The Reception of the Council of Nicaea by Ethnic Minorities in the Eastern Roman Empire

Abstract

Abstract The continuity and recognition enjoyed by communities which identified themselves with notions condemned in fourth- and fifth-century church councils can be related to the concomitant and interrelated processes of consolidation of historiographic narratives about Christian synods, their materialisation in imperial monuments and texts, and the cultural acceptance of theological and political values and categories. Focusing on the Council of Nicaea, the paper reviews the continuous presence of local Arian communities in Constantinople until the seventh century and the use of “Arian” liturgies in the East. The criteria of orthodoxy are examined in the light of the variant readings of the Ekthesis of the Didascalia CCXVIII Patrum Nicaenum and the prayers attributed to Serapion of Thmuis.