Council Day 1 Reflection- Marcarius

Dear Emperor Constantine and members of the Council,

I am truly sorry that our debate on the creedal statement was very prolonged and at times very pointless in regards to uniting our Church. I think it is important for all of us to remember that we need to aim to please the majority without excluding any particular group. However, we need to keep in mind that not everyone can be pleased so we need to come to a mutual consensus so that people can interpret the creed the way they want to without feeling like the creed is excluding them from following their beliefs. I felt like the Arians did not truly comprehend the aim of unifying the Church but rather focused purely on establishing their own beliefs which caused more disagreements. Although I understand that Christ referred to God as the “Father”, I do not believe that it is necessary to include the term in our creed because we all know that God is beyond gender and the gender of God does not affect our belief in God since we know that the God still has all the same characteristics no matter what gender God is. Inserting the word “Father” in the creed unfairly exalts one image of God above all others which creates more disunity when we know that God is beyond gender; we do not want to exclude people from our Church for believing that God should be considered ungendered because it does not make a difference in their belief in the Church and creates further disunity. Moreover, I was pleased with the overall outcome of the creedal statement, even though I was not pleased with the process of achieving it since it could have been achieved a lot quicker. I believe that the creedal statement that was agreed upon on March 17^th is a very well written statement that is very inclusive of the beliefs of all people in the Church. I am glad we are one step closer to forming the unified Church that we have been dreaming of establishing. I look forward to our upcoming discussions.

Sincerely,

Marcarius