related ecumenical institutes, and theologians working on ecumenical studies and theology.

In a paper given at the conference, Dr Sara Gehlin of University College Stockholm drew attention to the fact that 2025 will mark another significant ecumenical anniversary, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work in Stockholm in 1925.

The conference gave birth to the Life and Work movement, which in 1948 merged with the Faith and Order movement to form the WCC.

Gehlin, a member of the WCC's Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation, noted how in August 2025, the WCC will gather with partners in Sweden and representatives of churches worldwide to commemorate the Stockholm anniversary.

Other participants at the conference included the vice-moderator of the Faith and Order commission, Dr Myriam Wijlens, Faith and Order commissioner Dr Krzysztof Mielcarek, and Dr Stephen Brown, editor of the WCC journal, The Ecumenical Review.