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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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82 Pages
Page 10
The Imperial Sacra.
Read at the First Session.
(Found in Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VII., col. 49.)
Constantine and Irene--Sovereigns of the Romans in the Faith, to the most holy Bishops, who, by the grace of God and by the command of our pious Sovereignty, have met together in the Council of Nice.
The Wisdom which is truly according to the nature of God and the Father--our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God--who, by his most divine and wonderful dispensation in the flesh, hath delivered us from all idolatrous error: and, by taking on him our nature, hath renewed the same by the co-operation of the Spirit, which is of the same nature with himself; and having himself become the first High Priest, hath counted you holy men, worthy of the same dignity.
He is that good Shepherd who, bearing on his own shoulders that wandering sheep--fallen man, hath brought him back to his own peculiar folds--that is, the party of angelic and ministering powers (Eph. ii. 14, 15), and hath reconciled us in himself and having taken away the wall of partition, hath broken down the enmity through his flesh, and hath bestowed upon us a rule of conduct tending to peace; wherefore, preaching to all, he saith in the Gospel, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God (Matt. v. 9). Of which blessedness, confirming as it does the exaltation of the adoption of sons, our pious Sovereignty desiring above all things to be made partakers, hath ever applied the utmost diligence to direct all our Roman Commonwealth into the ways of unity and concord; and more especially have we been solicitous concerning the right regulation of the Church of God, and most anxious in every way to promote the unity of the priesthood. For which cause the Chiefs of the Sacerdotal Order of the East and of the North, of the West and of the South, are present in the person of their Representative Bishops, who have with them respectively the replies written in answers to the Synodical Epistle sent from the most holy Patriarch; for such was from the beginning the synodical regulation of the Church Catholic, which, from the one end of the earth to the other, hath received the Gospel. On this account we have, by the good will and permission of God, caused you, his most holy Priests, to meet together --you who are accustomed to dispense his Testimony in the unbloody sacrifice--that your decision may be in accordance with the definitions of former councils who decreed rightly, and that the splendour of the Spirit may illumine you in all things, for, as our Lord teaches, No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that it may give light to all that are in the house; even so, should ye make such use of the various regulations which have been piously handed down to us of old by our Fathers, that all the Holy Churches of God may remain in peaceful order.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/seventh.asp?pg=10
