Centuries of church schisms show that if there’s a doctrine to be fought over, there’s a goodchanceChristianswillfightaboutit.

That repeated splintering is what makes the Council of Nicaea — a meeting of bishops 1,700 years ago in present-day Turkey — so significant today. And why Pope Leo XIV is traveling on Nov. 28 to the site of this foundational moment in Christian unity as part of his first major foreign trip as pope.

In 325, the council hashed out the first version of the Nicene Creed, a statement of faith that millions of Christians still recite each Sunday.

“The occasion is very, very important — the first global, ecumenical council in history and the first form of creed acknowledged by all the Christians,” said church historian Giovanni Maria Vian, coauthor of “La Scomessa di C

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