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The Councils of Alexandria started in 231 AD as a council of bishops and priests met at Alexandria, Egypt, called by Bishop Demetrius for the purpose of declaring Origen of Alexandria unworthy of the office of teacher, and of excommunicating him.
In 306, a council held under Pope Peter of Alexandria deposed Meletius, Bishop of Lycopolis, for idolatry and other crimes. The schism then begun by him lasted fifty years and was the source of much trouble for the Church of Egypt.
In 321, Alexander I of Alexandria held the council that first condemned Arius, then parish priest of the section of Alexandria known as Baucalis. [1] After his condemnation Arius withdrew to Palestine, where he secured the powerful support of Eusebius of Nicomedia.
At the Council of 326, Athanasius of Alexandria was elected to succeed the aged Alexander, and various heresies and schisms of Egypt were denounced.
In a year between 338 and 340, nearly one hundred bishops met at Alexandria, where they declared in favor of Athanasius, rejecting the charges brought against him by the Eusebian faction at the First Synod of Tyre. [2] [3] The council published an encyclical to this effect. [1]
In 346, Athanasius gathered 94 bishops to hold a council, where they signed the Serdican encyclical. [3]
At a council in the year 350, Athanasius was replaced in his see.
After the death of George of Cappadocia, Athanasius returned to the see of Alexandria, and shortly thereafter called the council of 362. [1] This council was a major turning point in the conflict with the Arian movement over issues regarding the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the human soul of Christ, and God's divinity. [4] Athanasius and Eusebius of Vercelli presided over the council, and Athanasius read his Apologia de Fuga aloud to the attendees, [1] who included some Marmaricans. [3]
Mild measures were agreed on for those apostate bishops who repented, but severe penance was decreed for the chief leaders of the major heresies. The council published two documents, the Epistula Catholica and the Tomus ad Antiochenos . [1]
In 363, another council met under Athanasius for the purpose of submitting to the new Roman Emperor Jovian an account of the truth faith.
The council of 364 had a similar purpose to the council of 363.
The council of 370 approved the action of Pope Damasus I in condemning Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursa (see Arianism), and expressed its surprise that Auxentius of Milan was yet tolerated at Milan.
In 399, the council of Alexandria condemned, without naming him, the writings of Origen.
In 430, Cyril of Alexandria made known to the bishops of Egypt the letter of Pope Celestine I, in which a pontifical admonition was conveyed to the heresiarch Nestorius. In this council the bishops warned him that unless he retracted his errors, confessed the Catholic faith, and reformed his life, they would refuse to look on him as a bishop.
In 633, the patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria held a council in favour of the Monothelites, with which closed the series of these deliberative meetings of the ancient Church of Egypt.
Arianism is a Christological doctrine which rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity and considers Jesus to be a creation of God, and therefore distinct from God. It is named after its major proponent, Arius. It is considered heretical by most modern mainstream branches of Christianity. It is held by a minority of modern denominations, although some of these denominations hold related doctrines such as Socinianism, and some shy away from use of the term Arian due to the term's historically negative connotations. Modern mainstream denominations sometimes connected to the teaching include Jehovah's Witnesses, some individual churches within the Churches of Christ, as well as some Hebrew Roots Christians and Messianic Jews.
Athanasius I of Alexandria, also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor, or, among Coptic Christians, Athanasius the Apostolic, was a Christian theologian and the 20th pope of Alexandria. His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years, of which over 17 encompassed five exiles, when he was replaced on the order of four different Roman emperors. Athanasius was a Church Father, the chief proponent of Trinitarianism against Arianism, and a noted Egyptian Christian leader of the fourth century.
Eusebius of Nicomedia was an Arian priest who baptized Constantine the Great on his deathbed in 337. A fifth-century legend evolved that Pope Sylvester I was the one to baptize Constantine, but this is dismissed by scholars as a forgery "to amend the historical memory of the Arian baptism that the emperor received at the end of his life, and instead to attribute an unequivocally orthodox baptism to him". He was a bishop of Berytus in Phoenicia. He was later made the bishop of Nicomedia, where the Imperial court resided. He lived finally in Constantinople from 338 up to his death.
The First Council of Nicaea was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea by the Roman Emperor Constantine I. The Council of Nicaea met from May until the end of July 325.
The First Council of Constantinople was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, except for the Western Church, confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding the doctrine thereof to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and dealt with sundry other matters. It met from May to July 381 in the Church of Hagia Irene and was affirmed as ecumenical in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon.
Arius was a Cyrenaic presbyter and ascetic. He has been regarded as the founder of Arianism, which holds that Jesus Christ was not coeternal with God the Father, but was rather created before time. Arian theology and its doctrine regarding the nature of the Godhead showed a belief in subordinationism, a view notably disputed by 4th century figures such as Athanasius of Alexandria.
Eustathius of Antioch, sometimes surnamed the Great, was a Christian bishop and archbishop of Antioch in the 4th century. His feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church is February 21.
Hosius of Corduba, also known as Hosius the Confessor, Osius or Ossius, was a bishop of Corduba and an important and prominent advocate for Homoousion Christianity in the Arian controversy that divided the early Christianity.
Marcellus of Ancyra was a Bishop of Ancyra and one of the bishops present at the Council of Ancyra and the First Council of Nicaea. He was a strong opponent of Arianism, but was accused of adopting the opposite extreme of modified Sabellianism. He was condemned by a council of his enemies and expelled from his see, though he was able to return there to live quietly with a small congregation in the last years of his life. He is also said to have destroyed the temple of Zeus Belos at Apamea.
St. Lucifer of Cagliari was a bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia known for his passionate opposition to Arianism. He is venerated as a Saint in Sardinia.
Alexander I of Alexandria was the 19th Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria. During his patriarchate, he dealt with a number of issues facing the Church in that day. These included the dating of Easter, the actions of Meletius of Lycopolis, and the issue of greatest substance, Arianism. He was the leader of the opposition to Arianism at the First Council of Nicaea. He also mentored his successor, Athanasius of Alexandria, who would become one of the Church Fathers.
Auxentius of Milan or of Cappadocia, was an Arian theologian and bishop of Milan. Because of his Arian faith, Auxentius is considered by the Catholic Church as an intruder and he is not included in the Catholic lists of the bishops of Milan such as that engraved in the Cathedral of Milan.
The First Synod of Tyre or the Council of Tyre was a gathering of bishops called together at Tyre by Emperor Constantine I for the primary purpose of evaluating charges brought against Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, who was deposed by the council.
The Arian controversy was a series of Christian disputes about the nature of Christ that began with a dispute between Arius and Athanasius of Alexandria, two Christian theologians from Alexandria, Egypt. The most important of these controversies concerned the relationship between the substance of God the Father and the substance of His Son.
The Melitians, sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs, were an early Christian sect in Egypt. They were founded about 306 by Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis and survived as a small group into the eighth century. The point on which they broke with the larger catholic church was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into communion. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism.
Christianity in the 4th century was dominated in its early stage by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), and in its late stage by the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire.
Constantine the Great's (272–337) relationship with the four Bishops of Rome during his reign is an important component of the history of the Papacy, and more generally the history of the Catholic Church.
Dionysius was bishop of Milan from 349 to 355. He is honoured as a Saint in the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and his feast day is 25 May.
Arian creeds are the creeds of Arian Christians, developed mostly in the fourth century when Arianism was one of the main varieties of Christianity.
Tomus ad Antiochenos is a letter or mediation proposal written by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria on behalf of a regional synod he convened in Alexandria in 362, addressed to a group of bishops seeking a solution to the schism between "Eustathians" and "Meletians" in the parishes of Antioch. This letter played a key role in the Trinitarian theological debates between the one-hypostasis model and the three-hypostasis model of the Trinity, anticipating the turning point in this question from the 370s onward.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Councils of Alexandria". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.