An African as “the Father of Orthodoxy”: a devotion on Africa’s legacy

From an Africa Study Bible article titled “Christianity’s African Roots”:

One of the most important debates about the person of Christ originated in the African city of Alexandria. In the early fourth century, Arius, pastor of the church founded by John Mark, began teaching that only the Father was truly God eternal—without a beginning—and that Jesus Christ was not fully God and was not eternal. He had a beginning. The Council of Nicaea was called by the Emperor Constantine in AD 325 to settle the matter. The result was the Nicene Creed, created as a tool for guiding Christians. The creed declared that Jesus was “true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.” 

The creed did not settle matters, however, and over the next fifty years the “Arian Controversy” debate continued, led on one side by Athanasius, an African born in Egypt, and on the other by Arius, an African born in Libya. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, defended the deity of Christ and is labelled “Father of Orthodoxy” by the Eastern church. “Jesus that I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God,” declared Athanasius at the Council of Nicaea. He is also called “Father of the Canon” by some Protestants because he was the first to identify the twenty-seven books of the New Testament that we use today. 

Today: 

Affirm your faith along with the African theologians and the early church by reading the Nicaean Creed aloud. Find the creed here under the heading “A contemporary English-language translation”.