First Council of Nicaea (325)

The first ecumenical council, called by Constantine to Nicaea in Bithynia in 325 and attended by some 318 bishops. It condemned Arius, who taught that the Son was a creature, and set forth the Nicene Creed with its confession that the Son is "of one substance with the Father"; its twenty canons ordered the life of clergy and penitents, and its synodal letter settled the date of Easter. The creed of 325 says only that the Son "was made flesh and became man"; the words "of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary" were added at Constantinople in 381. Its own texts are on this site in Henry R. Percival's 1900 translation.