Introduction
That most Christian Churches continue to follow the faith of Nicaea is well known. That there are Churches who still observe and adhere to the twenty canons that the First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Nicaea, promulgated is less known. Furthermore, if it is known that there are Churches who use these canons to guide and direct their internal life, the method of applying these canons is usually poorly understood or completely misunderstood. For the Eastern Orthodox Church, however, these canons make up part of the canonical corpus that is still studied, considered, and applied in the Church by bishops and synods. An exploration of the continued use of the Nicene canons forms part of a story about how and why the entire corpus, which dates from the first millennium, remains vital to the life of the contemporary Orthodox Church. In what follows, we will speak first about the presuppositions behind the entire corpus, and then turn to the Nicene canons themselves. From within the canons of Nicaea, we will offer an example of how just one of these canons has been used and continues to be used in the Church. Along the way, we will argue that the application of these canons in every age of the Church follows from both the faith of the Church and the intent of the quasi-legal system that lies behind the canonical tradition. Namely, the drafters of these canons intended that the canons, anchored in the faith, should be used by the Church in every generation to confront new problems that the Church might face. In this way, as we hope to show, the application of the Nicene canons reveal a tradition vitally alive in the life of the Church.
The corpus of canons
The corpus of canons in the Orthodox Church, that is to say the collection of canons, contains around 770 ancient texts. These texts are the products of conciliar deliberation, but also have come from the hands of individual church fathers. These fathers, serving as bishops and pastors, have had their letters first collected and then divided up into canons before being included in the corpus. These texts, the canonical corpus, are almost exclusively written in Greek (all were eventually translated into Greek when they found their way into the corpus), and come from the heart of the East Roman Empire in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, which provides for them both a linguistic and an imperial context. As we shall see, at a certain point early on in the formation of the canonical corpus, these canons also took on another characteristic: adherence to and veneration of the council of Nicaea, both its canonical work and also the definition of faith from this council.
All told, the date for the creation of these texts ranges from the middle of the third century until the ninth century, which means that we reflect on texts that can be as many as 1700 years old, but also not less than twelve hundred years old. Neither the details of the formation, nor the particular character of the corpus, limit its use. In both instances – conciliar canons as well as the patristic ones – the fathers of the Church who wrote these canons had specific and temporal issues that they were confronted with. The concern which led them to draft these texts was not an abstract creation of an absolute or static code, but the drafting of canons that addressed concrete problems by providing directions, models, and guides towards the solutions to these problems. To this day, we in the Eastern Orthodox Church continue to reflect on both these canons and the models provided in them for solutions to those problems of a thousand or more years ago. We do so in order that we might find authentic and God-pleasing solutions to the problems we face in our own experience.
Implications
The implication of describing the canonical corpus as a collection of rules drawn from the ecclesial experience of the first millennium is this: for these rules to be used, they must be interpreted. Interpretation of the canons with an eye towards their use is not only a feature of our own modern engagement with them, it was a feature of their use from the beginning. Our corpus is a relatively small collection, only about 770 canons, and limited in scope. Additionally, the texts of the canons themselves tend to be responses to specific problems, as we have said, and not general statements of law as we might expect legal texts to provide now. The question of interpretation for us is really a three-part process.
First, as these texts are at least 1200–1500 years old, the basic approach of coming to understand, precisely, what texts from late-Antiquity are saying, is fundamental. This textual approach is entirely akin to what is done with texts in the study of patristics, spirituality, history, etc. The only difference here would be that readers need to be attuned to the particular quasi-legal discourse that the canons use. The appearance of liturgical, biblical, or patristic words or arguments are, as we will see, a regular and necessary part of the canonical tradition. We would add also that the canonical texts share the same world view, and hold the same theological philosophical, rhetorical, pedagogical presuppositions, as the Church Fathers we are all familiar with, since they were written by the same Fathers.
Secondly, because, the canons were composed in a high rhetorical style, comparable to the Hellenistic-Roman legal tradition, the rule has to be found, it has to be drawn out of the text of a given canon. Sometimes a rule or rules are made explicitly, other times they are implicit.
The final step in interpretation is this: once the rule is found, in order to apply the canon, the interpretation, or understanding of how to do so, is bound up in the larger discourse of Church life. The canons do have, as we have said, a legal (normative) nature – they are rules to be followed – but they find their full meaning when considered in the full life of the Church. Their only goal, in other words, is to lead believers to salvation in the way every other aspect of Church life is to do.
Theological presuppositions
Before we return to the issue of interpretation more fully, we think it is important to clarify one fundamental point that lies behind the entire canonical tradition. That is to say, the entire corpus, indeed, the entire canonical tradition, is undergirded by the faith given over to us by the Apostles. This faith is, of course, what has been revealed to us by the Prophets and the Apostolic preaching. This point can be discovered through careful study of the entire canonical corpus, but it is also made explicit in diverse canons.
II Nicaea 1
Consider the first canon from the Second Council of Nicaea, for example, which took place in 787. In this canon, the council Fathers say,
… the guidelines contained in the canonical regulations are testimonies and directives, which we accept gladly and sing out to the Lord God with David, the revealer of God: ‘In the path of your testimonies I have taken delight, as with all manner of wealth.’Footnote 1
This canon quotes further texts from the divine Scriptures and uses language taken from the Old and New Testament to underscore the close connection between the faith of the Church as revealed in them and the canonical texts themselves. The Fathers of the Council are given voice in this canon and continue to proclaim,
We joyfully embrace the divine canons and we maintain complete and unshaken their regulation [sic], both those expounded by those trumpets of the Spirit, the apostles worthy of all praise, and those from the six holy universal synods and from the synods assembled locally for the promulgation of such decrees, and from our holy fathers.
What has just been referred to in this canon is a neat description of the canonical corpus, the Canons of the Apostles, the Canons of the Ecumenical and Local Councils, and the patristic texts. The canon identifies the content of the corpus and then indicates its ultimate authority, by saying, all of these canons were ‘enlightened by one and the same Spirit’, and decreed what is expedient. The canon asserts, and even insists on, the divine inspiration for the canonical tradition for reasons that we will discuss shortly. At first, such an assertion might prompt confusion in a modern reader. How can what this canon maintains be true? Can it, and the entire corpus, have an authority in the life of the Church akin to sacred scriptures? The canonical tradition provides a clear and unambiguously affirmative answer.
II Nicaea 2
In fact, the very next canon makes this point even more explicit. The second canon from the Second Council of Nicaea addresses the qualifications for a candidate for episcopal ordination. This canon insists that such a candidate ‘should have a thorough knowledge of the Psalter, in order that he may instruct all the clergy subordinate to him’. His knowledge should be ‘searching and not superficial – of the sacred canons, the holy gospel, the book of the divine apostle, and all divine scripture’. Again, the canons are placed right alongside the sacred scripture. The canon goes on to quote a great Father of the Church, Dionysios the Areopagite, when he said, ‘The substance of our hierarchy are the words handed down from God’.Footnote 2 The substance of everything in the life of the Church are the words given to us by God, namely the sacred scripture. Now, if we are scandalised by the text of these canons in any way, we would put forward the following assertion (one that can and should be true for any and all texts in the Church): if the canons are to be of any use for the Church, then they must be of the Church. These texts must emerge from the very faith and life of the Church if they are to bring people to faith, which alone offers true and authentic life. Even further, by connecting the text of canons with sacred scripture, and as we will see, with definitions of faith, we can insist that any interpretation or application of the canons, any use of them, must be consistent with the authentic faith of the church.
Orthodox faith
Now to state a basic thesis for our article, the true and authentic faith in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, simply must be present, anchoring, guiding the canonical tradition, if the tradition is to be of service to the Church. If not, then the tradition, no matter how well intentioned, would remain alien to the Church, which means it would be of no use for the Church, and even be destructive to God’s holy people. Only when the canons are read in light of faith, can they fulfil their purpose. To this point, the canons are abundantly clear, in fact.
Consider, for example, the first canon from the Council in Trullo, dating from AD 691/2. This canon, at the outset of this collection of canons says,
It is the best rule, when beginning any speech or action, to begin with God and to end with God, in accordance with the words of the Theologian.
For this canon, beginning and ending with God, has to do with matters of true theology and faith. The canon, however, is more specific and insists that it is not ‘faith’ in general, but the faith handed down by: (1) the eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, the Apostles who themselves followed the prophetic witness; and (2) the definitions of faith from the ecumenical councils. A careful reader of this would observe quotations from Gregory the Theologian, but also the various scriptural citations and allusions. Again, our assertion, but also our observation from an examination of the canonical texts themselves, is that the canons are only understood in the theological reflection of the Church, because they are written according to the same theological process. The scriptural allusions and quotes also connect these texts to other texts from the patristic period. Not only were they written by the same men, but they were also written with the same intent, exegeting, understanding, and applying scripture and the faith of the church in the life of the faithful.
Nicaea
With Trullo canon 1, we are able to arrive at the subject of the canons of Nicaea and their continued use in the life of the Church. After anchoring the activity of the Council in Trullo with the scriptural faith, the same canon makes reference above all to the faith of Nicaea. We would be remiss if we neglected the opportunity to consider this Council during the seventeen-hundred-year anniversary of this momentous event. The importance of this council warrants our attention at any moment, but now in this anniversary year especially so.
Witness from Trullo
The first canon from Trullo references Nicaea and its faith in a primary place not merely for chronological reasons, that is to say, because it is the first council, but because of the esteem that the Church had for the Nicene council and for the faith it proclaimed. The council also stands at the very head of the canonical corpus. In the second canon from Trullo, the whole corpus of canons from the end of the seventh century is listed. Following the Apostolic Canons, the canons from First Nicaea are provided. Just as the faith of Nicaea, these canons from Nicaea hold a priority within the Corpus. Just as the faith of Nicaea is the faith that all canons are to be anchored to, the canons of Nicaea are those canons the rest of the canons are to be affixed to and be in conformity with. Indeed, the authority, the unquestionable authority of the canons from First Nicaea, gives authority to the remainder of the canonical corpus.
Carthagenian witness
An important witness to the development of the authority of both the council of Nicaea and its canons comes from AD 419. In that year, at a council in Carthage, North Africa, the fathers gathered there heard the exhortation of its president, Bishop Aurelius, who said, in what has become the first canon of the so-called African Code,
Such are the decisions of the Nicene Council, which our fathers at that time brought back with them: and preserving this form, let these things which follow, adopted and confirmed by us, be kept firm.
To which, the bishops responded, in what has become the second canon of this collection:
As God wills, the ecclesiastical faith, which is handed down through us, must be confessed in this glorious assembly before anything else with a similar confession; then the ecclesiastical order, with the consent of each and of all together, must be guarded. That the minds of our brothers and fellow bishops just now ordained may be confirmed, it is necessary to add these things, which we have received from the fathers in confirmed regulation.
Only after confessing the faith of Nicaea and committing to the maintenance of what was decided there did these Fathers and this council in Carthage move forward in addressing the issues in front of them. They did so, in their own words, by guarding the ‘ecclesiastical order.’ For them, their activity – ‘guarding’ – meant working in continuity with the activity of the great Council at Nicaea. In other words, within a hundred years, the activity of the Fathers gathered at Nicaea was considered a pattern and a rule to follow in the Church, or at least for Church Fathers gathered at the other end of the Mediterranean basin.
Priority of Nicaea
The authority, prestige, and stature of the faith and the canons of the council in Nicaea would only continue to grow over the centuries, even down to our present day. To this point, modern scholars will even call the eventual compilation of canonical texts in the Byzantine Empire the ‘official Nicene imperial canon law book’, and recognise that the Greek compilation of canonical texts that served as the basis for most canonical compilations throughout the Christian world is the same ‘official Nicene imperial canon law book’. These canons, the canons from the Council in Nicaea, have a pre-eminent place in the canonical tradition, and thus loom large in the life of the Church. Similar to reading the book of Genesis first, and using it to understand the whole Bible, or even the opening chapter of a book, the canons from this council provide the terms, the vocabulary, the definitions that subsequent councils will follow. Furthermore, numerous canons referred back to these canons, confirming or explaining the decisions found in them.
A tradition that is alive
In what follows, we want to gather up the different strands of thoughts within our article so far. In order to do this, we want to consider what it means to have twenty canons written 1700 years ago still in use in the church today. A shortcut to our thesis could be as follows: only if the Holy Spirit formed and inspired these texts, could they remain active, alive, and vital for the Church today. The examination of that issue requires not only a theological reflection, but also a methodological one. By this, we mean, how can these texts, written in response to very real and particular problems of the early fourth-century Church, have any application, or affect the solution to our problems in the Church today?
The methodological answer is found through proper understanding of the texts themselves, both their function as pieces of theological literature, and their function that can be located in the Roman Hellenistic legal tradition, from which they are also inspired. In these legal traditions, the jurist would examine a law and discern principles, models, or types from the law in its original context, and apply it in a similar manner to the issue before him. To this legal process, the theological tradition remains an anchor and a guide, so that the application of the canon remains consistent with the Church and its faith. In other words, the use of the canons from Nicaea (or the entire corpus) is a living tradition, one that seeks to apply the wisdom, the principles, the models of a canon that was written for particular problems from a particular age to the problems of every age. That the tradition can be considered living, alive in the Church, is only possible if it is ‘inspired by one and the same Spirit’, and has as its essence ‘the words handed down by God’.
I Nicaea 8
As with many things, we think our comments will be better understood with a concrete example. For this, we have selected one of the most famous canons from the Council of Nicaea, I Nicaea 8. This canon provides that:
Concerning those who call themselves Cathars, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in particular that they will be in communion with persons who have been twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time [of restoration] fixed so that in all things they will follow the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Wheresoever, then, whether in villages or in cities, all of the ordained are found to be of these only, let them remain in the clergy, and in the same rank in which they are found. But if they come over where there is a bishop or presbyter of the Catholic Church, it is manifest that the Bishop of the Church must have the bishop’s dignity; and he who was named bishop by those who are called Cathars shall have the honour of presbyter, unless it shall seem fit to the Bishop to admit him to partake in the honour of the title. Or, if this should not be satisfactory, then shall the bishop provide for him a place as Chorepiscopus, or presbyter, in order that he may be evidently seen to be of the clergy, and that there may not be two bishops in the city.
This canon deals at length with the reconciliation of the Cathars into the Church. In particular, the canon strives to detail how to reconcile Cathar clergy into the hierarchy of clergy in a given territory. Even if someone does not know this canon well, most Orthodox Christians are aware of the principle enumerated at the end of it: ‘not two bishops in the city’, or one Bishop-one city. That is to say, Cathar deacons and presbyters can be reconciled rather easily. Cathar bishops require more discernment, because there can only be one bishop in one city. Now if this canon were not interpreted, if it were not considered alive, part of a living tradition, it would pose enormous challenges in application. Above all, who are the Cathars today? The canon also describes a Church oriented around a city modelled along the ancient geographical pre-suppositions of the ancient world, which is, of course, not exactly similar to the structure that we find in our Church. In other words, a superficial reading of this canon would seem to suggest that it has little to do with the modern Church. Such a reading would be mistaken and is not borne out in the canonical tradition.
For example, long after Cathars had disappeared, the Council in Trullo, in its canon 95, followed what it calls the ‘established order and custom’ from I Nicaea 8 and other canons and grouped Cathars with other heretical groups ‘who come to Orthodoxy and the portion of the saved’ and detailed how they are to be received into the Church without baptising them. In AD 787, at the Second Council of Nicaea, our predecessor, the great Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople, used this same canon from Nicaea and its directions on how to receive Cathar clergy, as a model on the correct way to reconcile iconoclast heretics to the Orthodox Church.
Finally, this principle – one bishop-one city – fits neatly within the compelling presentations of ecclesiology that have become known in the last century as Eucharistic Ecclesiology. In it, its chief proponent, the renowned twentieth century canonist Fr Nicholai Afanasiev,Footnote 3 sees the bishop in his territory, one bishop in his city, as expressing the fullness of the Church. According to Afanasiev and others who also considered this ecclesiological presentation, a bishop in his city is neither a building block, nor a simple part of the Church, but the Church itself.
Reflection
We suspect that most of us reading this canon would, in fact, interpret it in our heads and think of ways to apply it immediately in our own context. If so, we must be conscious of the methodology we use, otherwise we risk aberration and depriving the canon of its force. Maintaining the theological orientation in our interpretative work allows us to keep the canon as part of the living tradition of the Church. In so doing, we recognise that the canon, properly understood, speaks with the authority of the Church. In our example, this authority directs the proper way to receive converts into the Church, or provides guidance on the role of the bishop in his city or territory.
Conclusion
We reiterate here a fundamental point of our article: the canonical tradition is part – it must be part – of the theological reflection of the Church. If it were otherwise, the canon could be read as a tool of ecclesiastical violence, one that splits and divides the Church, walling it off, punishing groups outside of the Church. The tradition would not be alive. But when this canon is understood as speaking about reconciling the Cathars into the church, something fundamental emerges about the canonical tradition. Reconciliation, the ultimate point of this canon, is the mission of the Church. The great Apostle Paul says as much in his epistle to the Ephesians, ‘Christ is our peace, he has made us both one, and broken down the dividing wall of hostility …’.Footnote 4 This principle is how we are to read this canon and all others. Furthermore, we can mistakenly understand I Nicaea 8 as a canon that grants great authority to a bishop. Divorced from the proper theological orientation of the canons and reflection on the mission of the Church, which provides the context for this canon, we would arrive at something that the Lord spoke against, ‘you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you’.Footnote 5 To this point, if we do not read this Nicene canon, and then all of them in light of the scriptures and the faith of the Church, we would simply substitute false adherence to the canons for false trust in the Mosaic law, and fail to see the ‘one and the same Spirit’, the Spirit that lies behind both, the Spirit that gives life. The canonical tradition is a living tradition, alive in every age and even in our very day. The texts of the great Council in Nicaea stand at the head of this living tradition.
Acknowledgements
This article is a lightly edited version of a paper delivered at the Ecclesiastical Law Society’s conference, Nicaea Received: 1700 Years of Canons, Councils, and Ecumenism, convened at Chichester Cathedral in June 2025. It was a great joy and honour for our Modesty to address that esteemed audience on the topic of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, during the seventeen-hundred-year anniversary of the convening of that momentous event in the history of the Church.
