Abstract

This article examines the presence of disabled confessors at Nicaea through the lens of disability studies, considering the significance that their embodied experience may have had on the doctrine, declarations, and reception of the Nicene Council – both initially and for people with disabilities today. While no definitive list of Council attendees exists, one account suggests all but eleven of the bishops present were ‘maimed’ as a result of persecution. The presence of confessors – those who suffered and were disfigured and disabled from persecution – at the Council in 325 CE is undisputed. What remains contested in the limited scholarship on Nicaea that discusses their presence is their authority. Some scholars (e.g. Cameron, Hall, Barnes) argue that the confessors’ broken bodies and experiences granted them influence over the Council’s proceedings, while other studies (e.g. Kelhoffer) suggest that their presence has no direct bearing on the Council’s doctrinal pronouncements. Ultimately, this article contends that embodiment matters, and that regardless of their exact numbers, the presence of disabled confessors influenced the doctrine that defined – and continues to define – the Church.