Orthodox Christianity: The First Ecumenical Council

The early Church period lasted until 325 C.E when Constantine came to power and instituted the Christian church as a state religion in Rome. This new era was called the “era of the seven Ecumenical Councils” (325-787). However, it was during the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325), where orthodox Christianity was first ratified. It was during this council that the issues of Christ’s divinity and His relationship to the Father was settled. Arius (260-336) was an ordained presbyter from Peter’s line of succession who apposed the church’s christological position. Arius argued that Jesus was not fully God, thus making him ontologically inferior to God the Father. Alexander, then the senior Bishop of Alexandria apposed Arius’ error thus convening

Protestant Orthodoxy understood Christianity as a system of doctrines, and thus its emphasis was on “right doctrine.” Nevertheless, there has been countless of different churches and theologians who attempted to overthrow the reformed understanding of orthodoxy. Needless to say, the Counter-Reformation, which was begun by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) took on the task to combat the Protestant Reformation, arguing that believers are saved by faith through grace, but that there was a need for work to validate one’s faith in their salvation. Today, the term Orthodoxy has an obscure meaning and happens to be very subjective. Among Mainline protestant and Evangelical denominations, however, the word orthodoxy seems to carry on the meaning which was established by the early church and reformation. Evangelical Christianity or Evangelical Protestantism is considered to be the fastest growing and the most “orthodox” Christian movement of today. Therefore, it is from this perspective which we will address the issues with the Mormon church. As mentioned above, Mouw argues that Mormonism, albeit radically different from Evangelical Christianity, have more in common with orthodox Christianity than differences. Furthermore, Mouw, in an article titled “Mormons Approaching Orthodoxy” writes: “it’s possible to be operationally orthodox, at least in part, even when one’s explicit theology suffers from ill-considered and defective