arian catholic church

The Apostles’ Creed:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

The Arian Catholic Creed:
I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD,
Creator of Heaven and earth,
And of all things visible and invisible.
And in his Spiritual Son, Jesus Christ,
Whom was born of Mary and Joseph,
Was not consubstantial nor co-eternal with God the Father almighty,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried.
On the third day His Spirit was resurrected.
He ascended into Heaven,
And sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father almighty.
Whence he shall come again to judge the living and the dead,
Of whose Kingdom there shall be no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church,
The communion of saints,
The forgiveness of sins,
The resurrection of the Spirit,
And life everlasting.
Amen.
@Spiffs
The Nicene Creed is not the same thing as the Apostles' Creed of the Western Church or The Arian Catholic Creed.

Arianism
A heresy which arose in the fourth century, and denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

DOCTRINE
First among the doctrinal disputes which troubled Christians after Constantine had recognized the Church in A.D. 313, and the parent of many more during some three centuries, Arianism occupies a large place in ecclesiastical history. It is not a modern form of unbelief, and therefore will appear strange in modern eyes. But we shall better grasp its meaning if we term it an Eastern attempt to rationalize the creed by stripping it of mystery so far as the relation of Christ to God was concerned. In the New Testament and in Church teaching Jesus of Nazareth appears as the Son of God. This name He took to Himself (Matthew 11:27; John 10:36), while the Fourth Gospel declares Him to be the Word (Logos), Who in the beginning was with God and was God, by Whom all things were made. A similar doctrine is laid down by St. Paul, in his undoubtedly genuine Epistles to the Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians. It is reiterated in the Letters of Ignatius, and accounts for Pliny's observation that Christians in their assemblies chanted a hymn to Christ as God. But the question how the Son was related to the Father (Himself acknowledged on all hands to be the one Supreme Deity), gave rise, between the years A.D. 60 and 200, to a number of Theosophic systems, called generally Gnosticism, and having for their authors Basilides, Valentinus, Tatian, and other Greek speculators. Though all of these visited Rome, they had no following in the West, which remained free from controversies of an abstract nature, and was faithful to the creed of its baptism. Intellectual centres were chiefly Alexandria and Antioch, Egyptian or Syrian, and speculation was carried on in Greek. The Roman Church held steadfastly by tradition. Under these circumstances, when Gnostic schools had passed away with their "conjugations" of Divine powers, and "emanations" from the Supreme unknowable God (the "Deep" and the "Silence") all speculation was thrown into the form of an inquiry touching the "likeness" of the Son to His Father and "sameness" of His Essence. Catholics had always maintained that Christ was truly the Son, and truly God. They worshipped Him with divine honours; they would never consent to separate Him, in idea or reality, from the Father, Whose Word, Reason, Mind, He was, and in Whose Heart He abode from eternity. But the technical terms of doctrine were not fully defined; and even in Greek words like essence (ousia), substance (hypostasis), nature (physis), person (hyposopon) bore a variety of meanings drawn from the pre-Christian sects of philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The adaptation of a vocabulary employed by Plato and Aristotle to Christian truth was a matter of time; it could not be done in a day; and when accomplished for the Greek it had to be undertaken for the Latin, which did not lend itself readily to necessary yet subtle distinctions. That disputes should spring up even among the orthodox who all held one faith, was inevitable. And of these wranglings the rationalist would take advantage in order to substitute for the ancient creed his own inventions. The drift of all he advanced was this: to deny that in any true sense God could have a Son; as Mohammed tersely said afterwards, "God neither begets, nor is He begotten" (Koran, 112). We have learned to call that denial Unitarianism. It was the ultimate scope of Arian opposition to what Christians had always believed. But the Arian, though he did not come straight down from the Gnostic, pursued a line of argument and taught a view which the speculations of the Gnostic had made familiar. He described the Son as a second, or inferior God, standing midway between the First Cause and creatures; as Himself made out of nothing, yet as making all things else; as existing before the worlds of the ages; and as arrayed in all divine perfections except the one which was their stay and foundation. God alone was without beginning, unoriginate; the Son was originated, and once had not existed. For all that has origin must begin to be.

Such is the genuine doctrine of Arius. Using Greek terms, it denies that the Son is of one essence, nature, or substance with God; He is not consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, and therefore not like Him, or equal in dignity, or co-eternal, or within the real sphere of Deity. The Logos which St. John exalts is an attribute, Reason, belonging to the Divine nature, not a person distinct from another, and therefore is a Son merely in figure of speech. These consequences follow upon the principle which Arius maintains in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, that the Son "is no part of the Ingenerate." Hence the Arian sectaries who reasoned logically were styled Anomoeans: they said that the Son was "unlike" the Father. And they defined God as simply the Unoriginate. They are also termed the Exucontians (ex ouk onton), because they held the creation of the Son to be out of nothing.



But a view so unlike tradition found little favour; it required softening or palliation, even at the cost of logic; and the school which supplanted Arianism from an early date affirmed the likeness, either without adjunct, or in all things, or in substance, of the Son to the Father, while denying His co-equal dignity and co-eternal existence. These men of the Via Media were named Semi-Arians. They approached, in strict argument, to the heretical extreme; but many of them held the orthodox faith, however inconsistently; their difficulties turned upon language or local prejudice, and no small number submitted at length to Catholic teaching. The Semi-Arians attempted for years to invent a compromise between irreconcilable views, and their shifting creeds, tumultuous councils, and worldly devices tell us how mixed and motley a crowd was collected under their banner. The point to be kept in remembrance is that, while they affirmed the Word of God to be everlasting, they imagined Him as having become the Son to create the worlds and redeem mankind. Among the ante-Nicene writers, a certain ambiguity of expression may be detected, outside the school of Alexandria, touching this last head of doctrine. While Catholic teachers held the Monarchia, viz. that there was only one God; and the Trinity, that this Absolute One existed in three distinct subsistences; and the Circuminession, that Father, Word, and Spirit could not be separated, in fact or in thought, from one another; yet an opening was left for discussion as regarded the term "Son," and the period of His "generation" (gennesis). Five ante-Nicene Fathers are especially quoted: Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Hippolytus, and Novatian, whose language appears to involve a peculiar notion of Sonship, as though It did not come into being or were not perfect until the dawn of creation. To these may be added Tertullian and Methodius. Cardinal Newman held that their view, which is found clearly in Tertullian, of the Son existing after the Word, is connected as an antecedent with Arianism. Petavius construed the same expressions in a reprehensible sense; but the Anglican Bishop Bull defended them as orthodox, not without difficulty. Even if metaphorical, such language might give shelter to unfair disputants; but we are not answerable for the slips of teachers who failed to perceive all the consequences of doctrinal truths really held by them. From these doubtful theorizings Rome and Alexandria kept aloof. Origen himself, whose unadvised speculations were charged with the guilt of Arianism, and who employed terms like "the second God," concerning the Logos, which were never adopted by the Church -- this very Origen taught the eternal Sonship of the Word, and was not a Semi-Arian. To him the Logos, the Son, and Jesus of Nazareth were one ever-subsisting Divine Person, begotten of the Father, and, in this way, "subordinate" to the source of His being. He comes forth from God as the creative Word, and so is a ministering Agent, or, from a different point of view, is the First-born of creation. Dionysius of Alexandria (260) was even denounced at Rome for calling the Son a work or creature of God; but he explained himself to the pope on orthodox principles, and confessed the Homoousian Creed.

HISTORY
Paul of Samosata, who was contemporary with Dionysius, and Bishop of Antioch, may be judged the true ancestor of those heresies which relegated Christ beyond the Divine sphere, whatever epithets of deity they allowed Him. The man Jesus, said Paul, was distinct from the Logos, and, in Milton's later language, by merit was made the Son of God. The Supreme is one in Person as in Essence. Three councils held at Antioch (264-268, or 269) condemned and excommunicated the Samosatene. But these Fathers would not accept the Homoousian formula, dreading lest it be taken to signify one material or abstract substance, according to the usage of the heathen philosophies. Associated with Paul, and for years cut off from the Catholic communion, we find the well-known Lucian, who edited the Septuagint and became at last a martyr. From this learned man the school of Antioch drew its inspiration. Eusebius the historian, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Arius himself, all came under Lucian's influence. Not, therefore, to Egypt and its mystical teaching, but to Syria, where Aristotle flourished with his logic and its tendency to Rationalism, should we look for the home of an aberration which had it finally triumphed, would have anticipated Islam, reducing the Eternal Son to the rank of a prophet, and thus undoing the Christian revelation.

Arius, a Libyan by descent, brought up at Antioch and a school-fellow of Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of Nicomedia, took part (306) in the obscure Meletian schism, was made presbyter of the church called "Baucalis," at Alexandria, and opposed the Sabellians, themselves committed to a view of the Trinity which denied all real distinctions in the Supreme. Epiphanius describes the heresiarch as tall, grave, and winning; no aspersion on his moral character has been sustained; but there is some possibility of personal differences having led to his quarrel with the patriarch Alexander whom, in public synod, he accused of teaching that the Son was identical with the Father (319). The actual circumstances of this dispute are obscure; but Alexander condemned Arius in a great assembly, and the latter found a refuge with Eusebius, the Church historian, at Caesarea. Political or party motives embittered the strife. Many bishops of Asia Minor and Syria took up the defence of their "fellow-Lucianist," as Arius did not hesitate to call himself. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were opposed to synods in Egypt. During several years the argument raged; but when, by his defeat of Licinius (324), Constantine became master of the Roman world, he determined on restoring ecclesiastical order in the East, as already in the West he had undertaken to put down the Donatists at the Council of Arles. Arius, in a letter to the Nicomedian prelate, had boldly rejected the Catholic faith. But Constantine, tutored by this worldly-minded man, sent from Nicomedia to Alexander a famous letter, in which he treated the controversy as an idle dispute about words and enlarged on the blessings of peace. The emperor, we should call to mind, was only a catechumen, imperfectly acquainted with Greek, much more incompetent in theology, and yet ambitious to exercise over the Catholic Church a dominion resembling that which, as Pontifex Maximus, he wielded over the pagan worship. From this Byzantine conception (labelled in modern terms Erastianism) we must derive the calamities which during many hundreds of years set their mark on the development of Christian dogma. Alexander could not give way in a matter so vitally important. Arius and his supporters would not yield. A council was, therefore, assembled in Nicaea, in Bithynia, which has ever been counted the first ecumenical, and which held its sittings from the middle of June, 325. (See FIRST COUNCIL OF NICAEA). It is commonly said that Hosius of Cordova presided. The Pope, St. Silvester, was represented by his legates, and 318 Fathers attended, almost all from the East. Unfortunately, the acts of the Council are not preserved. The emperor, who was present, paid religious deference to a gathering which displayed the authority of Christian teaching in a manner so remarkable. From the first it was evident that Arius could not reckon upon a large number of patrons among the bishops. Alexander was accompanied by his youthful deacon, the ever-memorable Athanasius who engaged in discussion with the heresiarch himself, and from that moment became the leader of the Catholics during well-nigh fifty years. The Fathers appealed to tradition against the innovators, and were passionately orthodox; while a letter was received from Eusebius of Nicomedia, declaring openly that he would never allow Christ to be of one substance with God. This avowal suggested a means of discriminating between true believers and all those who, under that pretext, did not hold the Faith handed down. A creed was drawn up on behalf of the Arian party by Eusebius of Caesarea in which every term of honour and dignity, except the oneness of substance, was attributed to Our Lord. Clearly, then, no other test save the Homoousion would prove a match for the subtle ambiguities of language that, then as always, were eagerly adopted by dissidents from the mind of the Church. A formula had been discovered which would serve as a test, though not simply to be found in Scripture, yet summing up the doctrine of St. John, St. Paul, and Christ Himself, "I and the Father are one". Heresy, as St. Ambrose remarks, had furnished from its own scabbard a weapon to cut off its head. The "consubstantial" was accepted, only thirteen bishops dissenting, and these were speedily reduced to seven. Hosius drew out the conciliar statements, to which anathemas were subjoined against those who should affirm that the Son once did not exist, or that before He was begotten He was not, or that He was made out of nothing, or that He was of a different substance or essence from the Father, or was created or changeable. Every bishop made this declaration except six, of whom four at length gave way. Eusebius of Nicomedia withdrew his opposition to the Nicene term, but would not sign the condemnation of Arius. By the emperor, who considered heresy as rebellion, the alternative proposed was subscription or banishment; and, on political grounds, the Bishop of Nicomedia was exiled not long after the council, involving Arius in his ruin. The heresiarch and his followers underwent their sentence in Illyria. But these incidents, which might seem to close the chapter, proved a beginning of strife, and led on to the most complicated proceedings of which we read in the fourth century. While the plain Arian creed was defended by few, those political prelates who sided with Eusebius carried on a double warfare against the term "consubstantial", and its champion, Athanasius. This greatest of the Eastern Fathers had succeeded Alexander in the Egyptian patriarchate (326). He was not more than thirty years of age; but his published writings, antecedent to the Council, display, in thought and precision, a mastery of the issues involved which no Catholic teacher could surpass. His unblemished life, considerate temper, and loyalty to his friends made him by no means easy to attack. But the wiles of Eusebius, who in 328 recovered Constantine's favour, were seconded by Asiatic intrigues, and a period of Arian reaction set in. Eustathius of Antioch was deposed on a charge of Sabellianism (331), and the Emperor sent his command that Athanasius should receive Arius back into communion. The saint firmly declined. In 325 the heresiarch was absolved by two councils, at Tyre and Jerusalem, the former of which deposed Athanasius on false and shameful grounds of personal misconduct. He was banished to Trier, and his sojourn of eighteen months in those parts cemented Alexandria more closely to Rome and the Catholic West. Meanwhile, Constantia, the Emperor's sister, had recommended Arius, whom she thought an injured man, to Constantine's leniency. Her dying words affected him, and he recalled the Lybian, extracted from him a solemn adhesion to the Nicene faith, and ordered Alexander, Bishop of the Imperial City, to give him Communion in his own church (336). Arius openly triumphed; but as he went about in parade, the evening before this event was to take place, he expired from a sudden disorder, which Catholics could not help regarding as a judgment of heaven, due to the bishop's prayers. His death, however, did not stay the plague. Constantine now favoured none but Arians; he was baptized in his last moments by the shifty prelate of Nicomedia; and he bequeathed to his three sons (337) an empire torn by dissensions which his ignorance and weakness had aggravated.

Constantius, who nominally governed the East, was himself the puppet of his empress and the palace-ministers. He obeyed the Eusebian faction; his spiritual director, Valens, Bishop of Mursa, did what in him lay to infect Italy and the West with Arian dogmas. The term "like in substance", Homoiousion, which had been employed merely to get rid of the Nicene formula, became a watchword. But as many as fourteen councils, held between 341 and 360, in which every shade of heretical subterfuge found expression, bore decisive witness to the need and efficacy of the Catholic touchstone which they all rejected. About 340, an Alexandrian gathering had defended its archbishop in an epistle to Pope Julius. On the death of Constantine, and by the influence of that emperor's son and namesake, he had been restored to his people. But the young prince passed away, and in 341 the celebrated Antiochene Council of the Dedication a second time degraded Athanasius, who now took refuge in Rome. There he spent three years. Gibbon quotes and adopts "a judicious observation" of Wetstein which deserves to be kept always in mind. From the fourth century onwards, remarks the German scholar, when the Eastern Churches were almost equally divided in eloquence and ability between contending sections, that party which sought to overcome made its appearance in the Vatican, cultivated the Papal majesty, conquered and established the orthodox creed by the help of the Latin bishops. Therefore it was that Athanasius repaired to Rome. A stranger, Gregory, usurped his place. The Roman Council proclaimed his innocence. In 343, Constans, who ruled over the West from Illyria to Britain, summoned the bishops to meet at Sardica in Pannonia. Ninety-four Latin, seventy Greek or Eastern, prelates began the debates; but they could not come to terms, and the Asiatics withdrew, holding a separate and hostile session at Philippopolis in Thrace. It has been justly said that the Council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord which, later on, produced the unhappy schism of East and West. But to the Latins this meeting, which allowed of appeals to Pope Julius, or the Roman Church, seemed an epilogue which completed the Nicene legislation, and to this effect it was quoted by Innocent I in his correspondence with the bishops of Africa.

Having won over Constans, who warmly took up his cause, the invincible Athanasius received from his Oriental and Semi-Arian sovereign three letters commanding, and at length entreating his return to Alexandria (349). The factious bishops, Ursacius and Valens, retracted their charges against him in the hands of Pope Julius; and as he travelled home, by way of Thrace, Asia Minor, and Syria, the crowd of court-prelates did him abject homage. These men veered with every wind. Some, like Eusebius of Caesarea, held a Platonizing doctrine which they would not give up, though they declined the Arian blasphemies. But many were time-servers, indifferent to dogma. And a new party had arisen, the strict and pious Homoiousians, not friends of Athanasius, nor willing to subscribe to the Nicene terms, yet slowly drawing nearer to the true creed and finally accepting it. In the councils which now follow these good men play their part. However, when Constans died (350), and his Semi-Arian brother was left supreme, the persecution of Athanasius redoubled in violence. By a series of intrigues the Western bishops were persuaded to cast him off at Arles, Milan, Ariminum. It was concerning this last council (359) that St. Jerome wrote, "the whole world groaned and marvelled to find itself Arian". For the Latin bishops were driven by threats and chicanery to sign concessions which at no time represented their genuine views. Councils were so frequent that their dates are still matter of controversy. Personal issues disguised the dogmatic importance of a struggle which had gone on for thirty years. The Pope of the day, Liberius, brave at first, undoubtedly orthodox, but torn from his see and banished to the dreary solitude of Thrace, signed a creed, in tone Semi-Arian (compiled chiefly from one of Sirmium), renounced Athanasius, but made a stand against the so-called "Homoean" formulae of Ariminum. This new party was led by Acacius of Caesarea, an aspiring churchman who maintained that he, and not St. Cyril of Jerusalem, was metropolitan over Palestine. The Homoeans, a sort of Protestants, would have no terms employed which were not found in Scripture, and thus evaded signing the "Consubstantial". A more extreme set, the "Anomoeans", followed Aëtius, were directed by Eunomius, held meetings at Antioch and Sirmium, declared the Son to be "unlike" the Father, and made themselves powerful in the last years of Constantius within the palace. George of Cappadocia persecuted the Alexandrian Catholics. Athanasius retired into the desert among the solitaries. Hosius had been compelled by torture to subscribe a fashionable creed. When the vacillating Emperor died (361), Julian, known as the Apostate, suffered all alike to return home who had been exiled on account of religion. A momentous gathering, over which Athanasius presided, in 362, at Alexandria, united the orthodox Semi-Arians with himself and the West. Four years afterwards fifty-nine Macedonian, i.e., hitherto anti-Nicene, prelates gave in their submission to Pope Liberius. But the Emperor Valens, a fierce heretic, still laid the Church waste.

However, the long battle was now turning decidedly in favour of Catholic tradition. Western bishops, like Hilary of Poitiers and Eusebius of Vercellae banished to Asia for holding the Nicene faith, were acting in unison with St. Basil, the two St. Gregories [of Nyssa and Nazianzus --Ed.], and the reconciled Semi-Arians. As an intellectual movement the heresy had spent its force. Theodosius, a Spaniards and a Catholic, governed the whole Empire. Athanasius died in 373; but his cause triumphed at Constantinople, long an Arian city, first by the preaching of St. Gregory Nazianzen, then in the Second General Council (381), at the opening of which Meletius of Antioch presided. This saintly man had been estranged from the Nicene champions during a long schism; but he made peace with Athanasius, and now, in company of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, represented a moderate influence which won the day. No deputies appeared from the West. Meletius died almost immediately. St. Gregory Nazianzen, who took his place, very soon resigned. A creed embodying the Nicene was drawn up by St. Gregory of Nyssa, but it is not the one that is chanted at Mass, the latter being due, it is said, to St. Epiphanius and the Church of Jerusalem. The Council became ecumenical by acceptance of the Pope and the ever-orthodox Westerns. From this moment Arianism in all its forms lost its place within the Empire. Its developments among the barbarians were political rather than doctrinal. Ulphilas (311-388), who translated the Scriptures into Maeso-Gothic, taught the Goths across the Danube an Homoean theology; Arian kingdoms arose in Spain, Africa, Italy. The Gepidae, Heruli, Vandals, Alans, and Lombards received a system which they were as little capable of understanding as they were of defending, and the Catholic bishops, the monks, the sword of Clovis, the action of the Papacy, made an end of it before the eighth century. In the form which it took under Arius, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Eunomius, it has never been revived. Individuals, among them are Milton and Sir Isasc Newton, were perhaps tainted with it. But the Socinian tendency out of which Unitarian doctrines have grown owes nothing to the school of Antioch or the councils which opposed Nicaea. Neither has any Arian leader stood forth in history with a character of heroic proportions. In the whole story there is but one single hero -- the undaunted Athanasius -- whose mind was equal to the problems, as his great spirit to the vicissitudes, a question on which the future of Christianity depended.

2007-11-09 14:43:29 by Jacob Dahlen

White racial historian James P. Wickstrom exposing the Catholic Church!

anyone know of this church in malaysia?

Arian Catholicism is an ideological and theological tradition in Christianity it teaches to be true Catholic Christianity. This church is Arian in nature but not Anomoean and follows the teachings of Arius of Alexandria - that Jesus was a man to be followed, not worshipped, who was the spiritual Son of God. Therefore God the Father and the Son were not co-eternal, nor of the same substance. Arian Catholics believe that Christianity was hijacked during the fourth century, when the Romans integrated Christianity with Paganism and the Roman State, introduced Trinitarianism, altered the ecumenism of the church and destroyed scriptures that were not in keeping with the newly authorised beliefs. The Arian belief has been deemed heresy by Trinitarian Christians, but Arian Catholics likewise deem Trinitarian Christians to be heretics and apostates.

2006-12-28 13:14:29 by gospeltruthonly

Price: $0.99

Arianism is a form of Christianity that denies the holy Trinity and sees the Son of God as not eternal, and he was subordinate to God the Father
Arius of Alexandria was an early Christian theologian.
He opposed the consepet of the holy Trinity that was made a doctrine in the Nicene Creed, in his days.
The only reason for this decision (Nicene Creed) was to make Christianity likable in the eyes of the roman pagans. The idea that Son of God was “just” a man doesn’t fit in a world of all mighty gods who live in the Olympus. They had to make him a god but they could not have 2 gods so they made this holy Trinity crap.
And that’s how the Catholic Church was born.
But in the same time there was an Arian Church. They didn’t agree with the consepet of the holy Trinity.
And until the 7-8 century they still existted in Germany and the gothic nations. Then they were conquered by the Franks or other Catholic neighbors.
Well I wona revive this Church
What do you think I can do?

How wonderfully heretical.

We need more Arian and Gnostic churches to make serious competition for the mainstream. On this round however it's illegal to burn us.

2007-07-25 22:41:20 by daglas69

Price: $39.65 $39.65

who claims that Jesus is not also God ?(Part of the Holly Eternal Trinity?)

well then why is he called The Son of God..?

He could be called ..the bear of God..the child of God..like all..

To be honest ..only a God could say:'' I am the Truth , the Way, and the Life'' - as Jesus have said...
only a God..who can give life who can resurect , from Whom THE LIFE CAN COME. AND we know that life cannot come from ordinarily beings..who get cold and can die..and the Truth..only a God cand say '' I am the Truth'' one who has lived from eternity..One who took part at the process of making the life.....and the planet..even if He is obeyed to God the Father, He obeys God The Father...and also the Holly Spirit.is part of The Holly Trinity.
well i am asking this because i want to marry..and i want to know which are the cults that acknowledge Jesus as being also God..and who are not ..

Arian Heresy is so called because of Arius, a priest from Alexandria who taught that Jesus of Nazareth was a man made into a god but not God, (from his being tonsured a priest in 313 AD until his death in 336 AD).

This is essentially the teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, as well as many schisms of Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestant denominations...

But NOT mainstream Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy (including all sister Churches such as Russian Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Jerusalem Orthodox, Alexandrian Orthodox, etc) or Protestant mainline denominations such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists and also Anglicans (Church of England--Episcopalians).

The First Ecumenical Council of the early church was hosted by the Greek Roman Emperor Constantine (who's mother, Helen, was a Christian) in large part to deal with this issue of the divinity/humanity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Constantine had previously signed the Edict of Milan in 313 AD (with Latin Roman Emperor Licinius) which called for the official "toleration" of Christianity within the entire Roman Empire (Western Latin and Eastern Greek).

Constantine defeated Licinius in 324 and set about to move the capital of the empire from Rome to Byzantium, because of the terrible pagan reputation of Rome and because Greek was the predominate language of the empire. Latin was dying in The West. This is one reason that The New Testament was preserved in Greek.

The people proclaimed the new capital city, "Constantinople", despite Constantine's resistance to this move. Constantinople was renamed "Istanbul" in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman Turks and the establishment of the nation of Turkey.

The First Ecumenical Council was held in the nearby city of Nicea in 325 AD.

Arius attended the council as the spokesman for this growing heretical theology of Jesus of Nazareth being a good man turned into a god.

Also in attendance at the First Ecumenical Council were such early church luminaries as St John Chrysostom, St Spyridon...and even St Nicholas of Myra (yes, THAT Saint Nicholas) who was reported to have been so outraged at the constant heretical proclamations of Arius that St Nicholas punched him in the nose (also thought to have been a slap across the face which included hitting the nose).

Remember, at this point, there was no such thing as "The Bible".

There was the Hebrew Bible, accepted by the early church in the form of The Septuagint, the scriptures of The Bereans, Jesus, and The Ethiopian Eunuch.

The books of what was to be The New Testament had already been written and...depending on the book (letter) had been either distributed locally or throughout the empire.

However, they competed with THOUSANDS of other "letters" and "books", as well as some locally accepted versions of the complete New Testament which had not been accepted in Council by all in Christendom.

So, what the bishops brought to the council to combat this confusion was NOT a finished bible to refer to, but Apostolic Authority and the established Apostolic Tradition of Teaching, as well as full trust in The Holy Spirit to lead and guide them.

The teachings of The Apostles had ALWAYS proceeded the written Word, and it was these teachings the council used to ultimately answer the question before them.

(The bible as we now know it was not accepted by the full Church in Council until almost the 5th Century...in final response to the commission of Constantine for 50 copies of the Christian Scriptures to be bound in leather and jewels and distributed throughout the Roman empire.

It is worth noting that this final Canon of New Testament scripture was held up to The Creed to see if it was in harmony with The Faith that had been passed down by The Apostles.

The Church is not The Church of The Bible....The Bible is The Bible of The Church).

By bringing all of the Bishops of The Church together in council to deal with the Aryan heresy, the pattern of the first council of The Church was being followed (as in Acts 15):

James led the council (19. Therefore I judge...)

The Holy Spirit confirmed the ultimate authority of the council
(28. ...For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us...)

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT not to separate the issue of the divinity of Jesus from the person of The Holy Spirit and The Father.

This First Ecumenical Council of The Church at Nicea formulated and endorsed the foundation of The Symbol of The Faith of The Church: that Jesus of Nazareth IS both Human and Divine, Son of God/Son of Man, without there ever having been a division of the two from the moment that "The Word became Flesh".

Arius and his heresy were OFFICIALLY anathematized by the Bishops of The Church who were sustained by the flocks they led and The Holy Spirit to whom they submitted themselves.

The Church was still known as The Way. There were no divisions within The Church, though there were already many heresies which had spun off in schism; mostly what are sometimes called "The Churches of The East" (not Eastern Orthodoxy, but rather Churches in the area of modern day Iraq and elsewhere).

In writing the Nicean Creed (later to be completed at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople) The Church "described" Herself as being "catholic", meaning, universal or "of the same faith everywhere".

Later, in 1054 AD when the Latins of The West proclaimed themselves "Catholic" and split from the sees of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, The Church they left adopted the descriptive term "Orthodox" (meaning "Right Thinking"/"Right Faith"/"UNIVERSAL Faith")

Now, aside from the OVERT heresy of Arius, there is an equally damning (but much more insidious) heresy which has spread through Western Latin Roman Catholics to all of the Protestant Churches who have split off from Rome.

It is known as the heresy of "The Filioque Clause".

The final Nicean-Constantinoplian Symbol of Faith (or Creed) read...

(We believe...)...and in The Holy Spirit, The Lord, The Giver of Life, who proceeds from The Father, who with The Father and The Son together is worshiped and glorified...

HOWEVER, in the Latin West, in a local council in Toledo, Spain (589 AD) the job of the day was to defend against a new outbreak of the Arian Heresy.

WITHOUT consulting with Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria or Jerusalem, the council of Toledo made the following change to The Creed:

"...and in The Holy Spirit, The Lord, The Giver of Life, who proceeds from The Father AND THE SON...."

All five great sees of the universal Church condemned this change as heretical.

The change has never been adopted in Eastern Orthodoxy, but Rome finally accepted the change in 1054 AD, when Rome departed The Church.

The problem?

By saying that The Holy Spirit proceeds both from The Father AND The Son, the personhood of The Holy Spirit is diminished.

It would be the same heresy as saying that Jesus is the only begotten son of The Father AND The Holy Spirit.

All three persons of the divine Godhead (The Trinity) are equally God and yet also indivisible from the others.

When Luther (and Hus, and others) split from Rome and began the Reformation, they brought along the Latin version of The Creed, and have incorporated it into their liturgical services. It has been passed along much like a computer virus is spread.

This helps to explain the "Charismatic Movement" which seeks to manifest signs and wonders in confirmation of their faith. They do not realize that their very faith arises from centuries of western thought which diminish the personhood of The Holy Spirit.

So, from a theological viewpoint, the continued use of The Creed WITH the filioque clause is just as wrong as clinging to a theology in which Jesus is not The Christ, Our Lord and Our God (as Thomas proclaimed).

So, if you are looking for religions that do not have a heretical view of God, The Trinity, then you will have the best success within The Orthodox Church.

In the USA, the primary Orthodox Churches are The Orthodox Church in America, Greek Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia and others.

God bless you and grant you humility in your search.

Even if your theology be in error, let your love always be Christ-centered.

"...The greatest of these is Love".

2007-10-11 13:20:40 by zaira

http://arian-catholic.org/

rhey dont believe in the Trinity
and all this pagan crap

I don't know anything about its present-day *nominal* manifestations. In historical context, though, this is an interesting question, and reminds me of how religious creeds are defined as much by what "is not" as much as by what "is," when so much is, really, IMO, "possibly."---have a star

2008-02-07 11:18:53 by Mr. Pitiful (was Gonzo)