Two-part international conference on the first ecumenical council 1,700 years ago to resume in Münster on 15 October – What does the Council of Nicaea mean for ecumenism and relations with Judaism and Islam? – Invited by Professor of Dogmatics Michael Seewald, researchers from nine countries will focus on the Council and its varied reception over the centuries – Involved are the disciplines of theology, philosophy, history, Jewish studies and Islamic studies – University of Münster in cooperation with Pontifical Gregorian University

Organised jointly by the University of Münster and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, an international conference in Mid-October will focus on the Council of Nicaea 1,700 years ago and its ecumenical, interreligious and intercultural significance. ‘The creed established by the first ecumenical council in history is still of fundamental importance to the Catholic Church, as well as to Orthodox and most Protestant churches today. Nicaea has raised complex questions from an interreligious perspective, especially with regard to Jewish-Christian and Christian-Islamic relations – it is these question that the interdisciplinary conference will address’, says Professor of Dogmatics Michael Seewald from Münster, who is organising the conference together with Philipp G. Renczes SJ, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Gregorian University. ‘While the first part of the conference in Rome in February focused on historical, philological and philosophical questions, the second part in Münster will see researchers from nine countries discuss Nicaea’s impact on the internal diversity of Christianity, as well on its relations with Judaism and Islam’.

The conference from 15 to 17 October 2025 will feature researchers from the fields of theology, philosophy, history, Jewish studies and Islamic studies, including the Secretary General of the International Theological Commission, Piero Coda (Italy), Jewish studies scholar Alfred Bodenheimer (Switzerland), Islamic studies scholar Nadine Abbas (Lebanon), Anglican theologian Ben Quash (Great Britain), Protestant theologian Friederike Nüssel from Heidelberg, and French philosopher of religion Vincent Holzer. Entitled ‘The Confession of the Council of Nicaea: History and Theology’, the two-part conference combines new research on the Council as a political event with research from the perspective of systematic theology.

Transcultural, ecumenical and interreligious questions concerning Nicaea

A dispute over the relationship between God the Father and Jesus Christ divided the young Christian Church in the Roman Empire, which is why Emperor Constantine convened the largest assembly of bishops up to that point in Nicaea, now Iznik in Turkey, in 325. The Council set out to establish a binding creed that would settle the dispute and bring about unity. As Seewald explains, the assembly ruled that Jesus Christ was ‘of the same substance as God the Father’ and thus in the fullest sense God. The conference in Münster will examine how the creed has been interpreted in Christianity, including in Protestant and Anglican contexts, and what intercultural and postcolonial issues it raises with regard to non-European cultures where Christianity took root. Research will also be presented on how the Nicene Creed was and is read from a Jewish and Islamic perspective. ‘The idea that God has a son who is equal to him in all things and is therefore himself God – this is unacceptable from both a Jewish and an Islamic perspective. The conference will therefore seek to clarify how the Council of Nicaea situates Christianity within monotheism and what the other two major monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, have to say about this’. The current Pope Leo XIV announced in May that he would travel to Iznik and Istanbul in November for the ecumenical commemoration of Nicaea. His predecessor, Pope Francis, who died in April, had also intended to travel to Turkey and had invited the participants of the Nicaea conference to a personal discussion on 1 March 2025. The meeting had to be cancelled, though, due to his illness.

‘What church members actually believe today is a different matter’

As for the cooperation between the Pontifical Gregorian University, which is run by the Jesuit Order, and the theology department at the state university in Münster, Michael Seewald says: ‘Italian theology is alive and marked by a deep interest in history and a joy in theological-speculative thinking. We have similar areas of interest in Münster’. Both institutions, the Gregoriana and the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Münster, have a long tradition in the history of theology and dogma, and address contemporary questions of faith in various regional, linguistic and cultural contexts. The Gregoriana is renowned worldwide for Catholic theology, while the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Münster is the largest theological faculty at a state university in the world. The multilingual conference in the Castle’s aula magna is organised by the University of Münster’s Chair of Dogmatics and History of Dogma and the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’.

On the significance of the Council for people today, Seewald says: ‘The major Christian churches all recognise the Nicene Creed with some later additions. But what the members of these churches actually believe is a different matter. Most believers today cannot be mapped onto the theological landscape of the 4th century. While the conflicting groups at that time agreed that Jesus Christ was not merely a simple human being, many Christians today believe that Jesus was a remarkable person who was only (and perhaps exaggeratedly) deified retrospectively’. This view only began to have an impact on Christian theology in the 18th century. ‘The theology of the ancient church, on the other hand, cultivated a Christology that was highly developed speculatively’. (vvm/tec)

Programme Two-part international conference ‘The Confession of the Council of Nicaea: History and Theology’ Part II 15 to 17 October 2025 in Münster http://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/religion_und_politik/aktuelles/flyer_the_confession_of_the_council_of_nicaea_web.pdf

Registration: Journalists interested in participating should register at: religionundpolitik@uni-muenster.de