Readings: Acts 12.1-11; 2 Timothy 4.6-8,17-18; Matthew 16.13-19
Theme: St Peter and St Paul
The festival of St Peter and St Paul is commemorated in the Anglican Church on 29 June. It is a time when we remember the apostles Peter and Paul and their work of laying the foundation of the Christian Church on Jesus Christ our Lord. By tradition both saints were understood to have been martyred in Rome.
What does it mean when we profess in the Creed each week that “we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church”? Well, this is an important question for us to ask because this year, we are celebrating 1700 years of the opening of the Council of Nicaea that took place in what today is known as İznik in Turkey (Asia Minor) in the year 325 AD. During the reign of Constantine, the Great (Constantine I), Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire by the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. This made it possible for bishops to travel from all parts of the Roman Empire and hence the name ‘ecumenical council’ since it was meant to represent the authoritative beliefs of the whole church. Nicaea was chosen as the place for the first ecumenical council and this is why our creed is called the Nicene Creed. The majority of the bishops at ecumenical councils, for the first third of the history of Christianity, came from Asia and Africa. In other words, the origins of the beliefs of the Christian Church lie in Asia and Africa and not predominantly from Europe, which only became dominant in Christians terms much later. From our region, Bishop Ossius (Hosius) attended from Córdoba. He was a confidant of Emperor Constantine I and a significant person at the council. The Nicene creed was later developed in another council, the First Council of Constantinople in 381 AD, and is hence more fully known as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed, or more simply as the Nicene Creed. This is the creed we recite on Sundays with the addition of the ‘filioque’ clause (meaning: ‘and the Son’) that was later added at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 AD. This later addition of the ‘filioque’ clause is a main cause of the schism between the eastern and western church that began in the eleventh century.
The festival of St Peter and St Paul reminds us that the basic beliefs of Christianity that we profess today come to us from the apostles, Peter and Paul, who have transmitted the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. This is what it means to say that ‘We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church’. It means that we believe in the teachings about Jesus that have been handed down to us from the apostles; those who knew Jesus and experienced at first hand his resurrection from the dead, and were commissioned to preach this good news.
Ecumenical councils decide for the whole church upon basic doctrine, on basic beliefs such as the divinity and humanity of Christ. We believe in Jesus as the divine Son of God because of the Council of Nicaea. This means that in order to read scripture properly, we need to be aware of the rule of interpretation of the scriptures which has been handed down to us in the creeds. The creed provides the basic parameters within which we can interpret, in an orthodox manner, the meaning of basic Christian statements of our faith.
Why does this matter what you believe? Can’t each person just believe what they want?
Well, obviously, each person is free to believe what they want, but this freedom necessarily comes with a Christian responsibility when we seek to live in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guides us into the whole truth, as we hear in John 16.12-15, and so because of this, we need to really follow the Spirit as it moves throughout the church and not simply “go-it-alone”, so to speak. This is why thinking ecumenically is so important. We should move together as ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church’ so that we can be responsible to each other. Splits and divisions in the church betray the hard-won legacy of the apostles, Peter and Paul, who gave their lives so that we might receive the faith of the apostles. Peter and Paul bear witness, that is literally what the word “martyr” means: ‘to bear witness’ to the truth who is Jesus Christ as divine Son of God and the human Son of man.
This year, as we turn our attention from our past fifty years as a church to the future, we will be accompanied in this by a study of St Paul. In the Autumn, I would like us to begin using a book from N.T. Wright, Paul: A Biography. This will act as our guide for getting to know, step-by-step, the faith which has been handed down to us by the apostles. It will be a journey in the footsteps of St Paul as we get to know his message, his letters and the geography and the history within which this is all set. So, I encourage you to get hold of a copy of this book and to begin to read it. This will begin to help us to get to know our “purpose and path” as a church, so that the Lord’s kingdom may come amongst us.
May God bless you on this festival of Saints Peter and Paul.