first allowed himself to be arrested, but losing heart from the brutal
treatment he received, escaped to a secret place of safety. St. Gregory was
then deposed as bishop in absentia by the Synod of Nyssa. For the next two
years he wandered from town to town. He managed to regain his see in 378
after the death of the Emperor Valens, and was received with joy by the
local populace.
After St. Basil died in 379, a new era of activity began for St. Gregory of
Nyssa. He assisted at the Council of Antioch called in 379 to deal with the
Meletian schism, and soon after visited Palestine. The Emperor Theodosius
held St. Gregory in high regard and his see was named in one of his edicts
as a center of Catholic communion in the East. In 380, he was elected as
Bishop of Sebaste in Armenia and attended the Council of Constantinople
in 381 where he defended St. Gregory Nazianzus and was looked upon as
the heir to St. Basil’s thought.
After attending a synod at Constantinople in 394, St. Gregory disappeared
from the scene. He may have journeyed to Arabia at the behest of this
synod to repress ecclesiastical disorders there and died soon afterwards.
Of final significance in the history of Arianism in the Roman Empire was
the First Council of Constantinople, assembled by Theodosius in May 381.
In the previous year, Theodosius had decreed that all in Constantinople
“should live in the religion which the Apostle Peter had handed down to
the Romans…; ‘hence that we believe in the one divinity of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit in equal majesty and holy Trinity’.” Those who
refused to subscribe to the Nicene Creed were ordered to surrender their
churches. The Council was attended by 150 Catholic and 36 Semi-
Arian/Macedonian bishops, however, none came from the West, nor was
the Pope represented. All hard-line Arian bishops were excluded. The
Council confirmed the Catholic succession to the See of Constantinople,
reconciled the Semi-Arians, condemned Macedonianism and re-affirmed
the Nicene Creed with an explicit confession of the divinity of the Holy
Spirit as well.¹ With the closure of the Council of Constantinople, the Arian
heresy was finally put to death officially. However, Arianism had been
promoted beyond the Empire to the barbarian tribes north of the Danube,
1
The Council of Constantinople later obtained the status of a full ecumenical
council by virtue of the universal and enthusiastic acceptance of its confession of
faith, especially by Popes Vigilius, Pelagius II and St. Gregory the Great.
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