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The Nicene Creed’s Birthplace Is Found Buried in a Lake

The Nicene Creed’s Birthplace Is Found Buried in a Lake

Last updated on: September 19, 2026 at 1:00 pm by Kermit Zarley

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The Nicene Creed’s Birthplace Is Found Buried in a Lake 2026-09-19T13:00:38-07:00 Kermit Zarley

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Nicene Creed; CREDIT: Wikipedia

Popular Mechanics magazine reported in an article—dated July 23rd this year and entitled “Archaeologists May Have Found One of the Most Important Churches in Christian History”—the actual place where it is believed that the Catholic Church’s Nicene Council met in the year 325 CE and gave birth to its famous Nicene Creed that has impacted the history of Christianity like no other document other than the Bible.

Did God Create the Logos-Son or Not?

I tell about this history in my 570-page book, The Restitution: Biblical Proof Jesus Is Not God. Roman Emperor Constantine I had become a Christian largely due to the influence of his mother and an experience that he had during a war that led to him becoming the emperor. Years later, he became frustrated with division in the Catholic Church about whether Origen, a famous Christian scholar and professor, was right about his eternal generation teaching. It was that the Logos-Son (which later became Jesus at his Incarnation) had always existed, or if Arius was right that the Logos-Son had a beginning prior to the creation of the universe and thereby was created.

Eternal Generation?

Arius was a church presbyter (=pastor) in Alexandria, Egypt. Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Egypt, opposed Arius’ teaching about this and embraced Origen’s eternal generation, which is surely an oxymoron. This dispute spread throughout the empire until Constantine called for a church council to be held in Nicaea, in Bithynia, Asia Minor to settle this dispute. That is where Iznik, Turkey, is located today. But the emperor applied political pressure—which is rarely reported by those who adopt the Nicene Creed, which is almost all of Christendom—by requiring that the council produce a document verifying the correct church belief about this matter. And the emperor further declared that all of the supposed 318 bishops in attendance must sign this document or be exiled from the empire. Just think about that for a second. Would you have signed it under such pressure?

The Nicene Creed

Here’s what happened. After three months of meetings, a document was produced that was called “the Nicene Creed.” All 318 bishops signed it except two, who were friends of Arius. He attended this council. But he was not allowed to participate in meetings because he was not a bishop. So, Arius was never allowed to express what he believed. And the Church afterwards destroyed all his writings Yet what he taught was the very reason for holding this council. Thus, those three men were exiled from the empire.

The Nicene Creed said, in the Greek language, which was the language of the council, that Jesus is “very God of very God.” This most important expression of the creed was borrowed from Greek philosophy. It meant that Jesus was in every way just as much God as the one whom Christians usually called “the Father,” thus God the Father. Ever since, this has been the main teaching of all of Christianity, that Jesus is God just as much as God the Father is God. And the last third of this Nicene Creed pronounces a multitude of “anathemas,” meaning curses, upon those who teach otherwise. Thus, Christianity has always said, since this most important Nicene Council, that anyone who does not believe that Jesus is “fully God and fully man” is not a genuine Christian.

I believed this teaching, that Jesus is God and man, for 22 years, never questioning it for 20 years. Then I had what I call “a moment of enlightenment” while reading the Bible, and I afterwards read myself out of it in the Bible. Moreover, I estimate that I read about a thousand books on the identity of Jesus over a period of 28 years. This was no small feat! I had to learn who were recognized scholars who wrote about the identity of Jesus. Then I had to find, and buy some, of those books. I read many of them in libraries. But I obtained most of them through the U.S. interlibrary loan system. Then I published my book The Restitution. It is available at amazon.com. I therefore believe that I have studied this subject more than 99 percent of all church pastors and not a few New Testament professors.

Jesus being God is generally called “the deity of Christ.” The more elaborate doctrine of the Trinity, which includes the deity of Christ, only emerged decades later, during the 370s. The newly formulated doctrine of the Trinity was officially recognized at the second ecumenical council held in 381 called the First Council of Constantinople. But it did not use the term “trinity” in its revised Nicene Creed because so many Christian people had objected to using a term not in its holy books which became the New Testament.

It is often stated that the Catholic church doctrine of the Trinity was formulated at the Nicene Council. This is dead wrong! This error is due to the second council’s revision of the Nicene Creed, which is properly called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. This is what people recite congregationally in their churches, not the Nicene Creed. They would never do that because of its horrific anathemas, which are deleted in the revised Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

Where Did the Nicene Council Meet?

This Popular Mechanics article reveals that archaeologists and historians have discovered that that the Nicene Council, recently being renamed the First Nicene Council, was not held in one of Emperor Constantine’s sumptuous palaces in Nicaea, but is an actual church building. Reports of those meetings have always claimed that each bishop was allowed up to five associates to also attend meetings, thus making the gathering perhaps as large as 2,000 people. Foremost church historian Eusebius, who was in attendance, wrote, “the church was so small that how so many clergymen fit into this church was a great miracle of God.”

The Nicene Council has been renamed the First Nicene Council because the Catholic Church held other councils afterwards. The Church then named them “ecumenical councils” and numbered them. Thus, the Nicene Council was always called “the first ecumenical council.” That is why they now called it the First Nicene Council. Interestingly, none of them were really “ecumenical,” meaning that they were attended by bishops throughout the empire.

That would have been impossible since by the early fourth century CE, the Roman Empire was pretty much divided into two parts: eastern branch with its predominant language being Greek and and the western branch, where the capital of Rome was located, which spoke predominantly Latin. Thus, the large majority of Greek speakers did not know Latin, and it was likewise for the Greek speakers. So, calling those councils “ecumenical” was always misleading, and that may be one of the reasons the Roman Catholic Church is now calling it the First Nicene Council.

The Nicene Council Meeting Place Is Found

Well, Turkey archaeologists discovered part of a sunken building buried in a lakebed near present day Iznik where Nicaea was located. But the date of stone taken from the structure was post 325 CE. Then they discovered that it was a church built upon another church, which was the place where the First Nicene Council met. Then they learned the reason for a church being built upon the historic church of the First Nicene Council, that the former church had suffered destruction in an earthquake in 368 CE.

Interestingly, the original church building where the First Nicene Council meetings were held was constructed mostly of wood. But since it collapsed in the earthquake, the second structure that replaced it was built of stone, likely so it might survive another earthquake. For, Turkey is located in a zone that extends eastward into northern Iran and farther that is very earthquake prone. And they renamed this church, this stone structure, “the Church of the Holy Fathers,” referring to the 316 church bishops.

According to the Bible’s New Testament, churches are no more than groups of people. Historically, these groups have met in all kinds of places. But eventually, it became common to build an actual building just for these church meetings. Interestingly, there is nothing about this in the New Testament, so that this custom was developed later.

The Church of Saint Neophytos

All churches have names. And these names were later attached to church buildings. So, what was the name of the church building where the First Nicene Council met to fashion its famous Nicene Creed? It was “the Church of Saint Neophytos.” Thus, the much trumpeted Nicene Creed was not fashioned and first celebrated in a glorious palace owned by Roman Emperor Constantine I, as has been reported all those centuries, but in the Church of Saint Neophytos where about 2,000 men were packed like sardines for three months!

That doesn’t sound very healthy to me. But its their spiritual health that was important. Did those men do what God wanted them to do in creating the Nicene Creed? That is, were they “holy” in doing so? I don’t think so. Read my book!

But if you don’t want to get bogged down in the nitty gritty, minute examination of the Bible, read my primer for it, which is an easy-reading 100-page mostly personal account of my theological change on this subject. It is entitled The Gospel Corrupted: When Jesus Was Made God, also available on amazon.com

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