From Nicaea to Westphalia: Institutional Continuity and the Transformation of Political Authority
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52340/idw.2025.89Keywords:
Nicaea, Westphalia, sovereignty, legitimacy, institutional continuity, ecclesiastical governanceAbstract
This article examines the 1,300-year historical process from the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 as a paradigmatic example of fundamental institutional transformation in European civilization. The analysis demonstrates that the Council of Nicaea established the first systematic model that integrated centralized authority, collective decision-making mechanisms, and procedures for enforcing universal norms. This historical transformation represents a socio-political phenomenon of exceptional significance that laid the foundation for the future institutional development of European civilization and fundamentally altered the theoretical and practical paradigms of governance systems.
The study reveals direct institutional continuity between Nicaea and Westphalia, manifested in three fundamental aspects: mechanisms of collective decision-making, conceptual frameworks of legitimate authority, and procedural standards of multilateral relations. The research confirms that medieval oppositional forces, the Protestant Reformation, and religious wars functioned as transitional phases that gradually transformed religious frameworks toward modern political institutions. The analysis demonstrates that this process represented not a structural rupture, but rather an evolutionary transformation in which each historical stage transmitted its achievements to the next and created new institutional realities.
The Peace of Westphalia completed the process of weakening institutional religious influence and systematized principles that continue to define the fundamental norms of international law and diplomacy today. The Nicaean legacy, transmitted through the Westphalian system in secularized form, continues to shape the structures of contemporary global governance and determines the fundamental principles of modern functioning of international political representative institutions, including the methodological frameworks for implementing multilateral diplomacy, consensus-oriented decision-making, and concepts of sovereign equality.
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