Vatican spokesman emphasizes importance of Council of Nicaea (Vatican News)

As the International Theological Commission published a document for the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, a leading Vatican spokesman highlighted the council’s significance.

Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Dicastery for Communication, said that “returning to Nicaea”—whose creed is a point of unity for Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants—“means coming together, as brothers and sisters, around what is truly essential, because what unites us is stronger than what divides.”

Tornielli added that the council remains “topical” today because of a “new Arianism,” against which the future Pope Benedict warned in the late 1990s, as well as “another risk, the exact opposite and mirror of the first: namely, a difficulty in admitting the full humanity of Christ.”