Ode 6. Irmos.

Kontakion. Tone 8.

‘Watching life’s sea rising with the storm of temptations, hastening to your calm harbour, I cry out to you, Bring my life up from corruption, O most merciful.’

Crucified, O Master, you wiped out with the nails the curse against us; pierced in the side, you tore up with the lance Adam’s record and you freed the world.

Tripped up through deception, Adam was brought down to the pit of Hell; but you, by nature God and compassionate, went down to search for him, and laying him on your shoulders you raised him with yourself.

All-pure Sovereign Lady, who for mortals gave birth to the Lord and pilot, lull the unresting and dread turmoil of my passions, and grant calm to my heart.

Of the Assumption. The deep closed round me.

On seeing the Creator lifted up on high to-day, the Apostles leapt for joy in hope of the Spirit, and in fear they cried: Glory to your ascent.

The Angels came and cried out, O Christ, to your Disciples: In the way that you have seen Christ ascending, he will come in the flesh as just Judge of all.

As the heavenly powers saw you, our Saviour, lifted up to the heights with your body, they cried out, saying: Great, Master, is your love for humankind.

Fittingly we glorify you as Bush unburned, mountain and living ladder and heavenly gate, glorious Mary, boast of the orthodox.

Of the Fathers. Watching life’s sea.

scape the mystery of providence he could not, the sower of tares, who was called by the surname Lunacy; for having rivalled Judas, like him the wholly evil one was split asunder.

aster, the revered, godly assembly of the Fathers proclaimed you as the only-begotten brightness shining from the Father’s essence, and as the Son begotten before all things.

urst open was the belly, the source which poured out the foul and undrinkable water of impious heresies, by the ploughshare of the intercession of the inspired Priests.

ampstand, ark, table and jar, so Moses, greatest of the prophets, wrote of you of old, in symbols signifying the incarnation from you of the Most High, O Virgin Mother.

‘O Christ, the Master, you shone from the Virgin

As pardon and salvation for us,

That like the prophet Jonas from the breast

Of the sea beast, you might snatch from corruption

The whole fallen race of Adam.’

The preaching of the Apostles and the teachings of the Fathers strengthened the one faith of the Church; for wearing the robe of truth, woven from the divine contemplation on high, she rightly divides and glorifies the great mystery of true religion.

Let us listen to the Church of God as she cries out with lofty proclamation: Whoever is thirsty let him come to me and drink; the bowl that I carry is the bowl of truth; the drink in it I have mixed with the word of truth, pouring in not the water of contradiction but that of confession; the new Israel as he drinks from it sees God who declares: See, see, it is I; I have not changed; I am God first and last, and beside me there is no other at all. Those who partake from here shall be filled and praise the great mystery of true religion.

Synaxarion of the Menaion, then the following:

On the same day, the seventh Sunday from Pascha, we celebrate the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea of the three hundred and eighteen god-bearing Fathers.

O spiritual firmament’s light-bearing stars,

My mind illumine with your shining rays. ****

Against Arius.

The Son the Father’s Essence does not share,

Said Arius: may he not share God’s glory.

We celebrate the present feast for the following reason. Since our Lord Jesus Christ, who had put on our flesh, had ineffably accomplished the whole dispensation and be reinstated on his Father’s throne, the Saints, wishing to show that the Son of God had truly become man and that as perfect man God had been assumed and had sat down at the right of the Majesty on high and because this synod of the holy Fathers had thus proclaimed and confessed him to be consubstantial and identical in honour with the Father; for this reason they appointed this present Feast after the glorious Assumption, as it were putting forward the assembly of so many Fathers proclaiming this, that the one who was taken up in the flesh was God and in the flesh perfect man.

This Synod took place under Konstantine the Great in the twentieth year of his reign. For when the persecution ceased he ruled first in Rome, but afterwards he also founded this all-blessed city, named after himself, in the five thousand eight hundred and thirty eighth year from the foundation of the world. Then too began the business of Arius. His came originally from Libya. After coming to Alexandria he was ordained deacon by Peter the Martyr Bishop of Alexandria. Then he began to utter blasphemies against the Son of God, declaring that he had coming into being from non-existence and was far from the divine dignity and that it was only by analogy that he was called Wisdom and Word of God, as though he were setting himself against the impious Sabellios, who said that in the God head there was only one person and one hypostasis, and that there was at one moment the Father, then the Son and then the holy Spirit. When Arius uttered these blasphemies, the great Peter refused him the priesthood, after having seen Christ like an infant on the altar wrapped in a torn cloak and saying that Arius torn it. But Achillas, who became bishop of Alexandria after Peter, licensed Arius again under promises. In addition he ordained him presbyter and put him in charge of the school of Alexandria. On the death of Achillas, Alexander became bishop. He, on finding Arius again uttering the same, and worse, blasphemies, expelled him from the Church, condemning him through a synod. As Theodoretos says, Arius was the first to belch out that Christ was of a mutable nature and that the Lord had assumed flesh without mind or soul. Arius however led many away by his impiety, he writes, and he won over Eusebios of Nikomedia, Paulinos of Tyre, Eusebios of Caesarea and others and he moved against Alexander. But Alexander by sending his blasphemies and his deposition throughout the inhabited world and roused many to his own defence.

Because the Church was much troubled and there appeared no cure for the love of strife concerning doctrine, Konstantine the Great gathered the Fathers from all over the inhabited world by public transport to the city of Nikea. He was also present there. And when the Fathers had taken their seats, he being invited took his seat, not on a royal throne but on a seat far beneath his rank. When they had spoken against Arius, he and all those who agreed with him was put under anathema. While the Word of God was proclaimed to be consubstantial, identical in honour and without beginning with the Father. They also issued the holy Symbol of the faith, taking it as far as *and in the holy Spirit*; for the rest was completed by the second Synod. In addition the first Synod also fixed the feast of Pascha, when and how we are to celebrate it, and not with the Jews, as had previously been the custom. They laid down twenty canons concerning the constitution of the Church. Finally Konstantine the Great, Equal of the Apostles, confirmed the holy Symbol of the faith in scarlet letters.

Of these holy Fathers, two hundred and thirty two were Bishops, eighty six Priests, Deacons and Monks; those present numbering three hundred and eighteen. The most outstanding were Silvester, Bishop of Rome and Metrophanes of Constantinople who was sick. They were represented by legates. Alexander of Alexandria with Athanasios the Great, who was archdeacon at the time, Efstathios of Antioch and Makarios of Jerusalem, Hosios, bishop of Cordoba, Paphnutios the confessor, Nicholas myrovlitis and Spyridon of Trimytheus, who having refuted a philosopher who was present by demonstrating the triple sun, baptized him. In the course of the Synod two bishops among the Fathers passed over to God, and Konstantine the Great placed the definition of the Synod in their coffins and shut them securely. He found the definition had also been confirmed by them and signed with ineffable words of God.

When the Synod was over, since the newly founded City had already been finished, Konstantine the Great invited over all those holy men. When they had all assembled and prayed they decreed that it was the Queen of cities and dedicated it to the Mother of the Word on the orders of the Emperor. And each of the Saints made his way home.

But before Konstantine the Great passed over to God, he divided the rule with his son Konstantios. Arius came to the Emperor, saying he had given up everything and was united with the Church of God. So having written down his blasphemies he hung them round his neck, and as though obedient to the Synod he struck them off with his hand and said he obeyed them. The Emperor was indifferent and ordered the Patriarch of Constantinople to receive Arius into communion. The Patriarch at the time was Alexander, successor of Metrophanes, who, knowing the duplicity of the man, was hesitant and besought God to reveal to him if in his opinion he should communicate with Arius. hen the moment arrived for him to concelebrate with Arius, his prayer became more fervent. But Arius, as he was on his way to the church, was overcome by violent stomach pains near the column in the forum and entered a public lavatory. There he was rent apart and disgorged all his inside from below, undergoing the disembowelling of Judas for an equal betrayal of the Word, and having torn away the Son of God from the Father’s essence, he was torn apart and found dead. And so the Church of God was delivered from his mischief.

Through the prayers of the three hundred and eighteen god-bearing Fathers, O Christ God, have mercy upon us. Amen.