Im asking this question because I was seriously pondering converting to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Orthodox tell me the history of their church according to their tradition and so do Roman Catholics. I am mostly interested in the history of these two sects of Christianity because I witnessed that these are the ones that like to argue about which church is the true form of Christianity. I am aware of the schism of 1054. I know that the other denominations of Protestant Christianity also argue that they are the true church of Jesus but Im mainly concerned about Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. I know Im leaving out other churches like Oriental Orthodox, etc. Please include them if you must. I barely know anything outside what each of the respective churches tell me.
They both tell me of their divine origins and whatnot. However, Im tired of hearing it from their point of view and want to know what actually happened. Here are some of my conclusions that I reached upon research:
Please know that when I say Christian church, I'm talking about the Orthodox and Roman Catholic church BEFORE the schism.
The Christian church before the split of 1054 sought political power in the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine. What other way to do this than to establish Christianity as the only valid religion of the empire? I am also aware that at one point in time, Christianity and the pagan religions were tolerated. After the split, they continued to do so in their respective regions while demonizing each other till no end. Perhaps the Nicean Council wanted to establish a defined and legitimate form of Christianity due to the other sects that existed at the time? I've read about all kinds of dogmas, doctrines, etc. that would be considered outdated by just about everyone else.
They triumphed over the other Christian sects (Arianism, Gnosticism, etc.) existing at the time, claimed themselves to be the true church of Christ, thus discrediting the other sects and deemed them heretical. History as it is said, is written by the winners. I am aware that there are books that were taken out of the now known Bible that were considered heretical by the Christian church.
Christianity as a nationalistic movement. In some places like Eastern Europe, converting to any other religion outside Orthodox Christianity is seen as a political movement rather than a spiritual one. I've seen countless of youtube videos on Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Latin liturgies and the followers of each argue for MONTHS about who is right and who is wrong. I've seen videos of Russian, Serbian, or Greeks converting to Islam and immediately denationalized by the commentators who happen to be Orthodox Christians.
Religions often split over minuscule matters. For instance, there is a church called the Genuine Orthodox Church that split from the Eastern Orthodox church because they consider the Eastern Orthodox church to be in schism because they do not use the Julian calendar exclusively.
To be honest, I am NOT thoroughly convinced of the history that the Orthodox (or even Roman Catholic) church gives me. It just seems to me like what I stated in the above: seeking political power, establishing control as the head organization in the empire and then, former regions of the Roman empire. Orthodox and Catholics both tell me that their respective churches, according to tradition, began at the Pentecost. I'm just not convinced.
What are the historical origins of this institution outside the scope of tradition?
Christianity and Eastern Orthodox: are they Nicean Christianity that originated when Constantine was in power? When I ask this question to the Orthodox, they tell me the Orthodox church originated in Christ and legalized by Constantine. My research tells me otherwise, that the church(es) had their origin in Constantine's reign. This is why I have a tough time accepting the claims of the church.
Do these traditions of Christianity have any influences from the pagan religions that existed at the time?
Any scholarly articles I can read concerning this topic?
Then Council of Nicaea was the first of a series of Ecumenical Councils. These are frequently grouped into a series called "the first seven ecumenical councils." The date from Nicaea in 325 to the second Council of Nicaea in 781. These Councils deal with some pivotal theological issues, but also are crucial in their historical significance. Things that can be traced through the council are the growing schism of the East and West, both politically and ecumenically, the shift of the Church from sect to political power, and the look at regional autonomy in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, amongst a plethora of topics.
The first Council of Nicaea was assembled by Constantine. His conversion is crucial. Politically he was looking to reunite an empire that had suffered what has been deemed "the crisis of the third century." Large historical periods are difficult to define as they are fluid, but this crisis marked, in many opinions, the transition from antiquity into what we call "late antiquity." Late antiquity is, in itself, a transitionary period from the "classical" into the "medieval" world. The crisis had it all, a small pox epidemic (plague), the breaking up of the empire into three parts that Babushka dolled into further states like Hispania and Britain did from the newly established kingdom of Gaul, and all sorts of assassination with no end in sight nor any means of viable succession.
Enter Diocletian. He defeated a lot of the invading "Barbarians" (who in some cases were just that, and in others were immigrants who were nnearly as Romanised as their Roman neighbours). He reunited the Empire and co-ruled with Maximian. He is the only emperor "to retire." What is particularly notable for our discussion of Nicaea is his "great persecution" of the Christians.
Constantine was first and foremost a soldier. He worked his way up through the ranks during Diocletian's reign. After the death of Diocletian, he won emerged victorious in a series of civil wars. For a number of motives, in 330 Constantine founded a "New Rome" in Constantinople and made this his empire's capital. This was to symbolise the uniting of the Greek and Latin speaking parts of the empire, to materially display his prominence, but also to serve as distinctly Christian centre of power. He brought in all sorts of relics to commemorate massive building projects, including "the true cross" amongst others.
But what happened between his first year as sole ruler in 324 and his founding of the city was a remarkable work of political deftness and religious zeal. Eusebius of Caesarea is our chief source on Constantine. He builds a narrative that place Constantine as a fulfiller of prophesy, ending a time of tribulation, and ushering in a "kingdom of God" in a "new era". In some ways, despite the propaganda of sorts, you can't blame him when Christians went from losing their property and being tortured to serving as trusted advisors and councilors, with all of their property that had been seized returned and more.
The Council of Nicaea was the first church wide meeting since the Apostolic age (when the events of the Bible were happening). This was when it was formally enacted to let the Gentiles become Christians alongside the Jews. Hopefully that points put what a significant even it is, both to its contemporaries and historically.
It was chiefly concerned with Arian theology. Though it concerned itself with the dating of Easter (a major uniting force, when the churches across a vast empire all are celebrating as one) and with the preeminence of the Roman See, but also with the reiteration of the importance of other Apostolic sees like Antioch and Alexandria, plus it introduced Constantinople as an important and eminent centre of Christianity.
I'll do my best to quickly cover Arianism:
"It is far less amazing that human beings should progress upwards towards God than that God should have come down to the human level.” – Pope Leo I
A. Following the reasoning of Henry Chadwick, the Arian controversy can be divided into three stages; the first down to the death of Constantine (22 May 337), the second from the accession of the sons of Constantine to the death of Constantius II (361), and the third from the accession of Julian to the suppression of Arianism under Theodosius the second.
B. Obviously in an introduction the motives and nature of Constantine’s conversion are complex and so widely hypothesized that we do not have time to pause here, but it must be said that, regardless of motivation, Constantine had in mind a unity of both the faith and the empire. This is demonstrated in his letter to Arius and Alexander, “Therefore I have been driven to the necessity of this letter and am writing to your concordant sagacity. And, after calling upon divine providence as my ally in the matter, I offer myself – as is reasonable – in the midst of your strife as an ambassador of peace.”
C. Ultimately, Arianism will be a leading cause of the schism of the Western and Eastern Roman Churches.
Arianism was a doctrine concerning the nature of the Christian trinity, specifically the substantive relationship between the Father and the Son. The Arians held that Christ was a creation of the Father. They scripturally would substantiate their claims with Scripture such as Colossians 3:15: Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
And would be argued against based on verses such as Matthew 3:16-17: "And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
The controversy would lead Constantine to call Council of Nicaea from which came the Nicene creed. While it seems an issue of semantics the question of the substantiae of the nature of God would have broad religious and social implications concerning the role of the church in late Roman society. The three Greek words concerning the nature of God were Homoousian or same substance, Homoiousian or similar substance, and the Heteroousian or different substance.
This may seem insignificant to a non Christian, but without Christ having divinity he becomes just another moral teacher and social activist Therefore you really have distance yourself from any presuppositions and take on some personal and historical empathy to understand just how important the divinity of Christ was to Chrsitians at the time (and continues to be to now).
The Council concluded with the condemnation of Arianism and the formation of "The Nicene Creed." What is know today as "The Nicene Creed" is commonly referred to by scholars as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and came out of the next Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381. And from my studies, really was wasn't formalised until the fourth council, the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
The Arian controversy rages on even after the Council of Nicaea. It is dealt a decisive blow in the next council at Constantinople in 381. I think it would be fair to see it out and do a quick look at the politics and theology of that second, follow up council.
Council of Constantinople 381
For something as voraciously nuanced and vast as Constantinopolitan theology to be considered with brevity and understanding, a microcosmic approach will best suit. This second part will consider the council of Constantinople, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed attributed to it, and its contribution to the city’s emergence as a center for the intertwined power of church and state. Hopefully, rather than an interchange of opinion and statements, this questioning introduction will foster, as is the intent and nature of introduction, further questions.
An imperial frenzy and mistrust haunted state politics following the unprecedented death of Valens at the 378 battle of Adrianople. Gratian and the newly instated Theodosius did have a point of unification in religious ideology. In February of 380 they issued a joint edict, the cunctos populos, which demanded that all people practise “that religion, which the divine Peter the apostle transmitted to the Romans.” Part of this joint effort was the assertion of the authority of the Nicene position. After some seeming power-play between the emperors concerning the where and when of the council, Theodosius won out and the assembly of bishops was to gather in Constantinople in May of 381.
The imperial Nicene sympathy was seen as an opportunity to deal a decisive, anti-Arian blow by men like Ambrose of Milan. He would go to great lengths of intellectual ingenuity to strengthen the Nicene cause, asserting the sanctity of the 325 AD council by highlighting the significance of the number of bishops in attendance—318, the same as the number of Abraham’s servants and the Greek numerals symbolising the cross of Jesus (TIH).* In the midst of this tension Theodosius, in an attempt to successfully mediate, awarded the presidency of the council to Meletius of Antioch, thus appeasing the Cappadocians.
Continued below...
/u/MarcusDohrelius already covered a ton of the historical narrative well. I am just going to clear up a few misconceptions in your question text.
The Nicean council wasn't trying to establish a 'defined and legitimate form of Christianity' in that sense. By 325 there was a fairly clear and defined church, church structure, and common core of beliefs. The question was primarily and decisively about whether Arian's beliefs were acceptable or not.
It is true that we view other sects of 'christianities' from the perspective of 'those that won', but this doesn't mean that necessarily all strands of Christianesque thought had equal legitimacy to being called 'Christian'. Even by the 2nd century you see appeals to 'what is taught throughout the churches' as a yardstick to what is genuine and what is not.
The process of canonisation of the NT, that is deciding which books were included and which were not, was generally not a process of excluding books. It was for the most part a process of codifying which books were in widespread usage and recognised as authoritative. Of the current NT, there were no books that were really significant contenders for inclusion that were deliberately 'taken out'; there are some books that were considered dubious but were included. So, "I am aware that there are books that were taken out of the now known Bible that were considered heretical by the Christian church" is not really accurate.
The overlay between nationalism and Orthodox Christianity has a lot to do with the structure of OC, which has independent ethnico-national churches, rather than a world-wide institution like the RC does. It also has a lot more to do with national identity politics and history in more recent times. Thirdly, the overlap of ethnic identity and religious identity is not limited to OC.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that Christianity, or institutional Christianity, originated in Constantine's time. It definitely pre-exists Constantine, including a well-developed institutional framework.
MD's bibliography is solid. I wouldn't add anything to it unless you had some specialist interests.
I'm borrowing from some of my past replies for your questions but I hope they are helpful. I am giving a bibliography in this post and then hopefully a decent intro to first ecumenical councils in another comment.
If you want some well-written and fairly approachable work on the time period of Constantine, the first few ecumenical councils, and late antiquity any of the general church history volumes by Henry Chadwick will fit the bill splendidly. He was an amazing historian, writer, and translator. His whole family seemed to be talented. His brother, Owen Chadwick, is also an amazing historian now aged 97. He has some great volumes of ecclesiastical history as well.
For more technical work dealing directly with the texts, especially the creeds themselves, see the work of Philip Schaff or J.N.D Kelly.
For really well-researched, original-language heavy, work, see T.D Barnes. He is still active, though a retired researcher now. Originally a classicist, he turned his later attention to the church. He has been responsible for some major chronological reconsiderations for the period of late antiquity, is the proabably the best on Tertullian, and has really contributed a lot to our understanding of Eusebius, Constantine, Arius, and the time of the Early Creeds.
Also, check out any of Peter Brown's more general volumes, like The Rise of Western Christendom. Brown is really approachable in his more general works and is a great writer. Or read the late R.A Markus. Those gentlemen, in many ways, invented "Late Antiquity" as the research field it is.