Defining the Faith | The Council of Nicaea & the Word That Split the Church (Ep. 4)

In 325 AD, more than three hundred church leaders gathered at Nicaea—many of them scarred, some missing eyes and fingers from the persecution they'd just survived. They had outlasted Rome's attempt to destroy them from the outside. Now they faced a threat from within: a question that could split the faith in two. And the whole argument came down to a single letter of the alphabet. This is Episode 4 of The Church Through the Ages — a cinematic documentary series tracing the Christian Church's full 2,000-year story. In this episode, we enter the great councils that defined what Christians actually believe, and meet the men who fought — and were exiled again and again — over the identity of Jesus himself. In this episode: The teaching of Arius that set the church on fire: was Jesus God, or a created being? Why this "technical" question decided the entire meaning of the faith The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and the first worldwide gathering of the church The single Greek word — homoousios — that drew the line Athanasius, exiled five times for refusing to bend How the Nicene Creed, still recited in churches worldwide, was forged The later councils — Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon — and the divisions that remain