His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros Homily for the Sunday of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council
May 31, 2020
Saint Gerasimos Greek Orthodox Church
New York, New York
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today we find ourselves in between two great centers of our Faith, Jerusalem and Nicea. Jerusalem, because following the Ascension of Lord, we are waiting with the Disciples in the Jerusalem of the heart, awaiting the promise of the Father, until we are clothed with power from on high.[*]
And we look to Nicea, the See of the First Ecumenical Council and indeed the Seventh Ecumenical Council. But today belongs to the 318 Fathers of the First Council, the Synod that gave unto us the Creed, the Symbol of our Faith.
Like the 318 kinsman of the Prophet Abraham who fought with him to free his nephew, Lot,[†] the 318 Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council fought to liberate our Faith from the errors that denied the truth of the Holy Trinity.
Today, in our celebration of the Feasts, we stand between these two great Cities of God: Jerusalem and Nicea. They point to one another in a loving exchange of faith and hope.
Jerusalem has a special significance, for it is the place – the Τόπος of Pilgrimage. It is the place where the experience of the Lord Jesus Christ’s ministry, and the miracles of His Cross, Resurrection, and visible Ascension into Heaven were self-evident to His Disciples. They were αὐτόπται, the eyewitnesses of the Word, as well as His servants.[‡] The realities of the Gospel that they experienced and lived were enshrined in their living memory, and we are the inheritors of this memory, not only through the Scripture, but through the ἂγραφα – the unwritten tradition of the Church.[§]
But this precious memory of the Eyewitnesses of the Lord was not always kept pure and unalloyed. As the generations marched on, there emerged those who challenged the Church’s experience of Christ. The Beloved Disciple John says of such as these:
“They went forth from us, but they were not of us; for if they were of us, they would have abided with us, but [they went forth] in order to show that all of them were not of us.”[**]
Even at this very early stage of the Church’s development in history, before the passing of the last Apostle, it is very clear that there were those who emerged from the Church with alternative doctrines that were adopted by many. But these doctrines were not based in the experience of our Lord Jesus Christ; only in conceptions and speculation about Him. They were not based in the message that the Father gave to His Son, which He then gave to His Disciples.[††] This direct and inspired teaching to the Disciples forms the basis for the realization of the truth of who our Lord Jesus Christ really is, and all pure belief derives from this experiential realization.
That is why what commenced in Jerusalem did not stop there. The Lord said about His Disciples:
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem, and in Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”[‡‡]
This was to be the Day of Pentecost, that is coming to us next Sunday. And from that first Pentecost to the present day, the Church has preserved the pure Faith of Christ intact.
That is why we celebrate the great city of Nicea on this Sunday. Nearly three-hundred years after the Descent of the Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost Sunday, that same power of the Holy Spirit was manifest at the First Ecumenical Council. The Fathers of the Church, convened by Saint Constantine himself in Nicea, came together to confirm the Church’s experience of the Living God, which is the same as the experience of the Disciples who were the eyewitnesses of the Lord.
Therefore, my beloved Christians, let us rejoice and be glad in the blesséd 318 Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, who codified the Symbol of our Faith – later augmented at the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople. At every Divine Liturgy we affirm our faith in Christ, the faith of the Church when we say: “Πιστέυω – I believe!”
Through the past few months, this affirmation has been tested, but like gold from the furnace, we will come out of this pandemic with a more refined and pure understanding, based more on a living experience than habit.
Through the prayers of the 318 Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea, may we always hold to the true faith that shone forth from Jerusalem, and may we share this faith to uttermost part of the earth. Amen.