Icon of the First Council of Nicaea (325 CE)

This icon depicts the First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church, held in 325 CE. It shows the Emperor Constantine and the assembled bishops (the "Fathers" of the council) holding the text of the Nicene Creed. (Tradition)

A note on the image itself

A word of caution belongs at the front. The image is treated on Wikimedia Commons as public domain because it is held to have been published before 1 January 1931, but the date of the icon itself is not documented in the source record. Its age, painter and origin are not established. It should therefore be read as an illustrative devotional image of the council's subject, not as a securely dated historical artefact. (Scholarship) What can be stated with confidence is the event it depicts, not the object's own history.

The event depicted

The Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 CE to address disputes over Christian doctrine, above all the teaching associated with Arius concerning the relationship of the Son to the Father. Its principal outcome was the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that became foundational across the later Christian traditions. (Tradition) The council is a landmark in the history of the early Church, several generations after the apostolic age.

Relevance to Paul, with due caution

Here too a careful distinction is needed. Nicaea took place nearly three centuries after the Apostle Paul, and Paul had no part in it. The connection is indirect: the theology hammered out at Nicaea drew deeply on the New Testament, including the letters attributed to Paul, and the bishoprics of Asia Minor and Cilicia — the region of Paul's birth — belonged to the wider Church that such councils served. (Scholarship) The icon is included in this archive as a witness to how the faith Paul helped carry into the gentile world was later defined, not as evidence about Paul himself. For the growth of the Church in the centuries between, see early Christianity.

The apostolic memory at the root of that story is what St Paul Global Week marks. On 28-30 June 2027, around the 29 June Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, a faith-tourism gathering organised by Funny Tourism will bring pilgrims to Tarsus and Mersin. See the programme.