By Stephen G. Brown* Titled “Towards Nicaea 2025: Exploring the Council’s Ecumenical Significance Today,” the 5-7 November conference was held at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, a centre for ecumenical formation, education, and study near Geneva. “The deep concern at Nicaea to be faithful to the unity of God and to the unifying love of God is still a powerful and inspiring witness,” said Rev. Dr Susan Durber, WCC president from Europe and former moderator of the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order, in a keynote address. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE was the first gathering of bishops representing the whole of Christendom, who met under the patronage of the Roman Emperor Constantine to seek consensus on the central meaning of Christian belief. “Their grappling for language to speak of a unity that is rooted in the unity of God and of God’s actions can still inspire us to deepen our own visions and recalibrate our own ecumenism,” she said. Jointly hosted by the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, the conference gathered more than 130 participants online and in person - academics, church representatives, pastors, as well as the graduate students at the Ecumenical Institute. With six keynote addresses, and more than 40 papers that were presented, participants addressed issues such as the contribution of Nicaea to ecumenical dialogue, its relationship to interfaith dialogue, the role of women at the Council of Nicaea, reimagining the Nicene Creed from the perspective of gender justice, and the relationship between Christian faith and empire. The Council of Nicaea led to the later adoption of the Nicene Creed, which is still recited in churches today as an affirmation of faith in the triune God, and participants reflected on the significance of the Council of Nicaea and the Nicene Creed for Christian unity today. In his comments at the conclusion of the three-day conference, Rev. Prof. Dr Benjamin Simon, said that the conference had helped demonstrate hope that the Nicene Creed offers possibilities for the liberation of marginalized and oppressed people, to work for integration and not segregation. Simon is dean of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and director of the WCC Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation. One of the outcomes of the council, as noted by Dr Johannes Oeldemann, a Roman Catholic theologian from Germany, in his keynote address, was setting a common date for Easter for all churches, rather than churches celebrating the resurrection of Jesus on different dates. However, Eastern and Western Christianity now calculate the date of Easter differently, and their celebrations often do not coincide, although all churches will celebrate Easter on the same day in 2025. “The coming decade offers a good opportunity to dedicate our ecumenical efforts to the complex challenge of finding a common Easter date, because the calendar will allow to celebrate Easter together every three years,” said Oeldemann, director of the Johann-Adam-Moehler-Institute for Ecumenism in Paderborn. Not least because of the involvement of the Emperor Constantine, the Council of Nicaea marked the transition from Christians being a persecuted minority to being recognized by the Roman state. However, the primary concern of the emperor at the Council of Nicaea was not theological but political, to establish a unified Christianity that would contribute to the unity of the empire, argued Rev. Dr Kathleen M. Griffin, professor of church history in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The legacy that remained for centuries within Western Christianity was this marriage “between creed, sword, and empire that occurred at the Council of Nicaea,” she said, with particular reference to South America, “converted to Christianity at sword point.” | 
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