First Council of Nicaea

== Disputed matters ==
{{See also|Primacy of the Roman pontiff|East–West Schism}}

According to Protestant theologian [[Philip Schaff]]: "The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition; and that, with special reference to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration; and Antioch and all the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights. The [[Episcopal see|bishoprics]] of [[Early centers of Christianity#Alexandria|Alexandria]], [[Early centers of Christianity#Rome|Rome]], and [[Early centers of Christianity#Antioch|Antioch]] were placed substantially on equal footing." Thus, according to Schaff, the Bishop of Alexandria was to have jurisdiction over the provinces of Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis, just as the Bishop of Rome had authority "with reference to his own diocese."<ref>{{harvnb|Schaff|Schaff|1910|pp=275–276}}</ref>

However, according to Fr. James F. Loughlin, there is an alternative Catholic interpretation. It involves five different arguments "drawn respectively from the grammatical structure of the sentence, from the logical sequence of ideas, from Catholic analogy, from comparison with the process of formation of the Byzantine Patriarchate, and from the authority of the ancients"<ref name="Loughlin 1880">{{harvnb|Loughlin|1880}}</ref> in favor of an alternative understanding of the canon. According to this interpretation, the canon shows the role the Bishop of Rome had when he, by his authority, confirmed the jurisdiction of the other patriarchs—an interpretation which is in line with the Catholic understanding of the Pope. Thus, the Bishop of Alexandria presided over Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis,<ref name=EB1911/> while the Bishop of Antioch "enjoyed a similar authority throughout the great diocese of Oriens," and all by the authority of the Bishop of Rome. To Loughlin, that was the only possible reason to invoke the custom of a Roman Bishop in a matter related to the two metropolitan bishops in Alexandria and Antioch.<ref name="Loughlin 1880" />

However, Protestant and Catholic interpretations have historically assumed that some or all of the bishops identified in the canon were presiding over their own dioceses at the time of the Council—the Bishop of Rome over the Diocese of Italy, as Schaff suggested, the Bishop of Antioch over the Diocese of Oriens, as Loughlin suggested, and the Bishop of Alexandria over the Diocese of Egypt, as suggested by [[Karl Josef von Hefele]]. According to Hefele, the Council had assigned to Alexandria, "the whole (civil) Diocese of Egypt."<ref>{{cite book|last1=von Hefele|first1=Karl|title=Conciliengeschichte, v. 1|date=1855|publisher=Herder|location=Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany|page=373}}</ref> Yet those assumptions have since been proven false. At the time of the Council, the [[Diocese of Egypt]] did exist but was known as the Diocese of Alexandria, so the Council could have assigned it to Alexandria. Antioch and Alexandria were both located within the civil Diocese of Oriens, Antioch being the chief metropolis, but neither administered the whole. Likewise, Rome and Milan were both located within the civil Diocese of Italy, Milan being the chief metropolis.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Athanasius of Alexandria|title=Historia Arianorum, Part IV, chapter 36|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28154.htm|access-date=22 June 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Athanasius of Alexandria|title=Apologia de Fuga, chapter 4|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2814.htm|access-date=22 June 2016}}</ref>

This geographic issue related to Canon 6 was highlighted by Protestant writer Timothy F. Kauffman, as a correction to the anachronism created by the assumption that each bishop was already presiding over a whole diocese at the time of the Council.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kauffman|first1=Timothy F.|title=Nicæa and the Roman Precedent|journal=The Trinity Review|date=May–June 2016|issue=334, 335|url=http://trinityfoundation.org/PDF/The%20Trinity%20Review%20334%20Nica%20and%20the%20Roman%20Precedent%20Kauffman.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812085230/http://trinityfoundation.org/PDF/The%20Trinity%20Review%20334%20Nica%20and%20the%20Roman%20Precedent%20Kauffman.pdf |archive-date=2016-08-12 |url-status=live|access-date=22 June 2016}}</ref> According to Kauffman, since Milan and Rome were both located within the Diocese of Italy, and Antioch and Alexandria were both located within the Diocese of Oriens, a relevant and "structural congruency" between Rome and Alexandria was readily apparent to the gathered bishops: both had been made to share a diocese of which neither was the chief metropolis. Rome's jurisdiction within Italy had been defined in terms of several of the city's adjacent provinces since Diocletian's reordering of the empire in 293, as the earliest Latin version of the canon indicates.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Turner|first1=Cuthberthus Hamilton|title=Ecclesiae Occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima, vol. 1|date=1899|publisher=Oxonii, E Typographeo Clarendoniano|page=120}}</ref>

That provincial arrangement of Roman and Milanese jurisdiction within Italy therefore was a relevant precedent, and provided an administrative solution to the problem facing the Council—namely, how to define Alexandrian and Antiochian jurisdiction within the Diocese of Oriens. In canon 6, the Council left most of the diocese under Antioch's jurisdiction, and assigned a few provinces of the diocese to Alexandria, "since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also."<ref>{{cite web|last1=First Council of Nicæa|title=Canon 6|url=http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3801.htm|website=The First Council of Nicæa|access-date=22 June 2016}}</ref>