NIC^A
44
NICiEA
against Nicephorus Botaniatos, it was afterwards
owled to the Turks by Alexius C'onineiuis. In 1()'.)(>
the troops of Peter the lleriiiit, h:iviiiK attempted to
capture the town, were eotnplctely defcMtcil and nius-
saereil. In June, 1097, the city" was taken, after a
memorable siege, by the Crusaders and ceded liy tlieni
to the (ireek Emperor Alexius 1. It was retained,
but with great diffieulty, durinfi; the twelfth century.
After the capture of Constantinople hv the Latins in
1204 Xica-a, restored, fortifieil, and cinhellished. be-
came until 1201 the capital of the new Byzantine
Empire of the Lascari or I'ala-ologi. For nearly sixty
years it played ainost important part. It was finally
captured by the Turkish Sultan ( )rkhan in 13.3.3, from
which time it has formed a part of the Ottoman Em-
pire. To-day Xicavi is called Isnik. It is a village
of l.")00 Greek and Turkish inhabitants in the sandjak
of Erthogrul and the vilayet of Brusa. The Greek
metropolitan resides at (diemlek, the ancient Chios.
The ramparts, several times restored and now in a
good state of preservation, are 4S41 yards in circum-
ference. There are 238 towers, some of them very
ancient. Four ancient gates are well preserved.
Among the monuments may be mentioned Yechil-
Djami, the Green Mosque, and the church of the As-
sumption, probably of the ninth century, the mosaics
of which are very rich.
Smith, Diet. Greek and Roman Geog., II (London. 1870), 422; Texier, Asie Mineure (Paris, 1S62), 91-110; Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, IV (Paris, 1894), 185-90; Wulf. Die Koimesis Kirche in Nicaa und ihre Afosaihen (Strasburg, 1890).
S. VAILHfi.
Nicsea, Councils of, respectively the First and Seventh CEcumenical Councils, held at Nicaea in Bithynia (see above).
I. The First Council op Nicea (First CEcumeni- cal Council of the Catholic Church), held in 325 on the occasion of the heresy of Arius (see Arianism). As early as 320 or 321 St. Alexander, Bishop of Alexan- dria, convoked a council at Alexandria at which more than one hundred bishops from Egypt and Libya anathematized Arius. The latter continued to offi- ciate in his church and to recruit followers. Being finall3' driven out, he went to Palestine and from there to Xicomedia. During this time St. Alexander pub- lished his "Epistola encyclica", to which Arius re- plied; but henceforth it was evident that the quarrel had gone beyond the possibility of human control. Sozomen even speaks of a Council of Bithynia which addressed an encyclical to all the bishops asking them to receive the Arians into the communion of the Church. This discord, and the war which soon broke out between Constantine and Licinius, added to the disorder and partly explains the progress of the reli- giou.s conflict during the years 322-23. Finally Con- stantine, having conquered Licinius and become sole emperor, concerned himself with the re-establishment of religious peace as well as of civil order. He ad- dressed letters to St. Alexander and to Arius depre- cating these heated controversies regarding questions of no practical importance, and advising the adversa- ries to agree without delay. It was evident that the emperor did not then grasp the significance of the Arian controversy. Hosius of Cordova, his counsel- lor in religious matters, bore the imperial letter to Alexandria, but failed in his concihatory mission. Seeing this, the emperor, perhaps advised by Hosius, judged no remedy more apt to restore peace in the Church than the convocation of an oecumenical coun- cil.
The emperor himself, in very respectful letters, begged the bishops of every country to come promptly to Nicaea. Several bishops from outside the Roman Empire (e. g., from Persia) came to the Council. It is not historically known whether the emperor in con- voking the Council acted soiely in hi.s own name or in concert with the pope; however, it is probable that
. Constantine and Silvester came to an agreement (see
Silvester I, Saint, Pope). In order to ex-pedite the
assembling of the Council, the emperor i>laced at the
disposal of the bishops the public c(iMvey:uices and
])(istsof tlieempire; moreover, while theCnuneillasted
lie provided abundantly for the maintenance of the
members. The choice of Niea'a was f:ivourable to the
assembling of a large n umber of bi.shops. It w:is easily
accessible to the l)isho|)s of nearly all the provinces,
but especially totho.seof Asia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt,
Greece, and Thrace. The sessions were hekl in the
principal church, and in the central hall of the imperial
palace. A large place was indeed necessary to receive
such an assembly, though the exact number is not
known with certainty. Eusebius speaks of more than
250 bishops, and later Arabic manuscripts raise the
figure to 2000 — an evident exaggeration in which,
however, it is impossible to discover the approxi-
mate total number of bishops, as well as of the priests,
deacons, and acolytes, of whom it is said that a great
number were also present. St. Athanasius, a member
of the council, speaks of 300, and in his letter "Ad
Afros" he says explicitly 318. This figure is almost
universally adopted, and there seems to be no good
reason for rejecting it. Most of the bishops present
were Greeks; among the Latins we know only Hosius
of Cordova, Cecilian of Carthage, Mark of Calabria,
Nicasius of Dijon, Donnus of Stridon in Pannonia, and
the two Roman priests, Victor and Vincentius, repre-
senting the pope. The assembly numbered among
its most famous members St. Alexander of Alexandria,
Eustathius of Antioch, Macarius of Jerusalem, Euse-
bius of Nicomedia, Eusebius of Ca;sarea, and Nicholas
of Myra. Some had suffered during the last persecu-
tion; others were poorly enough acquainted with
Christian theology. Among the members was a young
deacon, Athanasius of Alexandria, for whom this Coun-
cil was to be the prelude to a life of conflict and of
glory (see Athanasius, Saint).
The year 325 is accepted without hesitation as that of the P^irst Council of Nica?a. There is less agree- ment among our early authorities as to the month and day of the opening. In order to reconcile the indica- tions furnished by Socrates and by the Acts of the Council of Chaleedon, this date may, perhaps, be taken as 20 May, and that of the drawing up of the symbol as 19 June. It may be assumed without too great hardihood that the synod, having been convoked for 20 May, in the absence of the emperor held meet- ings of a less solemn character until 14 June, when after the emperor's arrival, the sessions properly so called began, the symbol being formulated on 19 June, after which various matters — the paschal controversy, etc. — were dealt with, and the sessions came to an end 25 August. The Council was opened by Constantine with the greatest solemnity. The emperor waited until all the bishops had taken their seats before mak- ing his entry. He was clad in gold and covered with precious stones in the fasliion of an Oriental sovereign. A chair of gold had been made ready for him, and when he had taken his place the bishops seated them- selves. After he had been addressed in a hurried allocution, the emperor made an address in Latin, expressing his will that religious peace should be re- established. He had opened the session as honorary president, and he a.ssisted at the subsequent sessions, but the direction of the theological discussions was abandoned, as was fitting, to the ecclesiastical leaders of the council. The actual president seems to have been Hosius of Cordova, assisted by the pope's legates, Victor and Vincentius.
The emperor began by making the bishops under- stand that they had a greater and better business in hand than personal quarrels and interminable recrimi- nations. Nevertheless, he had to submit to the in- fliction of hearing the last words of debates which had been going on previous to his arrival. Eusebius of
