The Council of Nicea

In the 300's C.E., Christianity began to come about in the Roman Empire. Before, the Romans use to persecute the Christians who would go out and proclaim their devotion to the religion and not pay homage to the Roman gods. The Romans believed that they were acting as enemies to the state by not paying their dues to the government. As a result, they were punished and killed for their actions or lack thereof. But under the reign of Constantine the Great, something happened that made him convert to Christianity. He had a vision of two Greek letters that spelled out "Christ" and above in Latin it said "In His name you shall conquer." The next day Constantine faced his enemies and won the battle. After this, Constantine passed the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal to practice. Soon after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. With the religion beginning it would run into problems such as what to believe and what to accept as true and what was not. In the year 325, a man named Arius was spreading a heresy called "Arianism" which created mass confusion on what was to be believed by the Christians at this time. At this mass meeting, Constantine called over 250 bishops from the empire to come and discuss the matters at hand. Immense debate took place between the bishops and Constantine to discuss about what was correct. As a result of the council came what to be the list that all Catholics believed in or known as the Nicene Creed. In the creed it lists the matters that took place that what the Church claims as dogmatic. The council was made to denounce Arianism and to bring about what was to be believed in.

Nihil Obstat. February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.