Stephen I of Antioch (Latin : Stephanus) was the Bishop of Antioch between 341 and 345 [1] or 342 and 344, [2] depending on the source. He was leader of the Arian party, called Eusebians, during the Arian controversy and an adversary of Athanasius.
Stephen was present at the Council of Sardica (343) leading the arian party alongside Acacius of Caesarea, the successor of Eusebius of Nicomedia, where he fought for the depositions of Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra, something the orthodox party, spearheaded by Hosius, was not prepared to do. Angry with the result, the arians left the council and reunited again at the so-called Council of Philippopolis, which condemned the two bishops and pronounced an anathema against the Fathers at Sardica. [3]
In 344, some orthodox representatives of Sardica visited Antioch (Vincent of Capua and Euphrates of Cologne). During the night, a harlot was found in their quarters and the event became a big scandal that, after an investigation, traced back to Stephen. As a result, a Council of Antioch in 344 deposed him. [3]
Arianism is a Christological doctrine considered heretical by all modern mainstream branches of Christianity. It is first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter who preached and studied in Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made before time by God the Father; therefore, Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, but nonetheless Jesus began to exist outside time.
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 patriarch 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 Nicene theology against the anti-Nicenes, and a noted Egyptian Christian leader of the fourth century.
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.
Pope Julius I was the bishop of Rome from 6 February 337 to his death on 12 April 352. He is notable for asserting the authority of the pope over the Arian Eastern bishops, as well as setting December 25 as the official birthdate of Jesus.
The 340s decade ran from January 1, 340, to December 31, 349.
Saint Meletius was a Christian bishop of Antioch from 360 until his death in 381. However, his episcopate was dominated by a schism, usually called the Meletian schism.
Paul I or Paulus I or Saint Paul the Confessor, was the sixth bishop of Constantinople, elected first in 337 AD. Paul became involved in the Arian controversy which drew in the Emperor of the West, Constans, and his counterpart in the East, his brother Constantius II. Paul was installed and deposed three times from the See of Constantinople between 337 and 351. He was murdered by strangulation during his third and final exile in Cappadocia. His feast day is on November 6.
Eudoxius was the eighth bishop of Constantinople from January 27, 360 to 370, previously bishop of Germanicia and of Antioch. Eudoxius was one of the most influential Arians.
Arius was a Cyrenaic presbyter, ascetic, and priest. He has been traditionally 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 held in common a belief in subordinationism with most Christian theologians of the 3rd century, with the notable exception of Athanasius of Alexandria.
The Council of Philippopolis in 343, 344, or 347 was a result of Arian bishops from the Eastern Roman Empire leaving the Council of Sardica to form their own counter council. In Philippopolis, they anathemized the term homoousios, in effect excommunicating Pope Julius I as well as their rivals at the Council in Sardica, and introduced the term Anomoian and as a result, the Arian controversy was perpetuated, rather than resolved, as was the original intention of the Roman emperors Constans and Constantius.
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.
Semi-Arianism was a position regarding the relationship between God the Father and the Son of God, adopted by some 4th-century Christians. Though the doctrine modified the teachings of Arianism, it still rejected the doctrine that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal, and of the same substance, or consubstantial, and was therefore considered to be heretical by many contemporary Christians.
George was the bishop of Laodicea in Syria from 335 until his deposition in 347. He took part in the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth century. At first an ardent admirer of the teaching of Arius and associated with Eusebius of Nicomedia, he subsequently became a semi-Arian, but seems ultimately to have united with the Anomoeans, whose uncompromising opponent he had once been, and to have died professing their tenets.
Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times. Most of these dealt with phases of the Arian and of the Christological controversies. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia article on Paul of Samosata states:
It must be regarded as certain that the council which condemned Paul rejected the term homoousios; but naturally only in a false sense used by Paul; not, it seems because he meant by it a unity of Hypostasis in the Trinity, but because he intended by it a common substance out of which both Father and Son proceeded, or which it divided between them, — so St. Basil and St. Athanasius; but the question is not clear. The objectors to the Nicene doctrine in the fourth century made copious use of this disapproval of the Nicene word by a famous council.
The Council of Serdica, or Synod of Serdica, was a synod convened in 343 at Serdica in the civil diocese of Dacia, by Emperors Constans I, Augustus in the West, and Constantius II, Augustus in the East. It attempted to resolve "the tension between East and West in the Church." “The council was a disaster: the two sides, one from the west and the other from the east, never met as one.”
The Arian controversy was a series of Christian disputes about the nature of Jesus 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 Pneumatomachi, also known as Macedonians or Semi-Arians in Constantinople and the Tropici in Alexandria, were an anti-Nicene Creed sect which flourished in the regions adjacent to the Hellespont during the latter half of the fourth, and the beginning of the fifth centuries. They denied the godhood of the Holy Ghost, hence the Greek name Pneumatomachi or 'Combators against the Spirit'.
Paulinus II was a claimant to the See of Antioch from 362 to 388.
Arian creeds are the creeds of Arian Christians, developed mostly in the fourth century when Arianism was one of the main varieties of Christianity.