WCC NEWS: New book looks at Council of Nicaea as an impetus for justice

As the Christian world celebrates the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which for the first time gathered the whole of Christendom to affirm together their faith, a new book from the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) seeks to set out its significance for Reformed Christians today. Image: WCC 21 October 2025 Launched on 20 October at the WCRC General Council taking place in Chang Mai, Thailand, the book is titled Receiving Nicaea Today: Global Voices from Reformed Perspectives and is available for free download as well as purchase. Coming in at almost 700 pages, the book contains 34 contributions organized around six sections: Reformed Hermeneutics and the Authority of Creeds; Nicaea and the Empire; Scriptural and Theological Hermeneutics of the Nicene Faith; Nicene Influence on Reformed Synodality and Church Governance; Confessions and Contemporary Witness; From Creed to Confessing: Worship, Teaching and Mission. The main editors of the book are Hanns Lessing, WCRC executive secretary for communion and theology, and Daniel Rathnakara Sadananda, former general secretary of the Church of South India. “In this volume Receiving Nicaea Today: Global Voices from Reformed Perspectives, Reformed theologians, together with theologians from the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, Lutheran, and Anglican tradition, have engaged in critical reflections on the Nicene Creed as it communicates to us in the present tense,” writes WCRC interim general secretary Rev. Dr Setri Nyomi in the preface. “The 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is more than a commemorative milestone – it is a kairos moment, a Spirit-stirred invitation to re-encounter the triune God and to re-examine the covenantal faithfulness of the Church in a wounded and waiting world,” the book states in its introduction. “For the Reformed tradition, this is not a ritual of nostalgia but a liturgical provocation – a call to interrogate, discern, and renew the very grammar of our believing.”    Moment of joy “This is a moment of joy and gratitude,” said Lessing during the book launch. “In a way, the production of this book is a miracle.” The Council of Nicaea agreed a creed as a statement of faith, later supplemented to become the Nicene Creed said in many churches around the world today. At the same time, the Council of Nicaea, gathering under the patronage of Emperor Constantine I, has raised questions about the links of the Christian church with the empire and with political power. Lessing acknowledged that the Nicene Creed is about unity. “This is of course true,” he said. “But the Nicene Creed also was very much divisive from the very beginning and still splits churches today.” In fact, the creed – and the Council of Nicaea itself – have repercussions for how we see the church, noted Lessing. “The oneness is not the oneness of a fortified institution where only certain people have access.” Prof. Heleen Zorgdragger of the Protestant Theological University in Amsterdam, one of the book’s contributors, reflected that reception of the Nicene Creed is not archival recovery but Spirit-led repair and re-voicing. “Nicaea is both gift and wound,” she said. “Naming empire is not distortion but repair.” Lament, reparation, and restructuring the Spirit demands accountable repentance, she added. “This reclaims theology’s imagination,” she said. “May the church stay unsettled: listening to Scripture, inspired by Spirit, standing with the vulnerable.” Contributor Neal D. Presa, from the Presbyterian Church USA, and moderator of the WCRC Theology Working Group, described the volume as a gift from the oikoumene to the oikoumene. “May it bless many and inspire us all to ‘Persevere in Our Witness,’ ” he said, citing the theme of the ongoing WCRC General Council, which runs through 23 October. WCRC president Rev. Najla Kassab formally received the book from Lessing on the floor of the General Council. “May this book invite us to rediscover the creed as a living confession,” she said. “May it enrich our communion and build us to be a better communion.” Receiving Nicaea Today: Global Voices from Reformed Perspectives, ed. Hanns Lessing and Daniel Rathnakara Sadananda, in collaboration with Anna Case-Winters, Margit Ernst-Habib, Gemma King, Henry Kuo, Andreas Müller, and Dirk J. Smit (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlangsanstalt, 2025).   For purchase or free PDF download here   The Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order in Egypt   Learn more about the WCC's Faith and Order Commission Conference Handbook for the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order | World Council of Churches   Resource Book for the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order | World Council of Churches See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland