On Monday 11th of December 2023, His Eminence Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain, opened the international academic and ecumenical conference ‘The Nicene and Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creeds Tensions, Rapprochements, Effects’ with a theological and pastoral reflection on the legacy of the Council of Nicaea (325) and the enduring relevance of the Orthodox Christian faith in the contemporary world (https://www.fscire.it/news/the-nicene-and-nicene-constantinopolitan-creeds). The conference was held at the Maison Française in Oxford and was sponsored and organized by Fscire (La Fondazione per le scienze religiose) (Bologna, Italy), Maison Française (Oxford), Regent’s Park College (Oxford) and The House of St Gregory and St Macrina (Oxford). It aimed to investigate the tensions, development, compromises and reception until the present day in multiple Christian traditions of the creeds produced and faith proclaimed by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) and the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (381). The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) will celebrate its 1700th anniversary in 2025. His Eminence Archbishop Nikitas headed a large group of attending clergy and laity of the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain and Orthodox Christians scholars and theologians of multiple traditions, including the Very Rev. Protopresbyter Dr Ian Graham (Oxford), the Very Rev. Archpriest Prof. Andrew Louth (Durham), Professor Dimitri Conomos (Oxford) and Professor Alexander Lingas (Oxford and London) (Cappella Romana). Two of the clergy of the Archdiocese gave academic papers, the Rev. Deacon Prof. Nikita (Krastu) Banev (‘“Prohibitum est sanctis patribus symbolo addere aliquid vel minuere”: The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Context of the Ninth-century Missions to Moravia and Bulgaria’) (Durham University) and the Rev. Presbyter Prof. Anastasios Brandon Gallaher (‘God With Us: A Contemporary Sophiological Reading of Nicaea’) (University of Exeter). The event was marked by wide-ranging historical, philological and theological reflection on the inspiration and profound depths of the Patristic legacy of Nicaea which has a particular poignancy in this Nativity season when we wait in anticipation for the celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of Christ our God who is ‘of one essence with the Father [ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί]…and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man’ (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol of the Faith).
