Reinterpreting the “master narrative” of the Council of Nicaea, 325 C.E.

Professor Samuel Fernández (Pontificia Universidad Cathólica de Chile) is an internationally renowned expert in Early Christian studies and author of Nicaea 325, Reassessing the Contemporary Sources (Brill 2025).

The ancient sources transmitted a “master narrative” of the Council of Nicaea, one that later historians have reinforced for centuries. This paper argues that a strictly chronological reading of the sources — attentive to the actual sequence in which they were composed, rather than to the retrospective order in which they came to be read — allows for the reconstruction of a different narrative, one that diverges from the “master narrative” on points as fundamental as the identity of the council’s main protagonists and the actual content of its discussions. By setting aside later reconstructions and returning to the earliest layers of evidence, this lecture attempts to answer the question: What Was the Council of Nicaea Really About?

The lecture is followed by a reception.

For last-minute changes, see our website https://newman.se/late-ancient-and-byzantine-cultures/

Nordic Patristic’s Meeting in Helsinki: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/npm2026helsinki/