First Council of Nicaea

=== Calling the council ===
Constantine’s letter failed to unite the warring factions. Consequently. In the year 325, “Constantine himself summoned the bishops”<ref>Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004, page 18</ref> to end this dispute. The council was not called by a church official and nobody asked Constantine to call this meeting. It was his initiative. “It was then certainly Constantine who convoked the Council of Nicaea.”<ref>Hanson RPC, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381. 1988, page 153-4</ref> “Religious partisanship has in the past led some scholars to suggest that Silvester, bishop of Rome, convoked the Council of Nicaea, but modern Roman Catholic scholars honourably dismiss this idea.”<ref name=":0"/>

As stated above, Nicaea was the first 'general' or 'ecumenical' council of the church. It was the Roman Emperor Constantine who introduced this concept to the church:<blockquote>“The procedures of a council modelled on methods of Roman governance would have been familiar to Constantine, and we can assume that he saw it as the natural means to achieve consensus within the Church.”<ref>Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004, page 87</ref></blockquote>Furthermore, without the assistance of the emperor, the church was unable to call a general council. Only the emperor could call a general council. “Even Damasus [a later bishop of Rome] would have admitted that he could not call a general council on his own authority.”<ref>Hanson RPC, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381. 1988, page 855</ref> “Everybody recognised the right of an Emperor to call a council, or even to veto or quash its being called.”<ref>Hanson RPC, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381. 1988, page 849-50</ref>

As his letter to Arius and Alexander shows, Constantine did not call the Nicene Council because he was concerned about right doctrine. “Constantine himself of course neither knew nor cared anything about the matter in dispute.”<ref>McGiffert A.C. A History of Christian Thought, 1954, Vol. 1, p. 258</ref> Rather, “the Council of Nicea was first and foremost an attempt by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great to keep his empire from splitting.”<ref>Pavao, Paul. Decoding Nicea (p. 3). Kindle Edition.</ref> “Constantine himself had become sole emperor only in 324 (after having ruled the western half since 310–12), and he seems to have promoted Christianity as a unifying religion '''for the empire'''.”<ref>Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004, page 87</ref> “Constantine's attitude reflects deeply embedded Roman attitudes about the social function of religion.”<ref>Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004, page 88</ref>

Constantine summoned the bishops of all provinces to [[Nicaea]], a place reasonably [[History of early Christianity|accessible to many delegates]].

Constantine gave the participating bishops free travel to and from their [[episcopal see]]s to the Council, as well as lodging.