Council of Nicaea, Leo XIV and Synodality

At the end of this month of July 2025, 1700 years will be celebrated since the conclusion of what would come to be considered the First Ecumenical Council (open to all Bishops of the Church): the First Council of Nicaea (a location located on the eastern shore of a lake in present-day Asian Turkey and 20 kilometers southwest of present-day Istanbul).

Today, most of us (heirs, faithful or renounced, of what happened there and allowed the emergence of the so-called 'Western' civilization) when we hear "Nicaea" don't understand anything. It's a shame. But each one has the right to their ignorance and blindness, which, regarding that Council, and for years, was exploited by sects and desperate authors to distort history.

Contemporaneously, these distortions no longer pass the scrutiny of the wisdom of those with even a moderate level of general knowledge. Distortions such as declaring that it was at this event that Jesus was first said to be God; that this statement was imposed by Emperor Constantine I; that the Creed drafted during this conciliar meeting had no biblical foundation; etc.

In particular, it was pointed out that the key word of this Creed ('homoousios') had a Gnostic origin and meaning (a parasitic movement of Christianity that used it to structure the “hodgepodge of themes”, coming from almost every quadrant, that it conveyed).

As for its provenance, it is a fact that the term 'homoousios' , as far as we know today, was first used by Gnostics, but by Nicaea that movement no longer used it. As for its meaning, it is completely false. No Gnostic ever intended to give this Greek word the meaning it was given at Nicaea, the result, in a final stage, of the work of Hosius of Córdoba and Alexander of Alexandria to translate the Latin 'consubstantialem' (written and disseminated, more than 100 years earlier, by Tertullian of Carthage).

Furthermore, these terms (whether the Greek used at Nicaea or the older Latin) perfectly translate (and this was the orthodox meaning desired for it, despite the vain linguistic manipulations later carried out by opponents of that orthodoxy) the "I [Jesus] and the Father are one" of John 10:30. In fact, the "one" appears in the Greek neuter gender, which points to an absolute equality with respect to the natural essence (the divinity) of Jesus and the Father. This, then, is the desired meaning for the Nicene "consubstantial."

But it is not about this term that I wish to continue writing. Rather, prompted by a speech Leo XIV gave to the Italian bishops a month ago, I want to draw attention to the word "apostolic," which is used in the Nicene Creed as an essential and constitutive trait of the Church. Why? Because it points, as the Second Vatican Council rightly saw, to an "apostolicity" that this council translated as "collegiality."

Indeed, it takes tremendous gymnastics (attempted, incidentally, by famous personalities ) to say that "collegiality" and "apostolicity" are pure synonyms for "synodality." They are not. This is evident, first and foremost, in the fact that those gathered at Nicaea said that the Church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" (and not "synodal"), and that the participants in the Second Vatican Council spoke of "collegiality" (and, once again, not "synodality").

Leo XIV clarified, in that aforementioned discourse (which has not yet been translated into Portuguese, and the translation from Italian is my sole responsibility), the obvious difference between what is essential and focal, and what is instrumental and operational. Let us now follow his thought carefully and briefly.

From the outset, and almost at the beginning of the transcription of Benedict XIV's speech, we can read: "In the exercise of my [Petrine] ministry with you, dear brothers [Bishops], I would like to be inspired by the principles of collegiality developed by the Second Vatican Council" (...) "This is how you are called to live your ministry: collegiality among yourselves and collegiality with the successor of Peter" (§3).

At the end of his address, and after indicating the priorities of episcopal work, the Pope clarifies: “advance in unity, thinking above all of the Synodal Path. (…) May synodality become a mentality, in our hearts, in our decision-making processes and in our ways of acting” (§12).

The order in which the terms "collegiality" and "synodality" are placed in the Pope's text does not seem at all accidental to me. On the contrary: apostolic collegiality (which almost no one talks about anymore) reemerges as a fundamental reality of ecclesiology, following the devaluation of individual bishops in the face of various instances. Namely: i) the papal hypertrophy of the First Vatican Council; ii) the "Synod of Bishops"; iii) and the "Episcopal Conferences."

(Note 'en passant' : what is said authoritatively by a Bishop has more value [for the people he has been called to serve] than the determinations of the last two instances that I have just mentioned, because, unlike these, the apostolic episcopate is of divine origin).

Well, the aforementioned "resurfacing" of "collegiality" indicates that it is a foundational and fundamental principle, not just one property among others (nor something contrived and historically situated). It is a primordial element that, moreover, was and is desired by Jesus himself (cf. §12): a spiritual communion, with Peter and under Peter, to pray in each age what is necessary to carry out the Church and its mission (as Christ spoke 2,000 years ago).

"Synodality," for its part, is seen as a mere quality of the Church; as a "means" and not a "goal." A "means" and a path to living "collegiality" and achieving the aforementioned "goal": unity in Christ Jesus. For Pope Leo, the authentic meaning of "synodality" is etymological: "walking in common," not the ecclesial whole expressed by it. "Synodality" has no value in itself; rather, it functions in function of the aforementioned "goal."

Basically, Leo XIV says: “the ontological apostolic collegiality must be lived with a synodal mentality, so that the entire episcopal body lives in, and in, unity”, and this also (I would dare to add) so that this desire for unity of Christ is, thus, a reality among all the members of His Church and not a child of Morpheus.

Returning to Nicaea, now within the framework I presented regarding the relationship between “collegiality” and “synodality,” we see that when the Spirit is allowed to be alive in the Church it animates, the Orthodox faith will always remain, regardless of circumstances.

For 1,700 years, it was not permitted (as if this were possible, since anyone who departs from the orthodoxy of the Church has never belonged to it [cf. 1 John 2:19]): to break ontologically with the Church; and to deny the true and full divinity of God the Son and the divine nature of this incarnate God the Son (Jesus). Today, Leo XIV is making efforts to ensure that no one makes the mistake of breaking the "Convocation (for Communion)," inverting the relationship between "collegiality" and "synodality."

The Fathers of Nicaea delivered Jesus' followers from error, guiding us in the genuine faith of Christ; today (it seems to me), Leo XIV follows their lead. And if we should continually remember those Fathers with joy and gratitude (knowing that none of the baptized of our day would be Christian without their efforts), it is my growing conviction that the same is opportune for the current Pope (who is making "synodality" healthier).