Council Day Three Evaluation

Today’s Council session was an undeniable failure. I will not call it a disaster, as some progress was made, but I am very disappointed by the conduct of the bishops and presbyters. Almost nobody was willing to compromise and agree to a more vague statement that might be applied to all beliefs. Of course I would prefer a more explicit creed that supports my own faith, but some sacrifices must be made in order to achieve unity. We cannot have members of the Council walking out and leaving the church, and the only way to avoid this is a more neutral creed.

There was definitely some headway made before the Council reached a major roadblock before long. The Arians were allowing “true God from true God,” an Alexandrian statement, and I was pleased to see their willingness to cede somewhat. In fact, all was going quite well at first, as the others and I supported the creedal statement except for a few words, that is “of similar substance” vs. “co-eternal.” I think that a creed that excluded either phrase would be acceptable and applicable to everybody’s beliefs, but apparently a majority of Council members disagreed.

I cannot even speak on the Holy Spirit because we did not cover the necessary content for the day! I assume that we will run into the same trouble as with the nature of Jesus – is it coeternal and part of God or is it not? The Holy Spirit is still a mystery to us and so the discussion should be short – let us hope that this is the case.

I fear that the only way that a creed will pass is through a clearly Alexandrian creedal statement on Jesus and his equality with God. Of course I would support such a creed, but I know that several others would not. Now that Arius is a bishop, who I helped to consecrate for the sake of unity and fairness to his faction, he carries even more weight. We cannot have him or his followers deserting our church and branching off. It is imperative that we keep the church whole, and yet as of now, I cannot see how this will be plausible. Alexander’s followers will let nothing pass that is less than their specific beliefs, but that is because Alexander is unmovable in his beliefs. If we can persuade Alexander to compromise, his supporters may follow.