Seleucia in Isauria
City near the south coast of Asia Minor, now Silifke in Turkey, called Seleucia the Rugged in antiquity. About 160 eastern bishops met here in September 359 as the eastern half of the council summoned by Constantius II.
Athanasius calls the city “Seleucia the Rugged” in Isauria, and says that about 160 bishops assembled there in September of the year in which the western bishops met at Ariminum (Athanasius, On the Councils 1, 12). Socrates explains that the eastern council had first been called to Nicomedia, which an earthquake ruined, then to Nicaea and to Tarsus, before it met at Seleucia in the presence of two imperial officials (Socrates, Church History 2.39). The site is the modern town of Silifke, on the river Göksu (the ancient Calycadnus). See the Councils of Rimini and Seleucia.
What happened here
- AD 359 to AD 360, firm dateThe Councils of Rimini and Seleucia
The emperor Constantius II summons the western bishops to Rimini and the eastern to Seleucia. Under imperial pressure the delegates of both accept a creed that calls the Son like the Father and forbids the Nicene language of substance.