The Council of Nicea and Power

“Hi XXX, sorry about that, my reply was aimed at a response to XXX, but I must have hit the wrong button. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading your response. I find your questions regarding the Council of Nicea quite justified, and I have asked them as well. All Councils, especially Nicea, were deeply imbedded into the political landscape of the time. You might already know this but when Constantine called for the Council of Nicea he was intending to have the bishops give him full authority of Church doctrine. In the end the bishops not only rejected that, they even told him (the most powerful man in the world) that the Church has the right to question the state! Talk about guts. The major politics at work at Nicea was who had authority over the Church? The emperor or the bishops? The Council once and for all said not only is Christ the head of the Church, but that the Church was independent of the state and had the right to rebuke it. Was there infighting between the bishops (over power, turf, etc), of course, and you are right in pointing that out. Nevertheless, I am constantly humbled by the fact that God seems to bring forth good out of people who seem to me the least capable of it. If that happens in my little world, how much more good could God bring about at the most important council in Church history? God can use us, even despite ourselves.”