Fr. Brian A. Graebe.

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight- Thursday, February 13th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the health of Pope Francis, the pope's reaction to the immigration policies of President Trump, and other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column...

This year marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, arguably the most consequential gathering in Christian history. The still-young Church, then emerging from centuries of persecution, found itself torn apart by a debate over the identity of Jesus Christ.

The crisis began when a priest from Alexandria in Egypt named Arius argued - contrary to the long-standing but as-yet-undefined Catholic position - that the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, was created by God the Father. For the Arians, Jesus was the highest creature, the closest to the Father, but was not co-equal and co-eternal with Him.

The debate was not limited to the ivory tower: it divided dioceses and towns throughout the Roman Empire, many of them with competing Arian and Catholic churches and bishops. Seeing that this confusion threatened his precarious hold on power, the emperor Constantine convened the world's bishops in the city of Nicaea, in modern-day Turkey, to settle the matter in a definitie way. Thus came about the first ecumenical, or universal, council in Church history.

The resulting statement of belief, the Nicene Creed, stands as the most important text in Christianity outside of Scripture. It resoundingly refuted Arianism and affirmed the full divinity of Christ as "true God from true God."

The key word in the entire creed is homoousios, or "consubstantial." It affirms that the Son is "of the same substance," just as fully God as the Father is. The council fathers rejected the compromise term homoiousios, in which the added letter would have rendered the Son "of similar substance" to the Father.

The correct term, and the truth it upholds, makes more than just an iota ("i") of difference. Nor is the debate merely a matter of semantics or esoteric theological terms. If Jesus is not true God, then He has no power to save us, and the Crucifixion is reduced to just another ancient tragedy.

When Christians the world over recite the Creed every Sunday (the final version came later that century at the Council of Constantinople), they can take for granted how fraught the debate was and how uncertain the outcome. Even after the council, many bishops remained under Arianism's sway.

Assessing the situation 1500 years later, the famous English theologian St. John Henry Newman wrote, "The episcopate, whose action was so prompt and concordant at Nicaea on the rise of Arianism, did not, as a class or order of men, play a good part in the troubles consequent upon the Council; and the laity did. The Catholic people, in the length and breadth of Christendom, were the obstinate champions of Catholic truth, and the bishops were not."

Newman's words are, sadly, no less relevant today. A great deal of doctrinal confusion emanates from the highest levels of Church leadership, from those bishops and priests who ought to be voices of clarity. The lure of novelty, of being untethered to the tradition that we believe to have come from God Himself, tempts far too many prelates to cast doubt upon and to make a mess of the Church's apostolic faith.

The resulting division disorients Catholics, and those looking on, just as it did 1,700 years ago. A popular slogan in certain Christian denominations holds that "doctrine divides" - that theological debates impede the work of discipleship. But Nicaea reminds us that nothing could be further from the truth. It was precisely the division s...