Council Day Five Evaluation

Thankfully, we finally have a creed passed. I was pleased with the way the statement worked out, as we had a significant majority vote in favor of the creed. Both Alexandrians and Arians voted for the creed, so I would consider it an overall success in terms of neutrality. I voted for the passage of the creed because there was no part of the statement on the Son with which I disagreed. If I had my way, I would certainly have made it more clear that the Son and Father are coequal, but as our goal was a creed that could be accepted by all, I could certainly sacrifice a few details for the good of church unity. There are some points that I hope the Alexandrians will bring up in tomorrow’s session concerning specific wording of the statement on God the Father – we will see if they remember to suggest changing the words that contradict our beliefs.

I think that the structured debate worked well in Council Session 5. While we may not have been able to have as much depth in the discussions because of the length of speeches, I think that excessive arguing is really not necessary for the canonical statements. Many already have opinions on the issues, and those who do not only need to hear a few points from both sides to make their decisions. This strict schedule that we have developed avoids repetition that we’ve seen in other sessions and reminds council members to be direct with their arguments.

As for the decisions that we made, I was happy about some and disappointed about others. I of course think that clergy should not be able to retain their positions of authority if they lapsed. The council, however, agreed to allow them to do so. Still, as we have already agreed to rebaptism for the lapsed, I suppose that the forgiveness of clergy is a fair compromise to appease those who wanted the lapsed to be automatically welcomed back into the church. And women will not hold positions in the church. I respect their faith and their spreading of the holy Gospel, but given the empire in which we live, we simply cannot allow them to be priests or bishops at this time. And finally, with the issue of church hierarchy, we agreed to allow two primary bishops, one in Rome and one in Jerusalem with equal authority. I do not know that this was necessary, but it is most important to me that we do not have all bishops equal and that metropolitan bishops have more authority, so I would consider this canon a success, as well.