The Church of the Council of Nicaea – Update

In recent weeks professor Mark Fairchild has had conversations with Mustafa Sahin, director of excavations at Nicaea, along with Julia de Sigoyer, professor of tectonics at the French University of Grenoble Alpes and Pascal Guérin, a French filmmaker. A year ago, Fairchild and Professor Sahin published an article in the Biblical Archaeology Review describing an underwater basilica that was discovered in 2014 in ancient Nicaea. This was the church where the famed Council of Nicaea first met in AD 325. Dubbed as one of the top ten archaeological discoveries in 2014 by the Archaeological Institute of America, the underwater basilica at Nicaea will now become an underwater archaeological museum.

Professor de Sigoyer has recently discovered several fault lines around Lake Iznik. The task that lies ahead is to date the past tectonic activity that has taken place around the lake and to describe what has taken place over the past 1,700 years as the basilica slowly sank beneath the lake. Professor Sahin and Professor de Sigoyer have asked Fairchild to act as the historian for the research project. They have been joined by Pascal Guérin, a French filmmaker who will film the research project. Guérin plans a documentary in English for the general public. You can read the BAR article here.