ABSTRACT
While his mother and mother-in-law were carrying out their pilgrimages to Palestine, Constantine was traveling back to Bithynia. From the autumn of 326 to the spring of 328, he would again become involved in the theological and episcopal squabbles of the eastern Church. He would call a “Second Session of the Nicene Council” to examine repentant Arians for readmittance into the Church; and he would have to intervene in an ecclesiastical dispute at Antioch. When the Church seemed to have been restored to peace, he would then leave for the west on a last major tour of the empire over the next two years. He would take his son Constantine II to Trier, and install him as the new Caesar of the west. He would train his heir politically and militarily along the Rhine in 328-29; and then he would tour the Danube front on his way back to the east. In May of 330, he would enjoy one of his greatest triumphs as he dedicated Constantinople as the “New Rome” and Christian capital of the Roman Empire.1
