Well, welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History, and once again, we are on location.

We're still here in Constantinople. Last time we were together, we talked about the Hagia Sophia,

very important church built in the 500s. But today we're going to talk about the Hagia

Irenae. This church was built in the 3 30s and it was the first church here in Constantinople

and it means in Greek the Church of Peace. It was built by Constantine. Just a few years before

he built the church, he actually moved the seat of power for the Roman Empire from Rome in the West to this city here in modern-day Turkey.

It was Byzantium and it was the seat of power for the Byzantine Empire, but Constantine renamed it Constantinople.

And in 381, a very important moment took place here in church history.

This is the Council of Constantinople.

It's one of the seven ecumenical councils in the early church.

And what happened here was a reaffirmation of what happened at another council, the Council of

Nicaea back in 325.

Nicaea is not far at all from here, about 140 kilometers to the southeast, and there sits

on a lake and Constantine had built for himself a summer palace, and it was a summer resort,

if you will, and he brought all the bishops together

from across the church to meet there to decide on the issue of Christology. Arius's teachings

that Jesus is not to God and the denial of Christ's deity were ricocheting through the church.

And so the bishops came together. And if you've

got Arias on the one side, wearing the black hat, on the other side wearing the white hat is

Athanasius. And we know Athanasius. This is Athanasius, contramundum Athanasius against the world.

And here he takes his bold stand. Coming out of the Nicene Creed, we have the

declaration that Jesus is truly human and he is truly God. Well, after Nicaea, and this

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