Byzantium & Khazaria; the Quinisext Council

Gog and Magog were apocryphal terms for the Khazar, descendants from the east-Asian steppe in following the Sabir war-machine, and departure of the far eastern Hun. Bearing ethnocentric composition of both Asian and Caucasians, the empire was preempted with the first collapse of Tong Yabghu Qaghan’s Western Turkic Khaganate from 618 to 628 AD. Described in the Old Book of Tang as having ‘occupied the land of Wusun and moved... to Qianquan north of Tashkent’ while Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang whence visiting the western Göktürk capital Suyab in modern Kyrgyzstan described Tong Yabghu as wearing “a green satin robe; his hair, which was ten feet long, was free. A band of white silk wound round his forehead and hung down behind”. Attributed to be the leader mentioned in Byzantine sources as having (as khagan of the Khazars) campaigned with the Emperor Heraclius in the Caucasus against the Sassanid Persian Empire in 627–628. Scholars disagree though as to whether Sipi Khagan was the ruler, who was Tong Yabghu's uncle; maintaining authority in the West. The generations following Tong Yabghu Qaghan’s assasination were composed by a mixture of regimes imposed under military Generals of which scholars cannot definitively attribute any sovereign authority to a Khagar again until 740 - 786 with Bulan Khazar who famously converted to Judaism. The Khazar capital was originally Balanjar but following sustained conflict with the Arabs (see Al-Tabari) after the seventh century it was moved to Atil.

Ibn Fadlan accounted for the Khāqān, or Khan’s as “Emperors” and “Kings” in modern English; having invaded territories of the Black Sea where the Khazar would consolidate it’s multi-ethnic State. The Khan, so typical of the Orient, can only appear in public once every four months. The ruling deputy in command of the armies would actually manage the affairs of the kingdom, predominately in collecting homage and in daily council, considered as ritual. The armies were deemed to never lay eyes on their Emperor as for example when out riding, the entire army accompanies him at a distance of one mile and on return all subjects prostrate themselves. Such armies will forfeit their lives on retreat from battle or otherwise abandonment while it’s General's possessions were publicly distributed prior to his execution, or if favored nonetheless, kept in service of the State as a stable boy. The Great Khāqān bore innumerable wives and concubines sourced from neighboring kingdoms who had sworn fealty to the ruler. A Great Khāqān’s rule is said to expire precisely after forty years, where if just one day late his subjects should execute him while maintaining his mind to be defective, and his judgement impaired. On death, his subjects are required to build a large dwelling over a river, in which twenty tents are erected and twenty graves are dug. Those who bury the Khāqān are beheaded upon completion of their task so that no one knows the final location of the corpses interment in its “Garden”.

The Islamic Caliphate inadvertently brought Byzantium and Khazaria into alliance. Likewise the Khagar acted as proxy of the Byzantines, in consolidated opposition to Kievan Rus’ control of Kiev; the western edge of the Khazar silk road, even though consistently disputing control over Crimea. Following the son of Saint Olga, who converted to Orthodox Christianity at the court of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 957. Sviatoslav I Igorevich’s reign, his name meaning ‘holy glory’, created the largest European State at the time when moving the Kievan Rus’ capital from Kiev into retreat in modern day Romania. Following a failed Bulgarian campaign he was forced to accept peaceful terms with Byzantine emperor John I Tzimiskes, submitting southern Crimea as a concession. He was ambushed and killed at 30 years of age as a consequence. Following Sviatoslav's death, tensions among his sons grew. A war of legitimization followed first between Oleg and Yaropolk, in 976, with the later prevailing. In 977 his third son Vladimir fled Novgorod for Scandinavia, he subsequently raised an army of Varangians and returned in 980 to defeat Yaropolk becoming the sole ruler of Kievan Rus'. Converting to Chalcedonian Christianity he maintained peaceful accords at large since his father’s paganism was a main point of consternation with the Byzantine, and the Bulgars were crippled following his campaigns there.

Sources of the modern Byzantium-Khazaria alliance occur over disputation of the Eastern Roman Empires control of Constantinople. Under Byzantine Emperor Tiberius III, following the reigns of Justinian II who appeared before the Khazar Khāqān and married the Khāqān’s sister; Justinian II, the eldest son of Emperor Constantine IV, was raised as joint emperor in 681 on the fall of his uncles Heraclius and Tiberius, attaining the rank of Emperor at age 16. Three years later he thwarted the Arabs in Armenia usurping the Umayyad Caliphate partially regaining control over Cyprus. In addition to securing the incomes of Armenia and Iberia, he liberated 12,000 Lebanese Christian Maronites, who maintained resistance against the Caliphate. His first military campaign was in 688–689, in defeating the Bulgars of Macedonia; Justinian was able to enter Thessalonica, the second most important Byzantine city in Europe and prior under consistent invasion attempts from the Avars and Slavs. Provisioning for 30,000 Slavic troops which he had forcibly resettled in Anatolia, Justinian commenced military campaigns against the Arabs, which proved disastrous as the Arabs turned the mercenary Slavs against Justinian at the Battle of Sebastopolis. Armenia was claimed by the Patrician Symbatius who resumed dealings with the Arabs, but in turn was conquered by 695. Justinian II, after attempting genocide of the regional Slavs, commenced persecution of Manichean's, and became immensely unpopular for this and through his extreme taxation policies and forcible resettlement plans. Despite dedicating himself to a religious council and hence regional security, his reign was doomed. Firstly, in 695 the population rose up against Justinian, under Leontios, the strategos of Hellas, proclaiming him to be Emperor. Justinian was deposed, his nose was cut off, and he was exiled to Cherson in Crimea. Leontius, after a reign of three years, was in turn dethroned and imprisoned by Tiberius Apsimarus. It was then having escaped Crimea, Justinian, and taking to Khazar Khāqān, with a new golden nose, wed the Khāqān’s sister, renaming her Theodora at Baptismal. Theodora would soon enough herself save Justinan’s life. 

Tiberios having heard of the marital alliance, bribed Busir for the head of Justinian. According to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor, ca. 704, Busir dispatched two agents to murder his brother-in-law, Balgitzin and Papatzys. The then pregnant Theodora, discovering the assassination plot, warned her husband Justinian II, who supposedly strangled both of his assassins. He then secretly set sail in a fishing boat back to Crimea, leaving Theodora under the protection of her brother. In 705, Justinian forged a new alliance with Tervel of Bulgaria, offering him the title Ceasar, and in ceding Bulgaria to him from the empire’s holdings and granting him his own daughter Anastasia to be wed. With an army of 15,000 Bulgarian horsemen, Justinian succeeded to invade Constantinople though by subterfuge via an unused water conduit. He successfully roused supporters, seizing control of the city in a midnight coup d'état. In deposing Tiberios III and reclaiming his throne, Theodora was crowned Augusta and their son Tiberios proclaimed co-Emperor to secure his succession rights. After the public execution of Tiberius and Leontios he blinded and exiled Patriarch Kallinikos I of Constantinople to Rome. Betraying Tervel in turn he failed to reclaim Bulgaria on military expedition, and while struggling against the Caliphate he claimed minor victories in Asia minor, specifically Cappadocia. 

Requiring Pope John VII to recognize the decisions of the Quinisext Council, the Pope visited Constantinople and for the last time in over one thousand years. After receiving Holy Communion by the hands of the Pope, Justinian renewed all the privileges of the Roman Church. The Quinisext Canons found their way into Byzantine canonical collections even in the iconoclast period (despite the approval given to images of Christ in Canon 82). They did not, however, attain a wholly equal status to the canons of earlier councils until the great canonists of the twelfth century such as Balsamon. The immediate reaction of the Holy See was fiercely hostile, partly because two canons (13 and 55) explicitly criticized Roman practices, but more because Rome resented being expected to approve a whole sheaf of new canons retrospectively. In 711, however, Pope Constantine appears to have accepted a compromise whereby Rome accepted the validity of the canons in the East, while being allowed to continue existent western practices where these differed. Later a letter by Pope Hadrian I (dating to 785) citing Byzantine approval of the canons was misread in the West as a statement of approval by Hadrian himself. Partly in consequence of this error but also in view of their quality, Gratian (twelfth-century) cited many of the Quinisext Canons in his own great collection of canons, the Decretum. Where, however, they clashed with western canons or practice, he set them aside as representing Byzantine practice, just lacking universal validity. Gratian's work remained authoritative in the West until the first systematic Code of Catholic Canon Law was issued in 1917.

In retaliation for his treatment at the hands of the Khazars, Justinian II orchestrated an invasion of Crimea. Raising a Greek army of 100,000 soldiers, their Khazarian influence was underestimated. While succeeding to establish a governor in the city of Cherson, three quarters of the army didn’t return to Constantinople due to excessive weather, loyalties or both. The son of Armenian patrician Nikephorus was Philippicus, originally named Bardanes; who with support of the Monothelites during the first rebellion against Justinian, was after pretension for the throne, relegated to Cephalonia by Tiberius Apsimarus, and subsequently banished to Cherson by order of Justinian. When Cherson rebelled against the second reign of Justinian it was under General Bardanes with Khazar support. Emperor Justinian's forces thus after visibly failing to take Cherson, joined the rebellion, returning to seize Constantinople. Philippikus (General Bardanes) hence obtained the throne from Justinian II whilst he was on route to Armenia, and subsequently captured and beheaded. Justinian’s son Tiberius was likewise apprehended at the sanctuary of St. Mary's Church in Blachernae and executed. Among the first acts as Emperor was the deposition of Cyrus, the orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, in favor of John VI, a member of the Emperor Philippicus' private sect. Consequently, summoning a Conciliabulum of eastern bishops to abolish the canons of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the Holy See refused to recognize the Emperor or his patriarch. Tervel (Caesar) took upon the opportunity to plunder Constantinople as far as the citadel. After only two years in power, the Opsikion troops rebelled in Thrace. Several of their officers captured and blinded Philippicus in the hippodrome, while he died in the same year.

Rurik’s Kievan Rus’; Russian-Viking origin

Nestor's Chronicle or The Chronicle of Nestor, is a history of the Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110, originally compiled in Kiev about 1113 by Nestor (c. 1056 – c. 1114); hence scholars refer often to Nestor's Chronicle or of Nestor's manuscript as the source of Russian history.  The original compilation now lost, was produced at the court of Sviatopolk II of Kiev (ruled 1093–1113), likely bearing Sviatopolk's Scandinavian allegiances. Nestor's Pan-Scandinavian attitude was confirmed by a Polish historian and archaeologist Wladyslaw Duczko, and he argued that the central aims of the Chronicle’s narrative was to ‘give an explanation how the Rurikids came to power in the lands of the Slavs, why the dynasty was the only legitimate one and why all the princes should terminate their internal fights and rule in peace and brotherly love’. Later accounts are the Laurentian Codex compiled by the Nizhegorod monk Laurentius for the Prince Dmitry Konstantinovich in 1377, which details the Russian periods until 1305, whilst the years 898–922, 1263–83 and 1288–94 are missing in context. Whereas the Laurentian (Muscovite) text traces the Kievan legacy through to the Muscovite princes. Another, the Hypatian traces the Kievan legacy through the rulers of the Halych principality. The Hypatian codex was rediscovered in Kiev in the 1620s written in Church Slavonic language.

The Primary Chronicle (Nestor's) describes the Rurik dynastic origin while accosted by the Tributaries of the Varangians (Vikings), “There was no law among them, but tribe rose against tribe. Discord thus ensued among them, and they began to war one against another. They said to themselves, "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us and judge us according to the Law." They accordingly came from overseas to the Varangian Russes: these particular Varangians (Vikings) were known as Russes, just as some are called Swedes, and others Normans, English, and Gotlanders, for they were thus named. The Chuds, the Slavs, the Krivichians, and the Ves' then said to the people of Rus', "Our land is great and rich, but there is no order in it. Come to rule and reign over us." They thus selected three brothers, with their kinsfolk, who took with them all the Russes and migrated. The oldest, Rurik, located himself in Novgorod; the second, Sineus, at Beloozero; and the third, Truvor, in Izborsk. On account of these Varangians, the district of Novgorod became known as the land of Rus”. The account is precluded by a vast narrative traced back to the descendants of Noah; Shem, Ham and Japeth, with the latter's descendants being Varangians, Swedes, Normans, and the Russians. Andrew the Apostle charted the Slavic migrations in detail surrounding the River Danube, as running east to west and straight across Eastern Europe, in addition to the western source of the Danube which was also the source of the Vistula river running north to south and reaching the Black Sea across modern Poland.

In AD 860, Rurik, the Varangian chieftain of the Rus' who maintained control of Ladoga, drove his kinsmen, the Vikings, back beyond the sea in refusing them further tribute. His port at Lagoda was a key strategic entry to the Balkans linking Kiev with Constantipole to which his descendants would take arms. The Greek-Arabic trade goods flowed along this route by the Dniester or Dnieper rivers, an alternative to the western route via the Vistula. The Russians so set out to govern themselves under Rurik I who remained in power until death in 879. Rurik bequeathed his realm to Oleg, who belonged to his kin, and entrusted to Oleg's hands his son Igor, who was too young to rule. At the time and according to Olof von Dalin, Askold (as Asleik Bjornson (Diar)), was the son of Björn Ironside, who ruled over Kiev with Dir. Accounts later relayed askold Dir as termed by the Rus' of their first Kievan ruler, whether in kind, meaning 'strange'. The Primary Chronicle details; Oleg set forth, taking with him many warriors from among the Varangians, the Chuds, the Slavs, the Merians and all the Krivichians. He thus arrived with his Krivichians before Smolensk, captured the city, and set up a garrison there. Soon he went on to capture Lyubech, before arriving at the hills of Kyiv. Here he saw how Askold and Dir reigned and so schemed to take control. Hiding his warriors in their boats, he went forward in a peaceful approach to Askold and Dir bearing the child Igor as any stranger on his way to Greece on an errand. Though on summons to which Askold and Dir responded his soldiers emerged, when Oleg denounced him and bringing forward Igor who Oleg proclaimed as the son of Rurik. Askold and Dir, were carried off to the Hungarian hill, executed and buried there, where the castle of Ol'ma now stands. Igor the heir of Rurik would twice besiege Constantinople in 941 and 944, via the Kyiv stronghol and although Greek fire destroyed part of his fleet, he concluded a favorable treaty in 945 with the Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. In 913 and 944 the Rus' plundered the Arabs in the Caspian Sea during the Caspian expeditions of the Rus'. The Byzantines consequently accounted for Igor’s torture and death while collecting tribute from the Drevlians in 945. The Primary Chronicle points out that he attempted to collect tribute for a second time in a month. Igor's wife, Olga of Kyiv, avenged him by punishing the Drevlians and mandated a new legal system of tribute gathering (poliudie) as a result.

It was the Polyanians (Ukrainian: Поляни, Polyany, Russian: Поляне Polyane, Polish: Polanie) indeed who had built Kiev and named it after their ruler, Kyi. Polyanians were an East Slavic tribe between the 6th and the 9th century, which inhabited both sides of the Dnieper river, east of the Black Sea, running from Liubech to Rodnia and also down the lower streams of the rivers Ros', Sula, Stuhna, Teteriv, Irpin', Desna and Pripyat. In the Early Middle Ages there were two separate Slavic tribes bearing the name of Polans, one being the eastern, and the other being the western Polan, a West Slavic tribe. The name Polan is derived from the Old East Slavic word поле, meaning ‘field’, as according to the Primary Chronicle, such was entitled to those who lived in their fields and hence as farmers, the people were, whilst dependent on water for their crops, not necessarily so on the direct yields from the riverbanks nor it's boatmen. In the 9th and 10th centuries the Polans had well-developed arable land Farming, Cattle-breeding, Hunting, Fishing, Wild-hive Beekeeping and various handicrafts such as Blacksmithing, Casting, Pottery, Goldsmithing, etc. Thousands of (pre-Polan) kurgans, found by archaeologists in the Polan region, indicates their land had a relatively high population density too. They lived in small families in semi Dug-outs ("earth-houses") and wore homespun clothes and modest jewelry. Before converting to Christianity, the inhabitants used to burn their dead and erect kurgan-like embankments over them. Concerning the nomenclature of the distinct languages emergent during the Middle Ages; Ruthenian or Old Ruthenian is one source for a split, where in modern texts, the language in question is sometimes called "Old Ukrainian" or "Old Belarusian" (Ukrainian: Староукраїнська мова) and (Belarusian: Старабеларуская мова). As Ruthenian always bore a diglossic opposition to Church Slavonic, the vernacular language was and still is often called prosta(ja) mova (Cyrillic проста(я) мова), literally as ‘simple speech’.

Under the rulership of Emperor Heraclius, many of the Slavs were invaded and oppressed by the Bulgars, Avars, and Pechenegs. The Slavs from the Dnieper fell under the lordship of the Khazars of whom had had command of Kiev preceding the Rus', and were required to pay tribute. By the middle of the twelfth century, Kievan Rus′ had dissolved into independent principalities, each ruled by a different branch of the Rurik dynasty. Conflict was yet integral, such as Mstislav Vladimirovich’s campaigns, one of the earliest attested princes of Tmutarakan and Chernigov in Kievan Rus. He was a younger son of Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev. His father appointed him to rule Tmutarakan, an important fortress by the Strait of Kerch, in or after 988. Subsequently he invaded the core territories of Kievan Rus, which were ruled by his brother, Yaroslav the Wise (978 – 1054), in 1024. Although Mstislav could not take Kiev, he forced the East Slavic tribes dwelling to the east of the Dniester River to accept his suzerainty. Yaroslav the Wise also accepted the division of Kievan Rus' along the river after Mstislav had defeated him in a battle fought at Listven by Chernigov (presents-day Chernihiv, Ukraine). Mstislav transferred his seat to the latter town, and became the first ruler of the principality emergent.

The Rurik dynasty underwent a schism after the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, dividing into three branches on the basis of descent from three successive ruling Grand Princes: Izyaslav (1024–1078), Svyatoslav (1027–1076), and Vsevolod (1030–1093). In the 10th century the Council of Liubech made some amendments to the rules of succession and so divided Ruthenia into several autonomous principalities that had equal rights to obtain the throne of Kiev. The Rurik dynasty (or Rurikids) ultimately became the Tsardom of Russia whilst the last Rurikid to rule Russia, Tsar Vasily IV (from the House of Shuysky, cadet branch of the House of Rurik), reigning until 1610; Vasily Tatishchev referred to the Loachim Chronicle in referencing his own legacy as partisan to the Wends (Old English: Winedas; Old Norse: Vindr; German: Wenden, Winden; Danish: vendere; Swedish: vender; Polish: Wendowie).

Rome: Tetrarchy, the Nicene Council, & Orthodox Church

By 268, the Roman empire had split into three competing states: the Gallic Empire, including the Roman provinces of Gaul, Britannia and (briefly) Hispania; the Palmyrene Empire, including the eastern provinces of Syria Palaestina and Aegyptus; and the Italian-centered and independent Roman Empire, proper, between them. The situation of the Roman Empire had become dire in 235 AD, when emperor Severus Alexander was murdered by his own troops. By Roman Emperor Diocletian's claim to power in 293, the Crisis of the Third Century ended in recovery of the Roman Empire. After the deaths of Emperor Carus and his son Numerian on campaign in Persia, Diocletian, Carus’s Cavarly Commander, was proclaimed emperor. The title was also claimed by Carus' other surviving son, Carinus, who Diocletian defeated at the Battle of the Margus. 

The right of succession became a prevailing issue for Diocletian, whilst Rome was beset by continuous civil wars as competing factions in the military, senate, and other parties, all who put forward their favoured candidate for emperor. His priority reform was the empire's civil and military services and he reorganized the empire's provincial divisions. The Diocletianic Persecution (303–11) commenced in turn, as was the empire's last, largest, and bloodiest official persecution of Christianity, failing by design to eliminate Christianity. Diocletian’s four tetrarchs were successful in his time, as based themselves not at Rome but in other cities closer to the frontiers, it was mainly intended as headquarters for the defense of the empire at the borders. These centres were known as the tetrarchic capitals. Maintained by the Prefect of the City (praefectus urbis), a tradition founded by Romulus himself. Originally called the custos urbis (guardian of the city) the title meant to serve as the king’s chief lieutenant. Appointed by the king to serve for life, the custos urbis served concurrently as the Princeps Senatus. As the second highest office of state, the custos urbis was the king’s personal representative. In the absence of the king from the city, the custos urbis exercised all of his powers, which included the powers of convoking the Senate, the popular assemblies and the exercise of force in the event of an emergency. However, the imperium he possessed was only valid within the walls of Rome.

When the first Roman Emperor, Augustus (reigned 27 BC – 14 AD), transformed the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire in 27 BC, he reformed the office of Prefect at the suggestion of his minister and friend Maecenas. Again elevated into a magistracy, Augustus granted the praefectus urbi all the powers needed to maintain order within the city but even more so, to the ports of Ostia and the Portus Romanus, as well as a zone of one hundred Roman miles (c. 140 km) around the city. The Prefect was superintendent of all guilds and corporations (collegia), and held responsibility (via the praefectus annonae) for the city's welfare system.
A Prefect maintained direct authority through the cohortes urbanae, Rome’s police force (within independent prefecture - vigiles, praefectus vigilum). The Prefect needfully published the laws promulgated by the Emperor. Gradually, the judicial powers of the Prefect expanded. Eventually there was no appealing the Prefect’s sentencing, except to the Roman Emperor a reach over even all the governors of the Roman provinces. Originally the Prefect’s powers were exercised in conjunction with those of the quaestors, but by the 3rd century, the Prefect’s control was total.
In late Antiquity, the office of the Prefect gained freedom from the emperor's direct supervision as the Imperial court was removed from the city. The office was usually held by leading members of Italy's senatorial aristocracy, who remained largely pagan even after Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity. Over the following thirty years, Christian holders were few. In such a capacity, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus played a prominent role in the controversy over the Altar of Victory in the late 4th century.
The urban prefecture survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and remained active under the Ostrogothic Kingdom and well after the Byzantine reconquest.

Each of the tetrarchs themselves often were at work within the province or eparchy, while delegating most of the administration to the hierarchic bureaucracy headed by his respective Pretorian Prefect, each supervising several Vicarii, the governor-generals in charge of the civil diocese. The four tetrarchic capitals of the time were Nicomedia in northwestern Asia Minor (modern Izmit in Turkey), a base for defence against invasion from the Balkans and Persia's Sassanids. Sirmium (modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina region of modern Serbia, and near Belgrade, on the Danube border) was the capital of Galerius, the eastern Caesar; this was to become the Balkans-Danube prefecture Illyricum. Mediolanum (modern Milan, near the Alps) was the capital of Maximian, the western Augustus; his domain became "Italia et Africa", with only a short exterior border. Augusta Treverorum (modern Trier, in Germany) was the capital of Constantius Chlorus, the western Caesar, near the strategic Rhine border; it had been the capital of Gallic emperor Tetricus I. This quarter became the prefecture Galliae.
The tetrarchy lasted until c. 313, when internecine conflict eliminated most of the claimants to power, leaving Constantine in control of the Western half of the empire, and Licinius in control of the East.

Orthodox Nicene Christianity would become the essential to securitise central control at the capital, becoming the official State church of the Roman Empire under Constantine. On taking the Imperial office in 306, Constantine I restored Christians to full legal equality and returned property that had been confiscated during the persecution. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built ultimately on Constantine I’s orders at the purported site of Jesus' tomb in Jerusalem and became the holiest place in Christendom, and he is venerated naturally as a Saint. Constantine the son of Constantius I had of course traveled through Palestine at the right hand of Diocletian, and was present at the palace in Nicomedia in 303 and 305. Most notably during Constantine's tenure, he had the Old Saint Peter's Basilica built.

In 325, Constantine I convened the Council of Nicea, effectively the first Ecumenical Council (unless the Council of Jerusalem is so classified). The creed established and affirmed the doctrine that Jesus, the Son, was equal to God the Father, one with the Father, and of the same substance, or co-essential (homoousios in Greek). The Council condemned the teachings of Arius who they declared a heretic, for believing Jesus to be inferior to the Father.
While the Nicene council paved the way for the homoousian doctrine, there remained many closer to the Arian school who attempted to bypass the Christological debate by saying that Jesus was merely like (homoios in Greek) God the father, without speaking of substance (ousia). These non-Nicenes were frequently labeled as Arians (followers of Arius). Arius objected to Alexander's (the bishop of the time) apparent carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his emphasis on eternal generation. Alexander accused Arius of denying the divinity of the Son and also of being too 'Jewish' and 'Greek' in his thought. Both Arius and Alexander agreed only on rejecting Gnosticism, Manichaeism and Sabellian formulae. The Nicene Creed was created thus as a result of the extensive adoption of the doctrine of Arius far outside Alexandria, in order to clarify the key tenets of the Christian faith.

The Emperor Valens had favoured the group who used the homoios formula; this theology was prominent in much of the East and had under Constantius II gained a foothold in the West. Theodosius would however issue the Nicene Creed which was the interpretation that predominated in the West and was held by the important Alexandrian church. The differentiation was proof and the distinction of orthodox Christianity as Catholicism was mandated hence in ritualistic succession from Judaism.

Starting on 27 February 380, together with Gratian and Valentinian II, Theodosius issued the decree "Cunctos populos", the so-called "Edict of Thessalonica", recorded in the Codex Theodosianus xvi.1.2. This declared the Nicene Trinitarian Christianity to be the only legitimate imperial religion and the only one entitled to call itself Catholic. Other Christians he described as 'foolish madmen' and terminated official state support for them along with all traditional polytheist religions, practices and customs.
On 26 November 380 Theodosius expelled the non-Nicene bishop, Demophilus of Constantinople, and appointed Meletius patriarch of Antioch, and Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers as patriarch of Constantinople. In May 381, Theodosius summoned a new ecumenical council at Constantinople to repair the schism between East and West on the basis of Nicene orthodoxy. The council went on to define orthodoxy, including the mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who, though equal to the Father, 'proceeded' from Him, whereas the Son was 'begotten' of Him. The council also condemned the Apollonarian and Macedonian heresies. From 389–392 the emperor promulgated the ‘Theodosian decrees’, instituting the ascendance of Catholic Church offices, and abolishing the last remaining expressions of prominent non-Nicene Christianity with the pagan Roman religions (making the holy days into workdays).

Artwork by Midjourney