Reading:
The heresiarch Arius was a Libyan by race and a
protopresbyter of the Church of Alexandria. In 315, he began to
blaspheme against the Son and Word of God, saying that He is not true
God, consubstantial with the Father, but is rather a work and creation,
alien to the essence and glory of the Father, and that there was a time
when He was not. This frightful blasphemy shook the faithful of
Alexandria. Alexander, his Archbishop, after trying in vain to correct
him through admonitions, cut him off from communion and finally in a
local council deposed him in the year 321. Yet neither did the
blasphemer wish to be corrected, nor did he cease sowing the deadly
tares of his heretical teachings; but writing to the bishops of other
cities, Arius and his followers requested that his doctrine be examined,
and if it were unsound, that the correct teaching be declared to him.
By this means, his heresy became universally known and won many
supporters, so that the whole Church was soon in an uproar.
Therefore,
moved by divine zeal, the first Christian Sovereign, Saint Constantine
the Great, the equal to the Apostles, summoned the renowned First
Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, a city of Bithynia. It was there that the
shepherds and teachers of the Church of Christ gathered from all regions
in the year 325. All of them, with one mouth and one voice, declared
that the Son and Word of God is one in essence with the Father, true God
of true God, and they composed the holy Symbol of Faith up to the
seventh article (since the remainder, beginning with "And in the Holy
Spirit," was completed by the Second Ecumenical Council). Thus they
anathematized the impious Arius of evil belief and those of like mind
with him, and cut them off as rotten members from the whole body of the
faithful.
Therefore, recognizing the divine Fathers as heralds of
the Faith after the divine Apostles, the Church of Christ has appointed
this present Sunday for their annual commemoration, in thanksgiving and
unto the glory of God, unto their praise and honour, and unto the
strengthening of the true Faith.
Apolytikion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
You are greatly glorified, O Christ our God, who established our
Fathers as luminaries upon the earth, and through them led us all to the
true Faith. O Most compassionate, glory to You.
Kontakion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
The Church was strengthened into one faith through the preaching
of the Apostles and the doctrines of the Fathers. The Church is robed in
truth woven of the word of God from above. It teaches truth, and
glorifies the great mystery of faith.
SOURCE:
SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2010(with 2009's link here also and further, 2008's, even 2007!
