text: A beggar woman enters the shop looking for Bamford, and Johanna hides in the trunk. The woman recognizes Todd, but upon hearing Turpin coming, Todd kills her and sends her through the trapdoor in the floor. As Turpin enters, Todd explains that Johanna had repented and is coming to him, then offers a free shave in the meantime. When Turpin finally recognizes Todd as Benjamin Barker, Todd stabs him several times, cuts his throat, and dumps him into the bakehouse. Johanna comes out of her hiding place, still disguised, and Todd prepares to kill her as well, not recognizing her as his daughter. However, hearing Mrs. Lovett horrifyingly scream in the basement when the dying Turpin grabs at her dress, Todd spares Johanna and says, "Forget my face".


title: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007 film)

text: Todd discovers that the beggar woman was his wife Lucy, whom he believed to be dead, and that Mrs. Lovett deliberately misled him so she could have him to herself. Enraged, Todd pretends to forgive her and dances manically with her before hurling her into the bakehouse oven as revenge, then cradles Lucy's dead body in his arms. Toby, who comes out of the sewers, appears and Todd, now wishing to die, allows Toby to slit his throat with his own razor. Toby leaves as Todd bleeds to death over his dead wife.


text: Tim Burton first saw Stephen Sondheim's 1979 stage musical, "", as a CalArts student in London in 1980. Burton recalled his experience of seeing the show, saying, "I was still a student, I didn't know if I would be making movies or working in a restaurant, I had no idea what I would be doing. I just wandered into the theatre and it just blew me away because I'd never really seen anything that had the mixture of all those elements. I actually went three nights in a row because I loved it so much." Burton was not a fan of the musical genre but was struck by how cinematic the musical was, and repeatedly attended subsequent performances. He described it as a silent film with music, and was "dazzled both by the music and its sense of the macabre." When his directing career took off in the late 1980s, Burton approached Sondheim with a view to making a cinematic adaptation, but nothing came of it. Sondheim said, "[Burton] went off and did other things."


text: Director Sam Mendes had been working on a film version of the story for several years, and in June 2003 Sondheim was approached to write the script. Although he turned down the offer, Mendes and producer Walter F. Parkes obtained his approval to use writer John Logan instead. Logan had previously collaborated with Parkes on "Gladiator", and claimed his biggest challenge in adapting the Sondheim stage play "was taking a sprawling, magnificent Broadway musical and making it cinematic, and an emotionally honest film. Onstage, you can have a chorus sing as the people of London, but I think that would be alienating in a movie." Mendes left to direct the 2005 film "Jarhead", and Burton took over as director after his project, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!", fell apart due to its excessive budget.


text: When Burton was hired, he reworked the screenplay with Logan. Logan felt they agreed over the film's tone due to "share[d] stunted childhoods watching Amicus movies". Turning a three-hour stage musical into a two-hour film required some changes. Some songs were shortened, while others were completely removed. Burton said, "In terms of the show, it was three hours long, but we weren't out to film the Broadway show, we were out to make a movie, so we tried to keep the pace like those old melodramas. Sondheim himself is not a real big fan of movie musicals, so he was really open to honing it down to a more pacey shape." Burton and Logan also reduced the prominence of other secondary elements, such as the romance between Todd's daughter Johanna and Anthony, to allow them to focus on the triangular relationship between Todd, Mrs. Lovett, and Toby.


text: DreamWorks announced Burton's appointment in August 2006, and Johnny Depp was cast as Todd. Christopher Lee, Peter Bowles, Anthony Head, and five other actors were set to play the ghost narrators, but their roles were cut (Head does appear in an uncredited cameo as a gentleman who congratulates Depp after the shaving contest). According to Lee, these deletions were due to time constraints caused by a break in filming during March 2007, while Depp's daughter recovered from an illness. Burton's domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter was cast in October 2006, as well as Sacha Baron Cohen. In December 2006, Alan Rickman was cast. In January 2007, Laura Michelle Kelly was cast as Lucy Barker. Timothy Spall was added to the cast, and said he was urged to audition by his daughter, who wanted him to work with Depp. He recalled, "I really wanted this one – I knew Tim was directing and that Johnny Depp was going to be in it. My daughter, my youngest daughter, really wanted me to do it for that reason – Johnny Depp was in it. (She came on set to meet Depp) and he was really delightful to her, she had a great time. Then, I took her to the junket – and (Depp) greeted her like an old pal when he saw her. I've got plenty of brownie points at the moment."


text: Three members of the cast had never been in a film before: Ed Sanders was cast as Toby, Jayne Wisener as Johanna, and Jamie Campbell Bower, who auditioned, and after four days got the part of Anthony said, "I think I weed myself. I was out shopping at the time and I got this call on my mobile. I was just like, 'OH MY GOD!' Honestly, I was like a little girl running around this shop like oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god."


text: Filming began on February 5, 2007 at Pinewood Studios, and was completed by May 11, despite a brief interruption when Depp's daughter was taken seriously ill. Burton opted to film in London, where he had felt "very much at home" since his work on "Batman" in 1989. Production designer Dante Ferretti created a darker, more sinister London by adapting Fleet Street and its surrounding area. Burton initially planned to use minimal sets and film in front of a green screen, but decided against it, stating that physical sets helped actors get into a musical frame of mind: "Just having people singing in front of a green screen seemed more disconnected".


text: Depp created his own image of Todd. Heavy purple and brown make-up was applied around his eyes to suggest fatigue and rage, as if "he's never slept". Burton said of the character Sweeney Todd, "We always saw him as a sad character, not a tragic villain or anything. He's basically a dead person when you meet him; the only thing that's keeping him going is the one single minded thing which is tragic. You don't see anything else around him." Depp said of the character, "He makes Sid Vicious look like the innocent paper boy. He's beyond dark. He's already dead. He's been dead for years." Depp also commented on the streak of white in Todd's hair, saying, "The idea was that he'd had this hideous trauma, from being sent away, locked away. That streak of white hair became the shock of that rage. It represented his rage over what had happened. It's certainly not the first time anyone's used it. But it's effective. It tells a story all by itself. My brother had a white spot growing up, and his son has this kind of shock of white in his hair."


text: Burton insisted that the film be bloody, as he felt stage versions of the play which cut back on the bloodshed robbed it of its power. For him, "Everything is so internal with Sweeney that [the blood] is like his emotional release. It's more about catharsis than it is a literal thing." Producer Richard D. Zanuck said that "[Burton] had a very clear plan that he wanted to lift that up into a surreal, almost "Kill Bill" kind of stylization. We had done tests and experiments with the neck slashing, with the blood popping out. I remember saying to Tim, 'My God, do we dare do this?'" On set, the fake blood was colored orange to render correctly on the desaturated color film used, and crew members wore bin liners to avoid getting stained while filming. This macabre tone made some studios nervous, and it was not until Warner Bros. Pictures, DreamWorks and Paramount had signed up for the project that the film's $50 million budget was covered. Burton said "the studio was cool about it and they accepted it because they knew what the show was. Any movie is a risk, but it is nice to be able to do something like that that doesn't fit into the musical or slasher movie categories."


text: After the filming, Burton said of the cast, "All I can say is this is one of the best casts I've ever worked with. These people are not professional singers, so to do a musical like this which I think is one of the most difficult musicals, they all went for it. Every day on the set was a very, very special thing for me. Hearing all these guys sing, I don't know if I can ever have an experience like that again." Burton said of the singing, "You can't just lip synch, you'd see the throat and the breath, every take they all had to belt it out. It was very enjoyable for me to see, with music on the set everybody just moved differently. I'd seen Johnny (Depp) act in a way I'd never seen before, walking across the room or sitting in the chair, picking up a razor or making a pie, whatever. They all did it in a way that you could sense."


text: Depp said of working with Baron Cohen, when asked what he was like in real life (meaning, not doing one of his trademark characters), "He's not what I expected. I didn't look at those characters and think, 'This will be the sweetest guy in the world'. He's incredibly nice. A real gentleman, kind of elegant. I was impressed with him. He's kind of today's equivalent of Peter Sellers."


text: Burton wanted to avoid the traditional approach of patches of dialogue interrupted by song, "We didn't want it to be what I'd say was a traditional musical with a lot of dialogue and then singing. That's why we cut out a lot of choruses and extras singing and dancing down the street. Each of the characters, because a lot of them are repressed and have their emotions inside, the music was a way to let them express their feelings."


text: He cut the show's famous opening number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", explaining, "Why have a chorus singing about 'attending the tale of Sweeney Todd' when you could just go ahead and attend it?" Sondheim acknowledged that, in adapting a musical to film, the plot has to be kept moving, and was sent MP3 files of his shortened songs by Mike Higham, the film's music producer, for approval. Several other songs were also cut, and Sondheim noted that there were "many changes, additions and deletions... [though]... if you just go along with it, I think you'll have a spectacular time." To create a larger, more cinematic feel, the score was re-orchestrated by the stage musical's original orchestrator, Jonathan Tunick, who increased the orchestra from 27 musicians to 78.


text: The "Deluxe Complete Edition" soundtrack was released on December 18, 2007. Depp's singing was described by a "New York Times" reviewer as "harsh and thin, but amazingly forceful". Another critic adds that, though Depp's voice "does not have much heft or power", "his ear is obviously excellent, because his pitch is dead-on accurate... Beyond his good pitch and phrasing, the expressive colorings of his singing are crucial to the portrayal. Beneath this Sweeney’s vacant, sullen exterior is a man consumed with a murderous rage that threatens to burst forth every time he slowly takes a breath and is poised to speak. Yet when he sings, his voice crackles and breaks with sadness."


text: The film's marketing has been criticized for not advertising it as a musical. Michael Halberstam of the "Writers' Theatre" said, "By de-emphasizing the score to the extent they did in the trailer, it is possible the producers were condescending to us – a tactic which cannot ultimately end in anything but tears." In the UK, a number of audience members walked out of the film on realizing it was a musical, and complaints that advertisements for the film were deliberately misleading were made to both the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards agency. The studios involved opted for a low-key approach to their marketing. Producer Walter Parkes stated, "All these things that could be described as difficulties could also be the movie's greatest strengths." Warner Bros. felt it should take a similar approach to marketing as with "The Departed", with little early exposure and discouraging talk of awards.


text: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" officially opened at the United States box office on December 21, 2007, in 1,249 theatres, and took $9,300,805 in its opening weekend. Worldwide releases followed during January and February 2008, with the film performing well in the United Kingdom and Japan. The film grossed $52,898,073 in the United States and Canada, and $99,625,091 in other markets, accumulating a worldwide total of $152,523,164. In the United States, the Marcus Theaters Corporation was not initially planning to screen the film following its premiere, because it was unable to reach a pricing agreement with Paramount. However, the dispute was resolved in time for the official release.


text: Although Sondheim was cautious of a cinematic adaptation of his musical, he was largely impressed by the results. "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" received critical acclaim, and the performances, visuals, production design, costume design and faithfulness to its source material were praised. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 232 reviews and an average rating of 7.70/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Full of pith and Grand Guignol grossness, this macabre musical is perfectly helmed and highly entertaining. Tim Burton masterfully stages the musical in a way that will make you think he has done this many times before." Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 83 out of 100, based on 39 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". "Sweeney Todd" appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007.


text: Of the reviewers, "Time" rated it an A-minus and added, "Burton and Depp infuse the brilliant cold steel of Stephen Sondheim's score with a burning passion. Helena Bonham Carter and a superb supporting cast bring focused fury to this musical nightmare. It's bloody great." "Time"<nowiki>'s</nowiki> Richard Corliss named the film one of its top ten movies of 2007, placing it fifth. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it four stars out of four, lauding Burton's visual style. In his review in "Variety", Todd McCarthy called it "both sharp and fleet" and "a satisfying screen version of Stephen Sondheim's landmark 1979 theatrical musical ... things have turned out uniformly right thanks to highly focused direction by Tim Burton, expert screw-tightening by scenarist John Logan, and haunted and musically adept lead performances from Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Assembled artistic combo assures the film will reap by far the biggest audience to see a pure Sondheim musical, although just how big depends on the upscale crowd’s tolerance for buckets of blood, and the degree to which the masses stay away due to the whiff of the highbrow." Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a B-plus in its "Movie Reviews" section and stated, "To stage a proper Sweeney Todd, necks must be slit, human flesh must be squished into pastries, and blood ought to spurt in fountains and rivers of death. Enter Tim Burton, who ... has tenderly art-directed soup-thick, tomato-red, fake-gore blood with the zest of a Hollywood-funded Jackson Pollock." She went on to refer to the piece as "opulent, attentive ... so finely minced a mixture of Sondheim's original melodrama and Burton's signature spicing that it's difficult to think of any other filmmaker so naturally suited for the job."


text: In its "DVD Reviews" section, "EW"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s Chris Nashawaty gave the film an A-minus, stating, "Depp's soaring voice makes you wonder what other tricks he's been hiding... Watching Depp's barber wield his razors... it's hard not to be reminded of Edward Scissorhands frantically shaping hedges into animal topiaries 18 years ago... and all of the twisted beauty we would've missed out on had [Burton and Depp] never met." In "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers awarded it 3½ out of 4 stars and added, ""Sweeney Todd" is a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling ... [the film] is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score." As with "Time", the critic ranked it fifth on his list of the best movies of 2007. Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" said, "The blood juxtaposed to the music is highly unsettling. It runs contrary to expectations. Burton pushes this gore into his audiences' faces so as to feel the madness and the destructive fury of Sweeney's obsession. Teaming with Depp, his long-time alter ego, Burton makes Sweeney a smoldering dark pit of fury and hate that consumes itself. With his sturdy acting and surprisingly good voice, Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages." Harry Knowles gave the film a highly positive review, calling it Burton's best film since "Ed Wood", his favorite Burton film, and said it was possibly superior. He praised all of the cast and the cinematography, but noted it would probably not appeal to non-musical fans due to the dominance of music in the film.


text: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" received four Golden Globe nominations at the January 2008 65th Golden Globe Awards, winning two. The film won the award for Best Motion Picture in the Musical or Comedy genre, and Depp for his performance as Sweeney Todd. Burton was nominated for Best Director, and Helena Bonham Carter was nominated for her performance as Mrs. Lovett. The film was included in the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures's top ten films of 2007, and Burton was presented with their award for Best Director. The film was also nominated for two BAFTA awards, in the categories of Costume Design and Make Up and Hair. "Sweeney Todd" further received three Oscar nominations at the 80th Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role for Depp; Best Achievement in Costume Design; and Best Achievement in Art Direction, which it won. Depp won the award for Best Villain at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, where he thanked his fans for "sticking with [him] on this very obtuse and strange road," and the Choice Movie Villain award at the Teen Choice Awards. At Spike TV's 2008 Scream Awards, the film won two awards: Best Horror Movie, and Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Depp).


text: "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" was released on DVD in the United States on April 1, 2008, and the UK on May 19. A Blu-ray was released on October 21, 2008. An HD DVD release was announced for the same date, but due to the discontinuation of the format, Paramount canceled this version in preference for international distribution of the Blu-ray release.


text: The DVD version has thus far sold approximately 1,892,489 copies, bringing in more than $38 million in revenue.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park Chan-wook ( ; born 23 August 1963) is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. He is considered as one of the most prominent filmmakers of South Korean cinema as well as world cinema in 21st century. His films have gained notoriety for their cinematography and framing, black humor and often brutal subject matter.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park's first major critical and commercial success came with "Joint Security Area" (2000) which was the most watched South Korean film at the time. This film helped him to secure more creative freedom and his next were "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002) and "Oldboy" (2003) which received widespread critical acclaim worldwide and also won Grand Prix prize at Cannes Film Festival. "Lady Vengeance" (2005), another film in the unofficial "The Vengeance Trilogy", also received critical acclaim.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: His next psychological thriller "The Handmaiden" (2016) premiered in competition to rave reviews at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, nominated for Palme d'Or and Queer Palm and won the Vulcain Prize for the Technical Arts, the film saw critical and commercial success in several countries, including South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom. It also won the category of Best Film Not in the English Language. For "Decision to Leave" (2022), Park won Best Director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and the film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: He is also known for "Thirst" (2009) and English-language works "Stoker" (2013) and "The Little Drummer Girl" (2018), a television miniseries based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park was born and raised in Seoul and studied philosophy at Sogang University, where, in light of his disappointment with the analytic orientation of the department and consequent scant offerings in aesthetics, he started a cinema club, the 'Sogang Film Community', and published a number of articles on contemporary cinema. Originally intending to be an art critic, Park, upon seeing "Vertigo", resolved to become a filmmaker. After graduation, he wrote articles on film for journals and soon became an assistant director of films like "Kkamdong", directed by Yu Yeong-jin, and "Watercolor Painting in a Rainy Day", directed by Kwak Jae-yong ("My Sassy Girl").


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park's debut feature film was "The Moon Is... the Sun's Dream" (1992). After five years, he made his second film, "Trio". Park's early films were not successful at the box office, and he pursued a career as a film critic to make a living.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2000, Park directed "Joint Security Area", which was a great success both commercially and critically, even surpassing Kang Je-gyu's "Shiri" as the then most-watched film ever made in South Korea. This success made it possible for Park to make his next film more independently. "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" is the result of this creative freedom.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park's unofficially-titled "Vengeance Trilogy" consists of "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), "Oldboy" (2003) and "Lady Vengeance" (2005). It was not originally intended to be a trilogy. Park won the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival for "Oldboy". The films concern the utter futility of vengeance and how it wreaks havoc on the lives of those involved. "Lady Vengeance" was distributed by Tartan Films for the United States theatrical release in April 2006. American director Quentin Tarantino is an avowed fan of Park. As the head judge at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, he personally pushed for Park's "Oldboy" to be awarded the Palme d'Or (the honour eventually went to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"). "Oldboy" garnered the Grand Prix, Cannes's second-highest honour. Tarantino also regards Park's "Joint Security Area" to be one of "the top twenty films made since 1992."


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In a May 2004 interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", Park listed Sophocles, Shakespeare, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Balzac and Kurt Vonnegut as influences on his career.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Since 2004, Park has been an owner of the filmmaking company Moho Film, which participated in the production of "Snowpiercer" (2013) and "The Handmaiden" (2016).


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2006, Park was the member of official section jury at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In February 2007, Park won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival. The award, named after the festival's founder and in praise of works that introduce new perspectives, went to Park for his film, "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK".


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2009, Park directed the vampire film "Thirst", starring Song Kang-ho, which won the Prix du Jury (alongside "Fish Tank," directed by Andrea Arnold) at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. He considered directing "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" but ultimately turned it down.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2011, Park said his new fantasy-horror film "Paranmanjang (Night Fishing)" was shot entirely on the iPhone. The film was co-directed with Park's younger brother, Park Chan-kyong, who had no prior directing experience. It was nominated for Berlinale Shorts during the 2011 Berlin Film Festival and won the Golden Bear for Best Short Film.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2013, Park directed his first English-language film, "Stoker". He said he learned to accelerate the production process and completed filming in 480 hours. Although Park does speak English, he used an interpreter on set. On why the script attracted his attention, Park said: "It wasn't a script that tried to explain everything and left many things as questions, so it leads the audience to find answers for themselves, and that's what I liked about the script... I like telling big stories through small, artificially created worlds". On 2 March 2013, Park appeared on a panel discussion about the film "Stoker" held at the Freer Gallery of Art in the Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In 2014, Park directed a short film commissioned by luxury brand Ermenegildo Zegna, co-written by himself, Ayako Fujitani, Chung Chung-hoon and Michael Werwie, scored by Clint Mansell, and starring Jack Huston and Daniel Wu. It screened at the Rome International Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In September 2014, it was announced that Park would adapt "Fingersmith", a historical crime novel by Sarah Waters. The film entered production in mid-2015 and ended on 31 October 2015. That film ended up becoming "The Handmaiden" and premiered in competition to rave reviews at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where Artistic Director Seong-hie Ryu won the Vulcain Prize for the Technical Arts, and the film was nominated for both the Palme d' Or and Queer Palm. At the 2016 Buil Film Awards, "The Handmaiden" won for Best New Actress (Tae-ri Kim), The Buil Readers' Jury Award and Best Art Direction (Seong-hie Ryu). The film holds a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and saw box office success in several countries, including South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In October 2014, it was announced that Park had signed on to direct the sci-fi body-swap film, "Second Born".


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In January 2018, it was stated that Park would direct a TV miniseries adaptation of "The Little Drummer Girl", a novel by John le Carré. It aired on BBC One in October of that year and stars Michael Shannon, Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: At the 24th Busan International Film Festival, Park said that he is writing scripts for feature films, for theater and for TV, including a new installment in the "Vengeance Trilogy", and a second adaptation of Donald E. Westlake's novel "The Axe".


title: Park Chan-wook

text: In May 2020, it was announced that he was working on his next film's screenplay, tentatively titled "Heeojil gyeolsim" ("The Decision to Break Up"). It is described as a melodrama and will star Tang Wei and Park Hae-il. In October 2020, the title of the film was revealed as "Decision to Leave", with the story described as a murder mystery romance. The film was set to begin shooting later that month. In April 2021, A24 optioned Viet Thanh Nguyen's 2015 novel "The Sympathizer" for a TV adaptation, with Park Chan-wook directing. He was awarded Best Director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival for his work on "Decision to Leave".


title: Park Chan-wook

text: Park was raised in a devout Catholic family in Korea, and describes himself as an atheist. He has collaborated with his younger brother, Park Chan-kyong, who is a media artist. He dedicated his career tribute to his wife Kim Eun-Hee at the 15th Marrakech International Film Festival.


title: Park Chan-wook

text: He voiced support for the Democratic Labor Party and was also a member of its successor, the New Progressive Party. He supported Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung in the 2017 South Korean presidential election.


title: Lee Child

text: James Dover Grant (born 29 October 1954), primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his "Jack Reacher" novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, "Killing Floor" (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant was born in Coventry. His Northern Irish father, who was born in Belfast, was a civil servant who lived in the house where the singer Van Morrison was later born. He is the second of four sons; his younger brother, Andrew Grant, is also a thriller novelist. Grant's family relocated to Handsworth Wood in Birmingham when he was four years old so that the boys could receive a better education. Grant attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham.


title: Lee Child

text: In 1974, at the age of 20, Grant studied law at University of Sheffield, though he had no intention of entering the legal profession and, during his student days, worked backstage in a theatre. After graduating, he worked in commercial television. He received a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of Sheffield in 1977 and returned to the university to receive an honorary Doctor of Letters (DLitt) in 2009.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant joined Granada Television, part of the UK's ITV Network, in Manchester as a presentation director. There he was involved with shows including "Brideshead Revisited", "The Jewel in the Crown", "Prime Suspect", and "Cracker". Grant was involved in the transmission of more than 40,000 hours of programming for Granada, writing thousands of commercials and news stories. He worked at Granada from 1977 to 1995 and ended his career there with two years as a trade union shop steward.


title: Lee Child

text: After being made redundant from his job because of corporate restructuring, Grant decided to start writing novels, stating they are "the purest form of entertainment." In 1997, his first novel, "Killing Floor", was published, and he moved to the United States in the summer of 1998. He starts each new book of the series on an anniversary of his starting the first book after losing his job.


title: Lee Child

text: His pen name "Lee" comes from a family joke about a heard mispronunciation of the name of Renault's Le Car, as "Lee Car". Calling anything "Lee" became a family gag. His daughter, Ruth, was "lee child".


title: Lee Child

text: "Child" places his books alphabetically on bookshop and library shelves between crime fiction greats Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie. Grant has said that he chose the name Reacher for the central character in his novels because he himself is tall and when they were grocery shopping his wife Jane remarked: "'Hey, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket.' ... 'I thought, Reacher – good name.'"


title: Lee Child

text: Some books in the "Jack Reacher" series are written in the first person, while others are written in the third person. Grant has characterised the books as revenge stories – "Somebody does a very bad thing, and Reacher takes revenge" – driven by his anger at the downsizing at Granada. Although English, he deliberately chose to write American-style thrillers.


title: Lee Child

text: In 2007, Grant collaborated with 14 other writers to create the 17-part serial thriller "The Chopin Manuscript", narrated by Alfred Molina. This was broadcast weekly on Audible.com between 25 September 2007 and 13 November 2007.


title: Lee Child

text: On 30 June 2008, it was announced that Grant would be taking up a Visiting Professorship at the University of Sheffield from November 2008. In 2009, Grant funded 52 Jack Reacher scholarships for students at the university.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2009. Grant was the Programming Chair for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in 2018, part of the Harrogate International Festivals portfolio.


title: Lee Child

text: In 2019, it was announced that Child would be curating a new TV show called "Lee Child: True Crime." The show will dramatise real-life crime stories from around the world and focus on average people who go to extraordinary lengths to fight crime or seek justice.


title: Lee Child

text: In January 2020, Child announced that he would be retiring from writing the "Jack Reacher" book series, and hand it to his brother Andrew Grant, who would write further books of the series under the surname Child. He intended to write the next few books together with Grant before passing the series entirely over to him.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant's prose has been described as "hardboiled" and "commercial" in style. A 2012 interview suggested that many aspects of the Jack Reacher novels were deliberately aimed at maintaining the books' profitability, rather than for literary reasons. For instance, making Jack Reacher have one parent who was French was suggested as being partly because the presence of only American members of Reacher's family would limit the series's appeal in France. The same interview stated that Grant "didn't apologise about the commercial nature" of his fiction.


title: Lee Child

text: In 2019, Child collaborated with musicians Jennifer and Scott Smith of the group Naked Blue on an album of music "exploring their favourite character, Jack Reacher, in song." He contributed a vocal to track #5, "Reacher Said Nothing."


title: Lee Child

text: In 2020 Child joined the Booker Prize judging panel, alongside Margaret Busby (chair), Sameer Rahim, Lemn Sissay and Emily Wilson.


title: Lee Child

text: In January 2012, Grant donated £10,000 towards a new vehicle for Brecon Mountain Rescue Team in Wales. His brother is a senior member of the team. The team's former control vehicle was written off after a collision in 2011.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant married his wife Jane in 1975. Since 1998 they have resided in New York state. They have a daughter, Ruth.


title: Lee Child

text: Grant is a fan of Aston Villa Football Club and has been known to include the names of Aston Villa players in his books.


title: Lee Child

text: In 2013, the "Daily Mail" quoted Grant saying that he writes while intoxicated ("high") by cannabis. However, in a phone interview in November 2013, he clarified his comments to the "Irish Examiner", saying he's never written while high. "Yeah, that's true", Child told "The Post-Standard". "I mean, people say to me, 'There was that story in the newspaper,' and I say, 'No, that's "The Daily Mail".' In Britain, that's not a newspaper, you know, that's a scandal sheet where they make stuff up. It's not very reliable. And certainly, I don't deny smoking the occasional joint, but I don't work when I'm stoned because you don't get much done that way."


title: Lee Child

text: Grant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.


title: Aisling Bea

text: Aisling Clíodhnadh O'Sullivan (born 16 March 1984), known professionally as Aisling Bea ( ), is an Irish comedian, actor and writer. She created, wrote and starred in the comedy series "This Way Up" on Channel 4. As a stand-up comedian, she won the "So You Think You're Funny?" award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2012, being only the second woman to win the award in its then twenty-five year history. She also regularly appears on light entertainment comedy panel shows such as "QI" and "8 Out of 10 Cats".


title: Aisling Bea

text: Bea was born in Kildare, Ireland. Her father, Brian, was a horse veterinarian who died by suicide when Bea was three years old; she was not told how he had died until she was 13. She adopted the stage surname "Bea" as a tribute to her father, taking it from a short form of his first name. Bea and her younger sister, Sinéad, were raised by their mother, Helen (née Moloney), a secondary school teacher who had previously trained jockeys at the Racing Academy and Centre of Education and was herself a professional jockey. Her family was "obsessed" with horses and race meetings. In her youth, Bea worked as a tour guide at the Irish National Stud, but knew from a young age that she was not interested in the horse racing industry and instead loved performing. Her great-aunt was playwright Siobhán Ní Shúilleabháin, and musician Liam O'Flynn was a family friend.


title: Aisling Bea

text: Bea was educated at Presentation Secondary School, Kildare Town, a Catholic school, and studied French and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. While there, she was part of a student sketch comedy group. She then studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).


title: Aisling Bea

text: After graduating from drama school, Bea spent two years trying to get work in theatre as a dramatic actress. Instead, she was cast mainly in comedic television series including "Cardinal Burns" and "Dead Boss" (both 2012). While filming "Dead Boss" in 2011, Bea decided to try stand-up comedy. In 2012, she won The Gilded Balloon So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and, in 2013, was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards for her show "C'est La Bea".


title: Aisling Bea

text: The exposure brought by these awards and festival appearances marked a "turning point" in Bea's career and she began to appear as a regular guest on panel shows including "QI" and "Insert Name Here". Bea and Yasmine Akram co-wrote and co-hosted the BBC Radio 4 comedy folklore series "Micks and Legends" (2012, 2015); it was nominated for a Chortle Award in 2013. Bea won the 2014 British Comedy Award for Best Female TV Comic and returned to Edinburgh in 2015 with the live show "Plan Bea". In 2016, she became a team captain on "8 Out of 10 Cats" and was a cast member on "Taskmaster" in 2017.


title: Aisling Bea

text: Bea has continued to act in television sitcoms including "Trollied" (2014–2015), "The Delivery Man" (2015), and Amy Huberman's Irish television series "Finding Joy" (2018). Additionally, she has acted in the crime dramas "The Fall" (2016) and "Hard Sun" (2018). In 2018, she and Sara Pascoe began to co-host the BBC Radio 2 comedy chat show "What's Normal?" She recorded a 15-minute stand-up special that was aired on Netflix in late 2018.


title: Aisling Bea

text: She stars in the Netflix comedy-drama series "Living with Yourself" (2019), and is the star and head writer of the Channel 4 comedy series "This Way Up" (2019–present). She also appeared in the ITV drama series "Quiz" (2020).


title: Aisling Bea

text: For her work on "This Way Up", Bea won the BAFTA 2020 British Academy Television Craft Award for Breakthrough Talent.


title: Aisling Bea

text: Bea was a vocal supporter of the Repeal the 8th campaign in the successful 2018 Irish referendum to introduce legal abortion in the Republic of Ireland, including her contribution of an essay to Una Mullally's "Repeal the 8th" a month before the vote. She previously campaigned for same-sex marriage legislation in the successful 2015 Irish referendum.


title: Aisling Bea

text: Since 2016, Bea has been a team captain on "8 Out of 10 Cats", having previously been a guest on the show in 2013 and 2014. She has made guest appearances on many other panel shows, including:


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices. In terms of trading volume, it is by far the largest market in the world, followed by the credit market.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The main participants in this market are the larger international banks. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of multiple types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. Since currencies are always traded in pairs, the foreign exchange market does not set a currency's absolute value but rather determines its relative value by setting the market price of one currency if paid for with another. Ex: USD 1 is worth X CAD, or CHF, or JPY, etc.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The foreign exchange market works through financial institutions and operates on several levels. Behind the scenes, banks turn to a smaller number of financial firms known as "dealers", who are involved in large quantities of foreign exchange trading. Most foreign exchange dealers are banks, so this behind-the-scenes market is sometimes called the "interbank market" (although a few insurance companies and other kinds of financial firms are involved). Trades between foreign exchange dealers can be very large, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Because of the sovereignty issue when involving two currencies, Forex has little (if any) supervisory entity regulating its actions.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The foreign exchange market assists international trade and investments by enabling currency conversion. For example, it permits a business in the United States to import goods from European Union member states, especially Eurozone members, and pay Euros, even though its income is in United States dollars. It also supports direct speculation and evaluation relative to the value of currencies and the carry trade speculation, based on the differential interest rate between two currencies.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: In a typical foreign exchange transaction, a party purchases some quantity of one currency by paying with some quantity of another currency.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The modern foreign exchange market began forming during the 1970s. This followed three decades of government restrictions on foreign exchange transactions under the Bretton Woods system of monetary management, which set out the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states after World War II. Countries gradually switched to floating exchange rates from the previous exchange rate regime, which remained fixed per the Bretton Woods system.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: As such, it has been referred to as the market closest to the ideal of perfect competition, notwithstanding currency intervention by central banks.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: According to the Bank for International Settlements, the preliminary global results from the 2022 Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and OTC Derivatives Markets Activity show that trading in foreign exchange markets averaged per day in April 2022. This is up from in April 2019. Measured by value, foreign exchange swaps were traded more than any other instrument in April 2022, at per day, followed by spot trading at .


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currency trading and exchange first occurred in ancient times. Money-changers (people helping others to change money and also taking a commission or charging a fee) were living in the Holy Land in the times of the Talmudic writings ("Biblical times"). These people (sometimes called "kollybistẻs") used city stalls, and at feast times the Temple's Court of the Gentiles instead. Money-changers were also the silversmiths and/or goldsmiths of more recent ancient times.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currency and exchange were important elements of trade in the ancient world, enabling people to buy and sell items like food, pottery, and raw materials. If a Greek coin held more gold than an Egyptian coin due to its size or content, then a merchant could barter fewer Greek gold coins for more Egyptian ones, or for more material goods. This is why, at some point in their history, most world currencies in circulation today had a value fixed to a specific quantity of a recognized standard like silver and gold.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: During the 15th century, the Medici family were required to open banks at foreign locations in order to exchange currencies to act on behalf of textile merchants. To facilitate trade, the bank created the "nostro" (from Italian, this translates to "ours") account book which contained two columned entries showing amounts of foreign and local currencies; information pertaining to the keeping of an account with a foreign bank. During the 17th (or 18th) century, Amsterdam maintained an active Forex market. In 1704, foreign exchange took place between agents acting in the interests of the Kingdom of England and the County of Holland.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Alex. Brown & Sons traded foreign currencies around 1850 and was a leading currency trader in the USA. In 1880, J.M. do Espírito Santo de Silva (Banco Espírito Santo) applied for and was given permission to engage in a foreign exchange trading business.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The year 1880 is considered by at least one source to be the beginning of modern foreign exchange: the gold standard began in that year.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Prior to the First World War, there was a much more limited control of international trade. Motivated by the onset of war, countries abandoned the gold standard monetary system.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: From 1899 to 1913, holdings of countries' foreign exchange increased at an annual rate of 10.8%, while holdings of gold increased at an annual rate of 6.3% between 1903 and 1913.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: At the end of 1913, nearly half of the world's foreign exchange was conducted using the pound sterling. The number of foreign banks operating within the boundaries of London increased from 3 in 1860, to 71 in 1913. In 1902, there were just two London foreign exchange brokers. At the start of the 20th century, trades in currencies was most active in Paris, New York City and Berlin; Britain remained largely uninvolved until 1914. Between 1919 and 1922, the number of foreign exchange brokers in London increased to 17; and in 1924, there were 40 firms operating for the purposes of exchange.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: During the 1920s, the Kleinwort family were known as the leaders of the foreign exchange market, while Japheth, Montagu & Co. and Seligman still warrant recognition as significant FX traders. The trade in London began to resemble its modern manifestation. By 1928, Forex trade was integral to the financial functioning of the city. Continental exchange controls, plus other factors in Europe and Latin America, hampered any attempt at wholesale prosperity from trade for those of 1930s London.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: In 1944, the Bretton Woods Accord was signed, allowing currencies to fluctuate within a range of ±1% from the currency's par exchange rate. In Japan, the Foreign Exchange Bank Law was introduced in 1954. As a result, the Bank of Tokyo became a center of foreign exchange by September 1954. Between 1954 and 1959, Japanese law was changed to allow foreign exchange dealings in many more Western currencies.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: U.S. President, Richard Nixon is credited with ending the Bretton Woods Accord and fixed rates of exchange, eventually resulting in a free-floating currency system. After the Accord ended in 1971, the Smithsonian Agreement allowed rates to fluctuate by up to ±2%. In 1961–62, the volume of foreign operations by the U.S. Federal Reserve was relatively low. Those involved in controlling exchange rates found the boundaries of the Agreement were not realistic and so ceased this in March 1973, when sometime afterward none of the major currencies were maintained with a capacity for conversion to gold, organizations relied instead on reserves of currency. From 1970 to 1973, the volume of trading in the market increased three-fold. At some time (according to "Gandolfo" during February–March 1973) some of the markets were "split", and a two-tier currency market was subsequently introduced, with dual currency rates. This was abolished in March 1974.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Reuters introduced computer monitors during June 1973, replacing the telephones and telex used previously for trading quotes.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Due to the ultimate ineffectiveness of the Bretton Woods Accord and the European Joint Float, the forex markets were forced to close sometime during 1972 and March 1973. The largest purchase of US dollars in the history of 1976 was when the West German government achieved an almost 3 billion dollar acquisition (a figure is given as 2.75 billion in total by The Statesman: Volume 18 1974). This event indicated the impossibility of balancing of exchange rates by the measures of control used at the time, and the monetary system and the foreign exchange markets in West Germany and other countries within Europe closed for two weeks (during February and, or, March 1973. "Giersch, Paqué, & Schmieding" state closed after purchase of "7.5 million Dmarks" "Brawley" states "... Exchange markets had to be closed. When they re-opened ... March 1 " that is a large purchase occurred after the close).


title: Foreign exchange market

text: In developed nations, state control of foreign exchange trading ended in 1973 when complete floating and relatively free market conditions of modern times began. Other sources claim that the first time a currency pair was traded by U.S. retail customers was during 1982, with additional currency pairs becoming available by the next year.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: On 1 January 1981, as part of changes beginning during 1978, the People's Bank of China allowed certain domestic "enterprises" to participate in foreign exchange trading. Sometime during 1981, the South Korean government ended Forex controls and allowed free trade to occur for the first time. During 1988, the country's government accepted the IMF quota for international trade.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Intervention by European banks (especially the Bundesbank) influenced the Forex market on 27 February 1985. The greatest proportion of all trades worldwide during 1987 were within the United Kingdom (slightly over one quarter). The United States had the second highest involvement in trading.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: During 1991, Iran changed international agreements with some countries from oil-barter to foreign exchange.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The foreign exchange market is the most liquid financial market in the world. Traders include governments and central banks, commercial banks, other institutional investors and financial institutions, currency speculators, other commercial corporations, and individuals. According to the 2019 Triennial Central Bank Survey, coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements, average daily turnover was in April 2022 (compared to in 2004). Of this , was spot transactions and $5.4 trillion was traded in outright forwards, swaps, and other derivatives.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Foreign exchange is traded in an over-the-counter market where brokers/dealers negotiate directly with one another, so there is no central exchange or clearing house. The biggest geographic trading center is the United Kingdom, primarily London. In April 2022, trading in the United Kingdom accounted for 38.1% of the total, making it by far the most important center for foreign exchange trading in the world. Owing to London's dominance in the market, a particular currency's quoted price is usually the London market price. For instance, when the International Monetary Fund calculates the value of its special drawing rights every day, they use the London market prices at noon that day. Trading in the United States accounted for 19.4%, Singapore and Hong Kong account for 9.4% and 7.1%, respectively, and Japan accounted for 4.4%.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Turnover of exchange-traded foreign exchange futures and options was growing rapidly in 2004-2013, reaching in April 2013 (double the turnover recorded in April 2007). As of April 2022, exchange-traded currency derivatives represent 2% of OTC foreign exchange turnover. Foreign exchange futures contracts were introduced in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and are traded more than to most other futures contracts.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Most developed countries permit the trading of derivative products (such as futures and options on futures) on their exchanges. All these developed countries already have fully convertible capital accounts. Some governments of emerging markets do not allow foreign exchange derivative products on their exchanges because they have capital controls. The use of derivatives is growing in many emerging economies. Countries such as South Korea, South Africa, and India have established currency futures exchanges, despite having some capital controls.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Foreign exchange trading increased by 20% between April 2007 and April 2010 and has more than doubled since 2004. The increase in turnover is due to a number of factors: the growing importance of foreign exchange as an asset class, the increased trading activity of high-frequency traders, and the emergence of retail investors as an important market segment. The growth of electronic execution and the diverse selection of execution venues has lowered transaction costs, increased market liquidity, and attracted greater participation from many customer types. In particular, electronic trading via online portals has made it easier for retail traders to trade in the foreign exchange market. By 2010, retail trading was estimated to account for up to 10% of spot turnover, or $150 billion per day (see below: Retail foreign exchange traders).


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Unlike a stock market, the foreign exchange market is divided into levels of access. At the top is the interbank foreign exchange market, which is made up of the largest commercial banks and securities dealers. Within the interbank market, spreads, which are the difference between the bid and ask prices, are razor sharp and not known to players outside the inner circle. The difference between the bid and ask prices widens (for example from 0 to 1 pip to 1–2 pips for currencies such as the EUR) as you go down the levels of access. This is due to volume. If a trader can guarantee large numbers of transactions for large amounts, they can demand a smaller difference between the bid and ask price, which is referred to as a better spread. The levels of access that make up the foreign exchange market are determined by the size of the "line" (the amount of money with which they are trading). The top-tier interbank market accounts for 51% of all transactions. From there, smaller banks, followed by large multi-national corporations (which need to hedge risk and pay employees in different countries), large hedge funds, and even some of the retail market makers. According to Galati and Melvin, “Pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other institutional investors have played an increasingly important role in financial markets in general, and in FX markets in particular, since the early 2000s.” (2004) In addition, he notes, “Hedge funds have grown markedly over the 2001–2004 period in terms of both number and overall size”. Central banks also participate in the foreign exchange market to align currencies to their economic needs.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: An important part of the foreign exchange market comes from the financial activities of companies seeking foreign exchange to pay for goods or services. Commercial companies often trade fairly small amounts compared to those of banks or speculators, and their trades often have a little short-term impact on market rates. Nevertheless, trade flows are an important factor in the long-term direction of a currency's exchange rate. Some multinational corporations (MNCs) can have an unpredictable impact when very large positions are covered due to exposures that are not widely known by other market participants.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: National central banks play an important role in the foreign exchange markets. They try to control the money supply, inflation, and/or interest rates and often have official or unofficial target rates for their currencies. They can use their often substantial foreign exchange reserves to stabilize the market. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of central bank "stabilizing speculation" is doubtful because central banks do not go bankrupt if they make large losses as other traders would. There is also no convincing evidence that they actually make a profit from trading.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Foreign exchange fixing is the daily monetary exchange rate fixed by the national bank of each country. The idea is that central banks use the fixing time and exchange rate to evaluate the behavior of their currency. Fixing exchange rates reflect the real value of equilibrium in the market. Banks, dealers, and traders use fixing rates as a market trend indicator.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The mere expectation or rumor of a central bank foreign exchange intervention might be enough to stabilize the currency. However, aggressive intervention might be used several times each year in countries with a dirty float currency regime. Central banks do not always achieve their objectives. The combined resources of the market can easily overwhelm any central bank. Several scenarios of this nature were seen in the 1992–93 European Exchange Rate Mechanism collapse, and in more recent times in Asia.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Investment management firms (who typically manage large accounts on behalf of customers such as pension funds and endowments) use the foreign exchange market to facilitate transactions in foreign securities. For example, an investment manager bearing an international equity portfolio needs to purchase and sell several pairs of foreign currencies to pay for foreign securities purchases.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Some investment management firms also have more speculative specialist currency overlay operations, which manage clients' currency exposures with the aim of generating profits as well as limiting risk. While the number of this type of specialist firms is quite small, many have a large value of assets under management and can, therefore, generate large trades.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Individual retail speculative traders constitute a growing segment of this market. Currently, they participate indirectly through brokers or banks. Retail brokers, while largely controlled and regulated in the US by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and National Futures Association, have previously been subjected to periodic foreign exchange fraud. To deal with the issue, in 2010 the NFA required its members that deal in the Forex markets to register as such (i.e., Forex CTA instead of a CTA). Those NFA members that would traditionally be subject to minimum net capital requirements, FCMs and IBs, are subject to greater minimum net capital requirements if they deal in Forex. A number of the foreign exchange brokers operate from the UK under Financial Services Authority regulations where foreign exchange trading using margin is part of the wider over-the-counter derivatives trading industry that includes contracts for difference and financial spread betting.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: There are two main types of retail FX brokers offering the opportunity for speculative currency trading: "brokers" and "dealers" or "market makers". "Brokers" serve as an agent of the customer in the broader FX market, by seeking the best price in the market for a retail order and dealing on behalf of the retail customer. They charge a commission or "mark-up" in addition to the price obtained in the market. "Dealers" or "market makers", by contrast, typically act as principals in the transaction versus the retail customer, and quote a price they are willing to deal at.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Non-bank foreign exchange companies offer currency exchange and international payments to private individuals and companies. These are also known as "foreign exchange brokers" but are distinct in that they do not offer speculative trading but rather currency exchange with payments (i.e., there is usually a physical delivery of currency to a bank account).


title: Foreign exchange market

text: It is estimated that in the UK, 14% of currency transfers/payments are made via Foreign Exchange Companies. These companies' selling point is usually that they will offer better exchange rates or cheaper payments than the customer's bank. These companies differ from Money Transfer/Remittance Companies in that they generally offer higher-value services.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: about US$2 billion per day This does not compete favorably with any well developed foreign exchange market of international repute, but with the entry of online Foreign Exchange Companies the market is steadily growing. Around 25% of currency transfers/payments in India are made via non-bank Foreign Exchange Companies. Most of these companies use the USP of better exchange rates than the banks. They are regulated by FEDAI and any transaction in foreign Exchange is governed by the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Money transfer companies/remittance companies perform high-volume low-value transfers generally by economic migrants back to their home country. In 2007, the Aite Group estimated that there were $369 billion of remittances (an increase of 8% on the previous year). The four largest foreign markets (India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines) receive $95 billion. The largest and best-known provider is Western Union with 345,000 agents globally, followed by UAE Exchange. Bureaux de change or currency transfer companies provide low-value foreign exchange services for travelers. These are typically located at airports and stations or at tourist locations and allow physical notes to be exchanged from one currency to another. They access foreign exchange markets via banks or non-bank foreign exchange companies.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: There is no unified or centrally cleared market for the majority of trades, and there is very little cross-border regulation. Due to the over-the-counter (OTC) nature of currency markets, there are rather a number of interconnected marketplaces, where different currencies instruments are traded. This implies that there is not a "single" exchange rate but rather a number of different rates (prices), depending on what bank or market maker is trading, and where it is. In practice, the rates are quite close due to arbitrage. Due to London's dominance in the market, a particular currency's quoted price is usually the London market price. Major trading exchanges include Electronic Broking Services (EBS) and Thomson Reuters Dealing, while major banks also offer trading systems. A joint venture of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Reuters, called Fxmarketspace opened in 2007 and aspired but failed to the role of a central market clearing mechanism.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The main trading centers are London and New York City, though Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore are all important centers as well. Banks throughout the world participate. Currency trading happens continuously throughout the day; as the Asian trading session ends, the European session begins, followed by the North American session and then back to the Asian session.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Fluctuations in exchange rates are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as by expectations of changes in monetary flows. These are caused by changes in gross domestic product (GDP) growth, inflation (purchasing power parity theory), interest rates (interest rate parity, Domestic Fisher effect, International Fisher effect), budget and trade deficits or surpluses, large cross-border M&A deals and other macroeconomic conditions. Major news is released publicly, often on scheduled dates, so many people have access to the same news at the same time. However, large banks have an important advantage; they can see their customers' order flow.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currencies are traded against one another in pairs. Each currency pair thus constitutes an individual trading product and is traditionally noted XXXYYY or XXX/YYY, where XXX and YYY are the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currencies involved. The first currency (XXX) is the base currency that is quoted relative to the second currency (YYY), called the counter currency (or quote currency). For instance, the quotation "EURUSD (EUR/USD) 1.5465" is the price of the Euro expressed in US dollars, meaning 1 euro = 1.5465 dollars. The market convention is to quote most exchange rates against the USD with the US dollar as the base currency (e.g. USDJPY, USDCAD, USDCHF). The exceptions are the British pound (GBP), Australian dollar (AUD), the New Zealand dollar (NZD) and the euro (EUR) where the USD is the counter currency (e.g. GBPUSD, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, EURUSD).


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The factors affecting XXX will affect both XXXYYY and XXXZZZ. This causes a positive currency correlation between XXXYYY and XXXZZZ.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: On the spot market, according to the 2022 Triennial Survey, the most heavily traded bilateral currency pairs were:


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The U.S. currency was involved in 88.5% of transactions, followed by the euro (30.5%), the yen (16.7%), and sterling (12.9%) (see table). Volume percentages for all individual currencies should add up to 200%, as each transaction involves two currencies.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Trading in the euro has grown considerably since the currency's creation in January 1999, and how long the foreign exchange market will remain dollar-centered is open to debate. Until recently, trading the euro versus a non-European currency ZZZ would have usually involved two trades: EURUSD and USDZZZ. The exception to this is EURJPY, which is an established traded currency pair in the interbank spot market.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: In a fixed exchange rate regime, exchange rates are decided by the government, while a number of theories have been proposed to explain (and predict) the fluctuations in exchange rates in a floating exchange rate regime, including:


title: Foreign exchange market

text: None of the models developed so far succeed to explain exchange rates and volatility in the longer time frames. For shorter time frames (less than a few days), algorithms can be devised to predict prices. It is understood from the above models that many macroeconomic factors affect the exchange rates and in the end currency prices are a result of dual forces of supply and demand. The world's currency markets can be viewed as a huge melting pot: in a large and ever-changing mix of current events, supply and demand factors are constantly shifting, and the price of one currency in relation to another shifts accordingly. No other market encompasses (and distills) as much of what is going on in the world at any given time as foreign exchange.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Supply and demand for any given currency, and thus its value, are not influenced by any single element, but rather by several. These elements generally fall into three categories: economic factors, political conditions, and market psychology.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Economic factors include: (a) economic policy, disseminated by government agencies and central banks, (b) economic conditions, generally revealed through economic reports, and other economic indicators.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Internal, regional, and international political conditions and events can have a profound effect on currency markets.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: All exchange rates are susceptible to political instability and anticipations about the new ruling party. Political upheaval and instability can have a negative impact on a nation's economy. For example, destabilization of coalition governments in Pakistan and Thailand can negatively affect the value of their currencies. Similarly, in a country experiencing financial difficulties, the rise of a political faction that is perceived to be fiscally responsible can have the opposite effect. Also, events in one country in a region may spur positive/negative interest in a neighboring country and, in the process, affect its currency.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: A spot transaction is a two-day delivery transaction (except in the case of trades between the US dollar, Canadian dollar, Turkish lira, euro and Russian ruble, which settle the next business day), as opposed to the futures contracts, which are usually three months. This trade represents a “direct exchange” between two currencies, has the shortest time frame, involves cash rather than a contract, and interest is not included in the agreed-upon transaction. Spot trading is one of the most common types of forex trading. Often, a forex broker will charge a small fee to the client to roll-over the expiring transaction into a new identical transaction for a continuation of the trade. This roll-over fee is known as the "swap" fee.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: One way to deal with the foreign exchange risk is to engage in a forward transaction. In this transaction, money does not actually change hands until some agreed upon future date. A buyer and seller agree on an exchange rate for any date in the future, and the transaction occurs on that date, regardless of what the market rates are then. The duration of the trade can be one day, a few days, months or years. Usually the date is decided by both parties. Then the forward contract is negotiated and agreed upon by both parties.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Forex banks, ECNs, and prime brokers offer NDF contracts, which are derivatives that have no real deliver-ability. NDFs are popular for currencies with restrictions such as the Argentinian peso. In fact, a forex hedger can only hedge such risks with NDFs, as currencies such as the Argentinian peso cannot be traded on open markets like major currencies.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: The most common type of forward transaction is the foreign exchange swap. In a swap, two parties exchange currencies for a certain length of time and agree to reverse the transaction at a later date. These are not standardized contracts and are not traded through an exchange. A deposit is often required in order to hold the position open until the transaction is completed.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Futures are standardized forward contracts and are usually traded on an exchange created for this purpose. The average contract length is roughly 3 months. Futures contracts are usually inclusive of any interest amounts.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currency futures contracts are contracts specifying a standard volume of a particular currency to be exchanged on a specific settlement date. Thus the currency futures contracts are similar to forward contracts in terms of their obligation, but differ from forward contracts in the way they are traded. In addition, Futures are daily settled removing credit risk that exist in Forwards. They are commonly used by MNCs to hedge their currency positions. In addition they are traded by speculators who hope to capitalize on their expectations of exchange rate movements.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: A foreign exchange option (commonly shortened to just FX option) is a derivative where the owner has the right but not the obligation to exchange money denominated in one currency into another currency at a pre-agreed exchange rate on a specified date. The FX options market is the deepest, largest and most liquid market for options of any kind in the world.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Controversy about currency speculators and their effect on currency devaluations and national economies recurs regularly. Economists, such as Milton Friedman, have argued that speculators ultimately are a stabilizing influence on the market, and that stabilizing speculation performs the important function of providing a market for hedgers and transferring risk from those people who don't wish to bear it, to those who do. Other economists, such as Joseph Stiglitz, consider this argument to be based more on politics and a free market philosophy than on economics.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Large hedge funds and other well capitalized "position traders" are the main professional speculators. According to some economists, individual traders could act as "noise traders" and have a more destabilizing role than larger and better informed actors.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currency speculation is considered a highly suspect activity in many countries. While investment in traditional financial instruments like bonds or stocks often is considered to contribute positively to economic growth by providing capital, currency speculation does not; according to this view, it is simply gambling that often interferes with economic policy. For example, in 1992, currency speculation forced Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, to raise interest rates for a few days to 500% per annum, and later to devalue the krona. Mahathir Mohamad, one of the former Prime Ministers of Malaysia, is one well-known proponent of this view. He blamed the devaluation of the Malaysian ringgit in 1997 on George Soros and other speculators.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Gregory Millman reports on an opposing view, comparing speculators to "vigilantes" who simply help "enforce" international agreements and anticipate the effects of basic economic "laws" in order to profit. In this view, countries may develop unsustainable economic bubbles or otherwise mishandle their national economies, and foreign exchange speculators made the inevitable collapse happen sooner. A relatively quick collapse might even be preferable to continued economic mishandling, followed by an eventual, larger, collapse. Mahathir Mohamad and other critics of speculation are viewed as trying to deflect the blame from themselves for having caused the unsustainable economic conditions.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Risk aversion is a kind of trading behavior exhibited by the foreign exchange market when a potentially adverse event happens that may affect market conditions. This behavior is caused when risk averse traders liquidate their positions in risky assets and shift the funds to less risky assets due to uncertainty.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: In the context of the foreign exchange market, traders liquidate their positions in various currencies to take up positions in safe-haven currencies, such as the US dollar. Sometimes, the choice of a safe haven currency is more of a choice based on prevailing sentiments rather than one of economic statistics. An example would be the financial crisis of 2008. The value of equities across the world fell while the US dollar strengthened (see Fig.1). This happened despite the strong focus of the crisis in the US.


title: Foreign exchange market

text: Currency carry trade refers to the act of borrowing one currency that has a low interest rate in order to purchase another with a higher interest rate. A large difference in rates can be highly profitable for the trader, especially if high leverage is used. However, with all levered investments this is a double edged sword, and large exchange rate price fluctuations can suddenly swing trades into huge losses.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Jack Gleeson (born 20 May 1992) is an Irish actor who played Joffrey Baratheon on the HBO television series "Game of Thrones" (2011–2014). Following this role, Gleeson took a hiatus from acting, but has since taken part in independent theatre and the 2020 BBC miniseries "Out of Her Mind".


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Gleeson was born in Cork, Ireland, and raised in Ranelagh, Dublin, where he attended Gonzaga College. He has two older sisters, Rachel and Emma, who are also involved in Irish theatre. He attended drama classes with them when he was young, and also performed in youth theatre.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Gleeson attended Trinity College Dublin between 2010 and 2015. He studied philosophy and theology and was elected a scholar at the university in 2012. At Trinity, Gleeson was a member of DU Players, where he met his future co-founders of Collapsing Horse Theatre Company.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Gleeson began acting at the age of 8, in the Independent Theatre Workshop. His first roles were in films such as "Reign of Fire" (2002), "Batman Begins" (2005), "Shrooms" (2007), and "A Shine of Rainbows" (2009). In 2010, he appeared in a leading role in "All Good Children". The reviewer for "Variety" magazine considered Gleeson "the pic's big discovery".


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Gleeson starred as Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO series "Game of Thrones". He cited Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Commodus in "Gladiator" (2000) as an influence on his performance.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: In 2012, Gleeson indicated an intention to retire from acting to pursue an academic career once his work on "Game of Thrones" was finished. In 2014, Gleeson retired from acting after concluding his work in "Game of Thrones". In an interview, he stated that while he had previously been interested in pursuing academia, he had since "gone off that idea".


title: Jack Gleeson

text: Throughout the 2010s, Gleeson was a company member of the Dublin-based Collapsing Horse Theatre Company, of which he was also a founder and producer. He was part of the original cast in the company's first theatre production "Monster / Clock", a children's theater show which premiered in Dublin in 2012. He next appeared in the company's "lo-fi comedy" "Bears in Space" which premiered in Dublin in July 2014 and took part of the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The show was well reviewed and had revival productions in Dublin and London in 2015 and off-Broadway in New York in September 2016 as part of Origin's 1st Irish theatre festival. Collapsing Horse came to an end in November 2019.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: In 2019, Gleeson made two public appearances. In June, he was featured in the musical-comedy program AMUSICAL at the Kilkenny Cat Laughs comedy festival in Kilkenny, Ireland with comedians Eleanor Tiernan and Alison Spittle. In August, he made a surprise appearance at Over the Top Wrestling's Trinity Brawl 2 event in Dublin where he played the face, aptly called "TV's Jack Gleeson", opposite Irish wrestler J Money.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: In 2020, Gleeson returned to television in Sara Pascoe's series "Out of Her Mind", playing the ghost of Pascoe's abortion.


title: Jack Gleeson

text: On August 27, 2022, Gleeson married his longtime girlfriend Roisin O'Mahony in a ceremony in County Kerry, Ireland.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The First Council of Nicaea (; ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: This ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all Christendom. Hosius of Corduba may have presided over its deliberations. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, mandating uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed. With the creation of the creed, a precedent was established for subsequent local and regional councils of bishops (synods) to create statements of belief and canons of doctrinal orthodoxy—the intent being to define unity of beliefs for the whole of Christendom.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Derived from Greek (), "ecumenical" means "worldwide" but generally is assumed to be limited to the known inhabited Earth, and at this time in history is nearly synonymous with the Roman Empire; the earliest extant uses of the term for a council are Eusebius' "Life of Constantine" around 338, which states "he convoked an ecumenical council" (, ) and a letter in 382 to Pope Damasus I and the Latin bishops from the First Council of Constantinople.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: One purpose of the Council was to resolve disagreements arising from within the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in his relationship to the Father: in particular, whether the Son had been 'begotten' by the Father from his own being, and therefore having no beginning, or else created out of nothing, and therefore having a beginning. St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arianism comes, took the second. The Council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250–318 attendees, all but two agreed to sign the creed, and these two, along with Arius, were banished to Illyria).


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Another result of the Council was an agreement on when to celebrate Easter, the most important feast of the ecclesiastical calendar, decreed in an epistle to the Church of Alexandria in which is simply stated:We also send you the good news of the settlement concerning the holy pasch, namely that in answer to your prayers this question also has been resolved. All the brethren in the East who have hitherto followed the Jewish practice will henceforth observe the custom of the Romans and of yourselves and of all of us who from ancient times have kept Easter together with you.Historically significant as the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, the Council was the first occasion where the technical aspects of Christology were discussed. Through it a precedent was set for subsequent general councils to adopt creeds and canons. This Council is generally considered the beginning of the period of the First seven ecumenical councils in the history of Christianity.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The First Council of Nicaea, the first general council in the history of the Church, was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great upon the recommendations of a synod led by Bishop Hosius of Corduba in the Eastertide of 325, or rather convened by Hosius and supported by Constantine. This synod had been charged with investigation of the trouble brought about by the Arian controversy in the Greek-speaking east. To most bishops, the teachings of Arius were heretical and dangerous to the salvation of souls. In the summer of 325, the bishops of all provinces were summoned to Nicaea, a place reasonably accessible to many delegates. According to Warren H. Carroll, in the Council of Nicaea, "the Church had taken her first great step to define revealed doctrine more precisely in response to a challenge from a heretical theology."


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Constantine had invited all 1,800 bishops of the Christian church within the Roman Empire (about 1,000 in the East and 800 in the West), but a smaller and unknown number attended. Eusebius of Caesarea counted more than 250, Athanasius of Alexandria counted 318, and Eustathius of Antioch estimated "about 270" (all three were present at the Council). Later, Socrates Scholasticus recorded more than 300, and Evagrius, Hilary of Poitiers, Jerome, Dionysius Exiguus, and Rufinus each recorded 318. This number 318 is preserved in the liturgies of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church. For some, the number is suspicious as it is the number of Abraham's servants in Genesis 14:14, and there was a polemical reason for the Nicene Fathers to imply that they were servants of Abraham, the father of the Faith.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Delegates came from every region of the Roman Empire and from the Christian churches extant within the Sassanid Empire. The participating bishops were given free travel to and from their episcopal sees to the Council, as well as lodging. These bishops did not travel alone; each one had permission to bring with him two priests and three deacons, so the total number of attendees could have been above 1,800. Eusebius speaks of an almost innumerable host of accompanying priests, deacons, and acolytes. A Syriac manuscript lists the names of the eastern bishops which included 22 from Coele-Syria, 19 from Syria Palaestina, 10 from Phoenicia, 6 from Arabia, others from Assyria, Mesopotamia, Persia, etc., but the distinction of bishops from presbyters had not yet formed.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The Eastern bishops formed the great majority. Of these, the first rank was held by the patriarchs: Alexander of Alexandria and Eustathius of Antioch. Many of the assembled fathers—for instance, Paphnutius of Thebes, Potamon of Heraclea, and Paul of Neocaesarea—had stood forth as confessors of the faith and came to the Council with the marks of persecution on their faces. This position is supported by patristic scholar Timothy Barnes in his book "Constantine and Eusebius". Historically, the influence of these marred confessors has been seen as substantial, but recent scholarship has called this into question.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Other remarkable attendees were Eusebius of Nicomedia; Eusebius of Caesarea, the purported first church historian; circumstances suggest that Nicholas of Myra attended (his life was the seed of the Santa Claus legends); Macarius of Jerusalem, later a staunch defender of Athanasius; Aristaces of Armenia (son of Saint Gregory the Illuminator); Leontius of Caesarea; Jacob of Nisibis, a former hermit; Hypatius of Gangra; Protogenes of Sardica; Melitius of Sebastopolis; Achilleus of Larissa (considered the Athanasius of Thessaly); and Spyridon of Trimythous, who even while a bishop made his living as a shepherd. From foreign places came John, bishop of Persia and India, Theophilus, a Gothic bishop, and Stratophilus, bishop of Pitiunt in Georgia. The Latin-speaking provinces sent at least five representatives: Marcus of Calabria from Italia, Cecilian of Carthage from Africa, Hosius of Córdoba from Hispania, Nicasius of Die from Gaul, and Domnus of Sirmium from the province of the Danube. Athanasius of Alexandria, a young deacon and companion of Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, was among the assistants. Athanasius eventually spent most of his life battling against Arianism. Alexander of Constantinople, then a presbyter, was also present as representative of his aged bishop.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The supporters of Arius included Secundus of Ptolemais, Theonus of Marmarica, Zephyrius (or Zopyrus), and Dathes, all of whom hailed from the Libyan Pentapolis. Other supporters included Eusebius of Nicomedia, , Actius of Lydda, Menophantus of Ephesus, and Theognus of Nicaea.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: "Resplendent in purple and gold, Constantine made a ceremonial entrance at the opening of the Council, probably in early June, but respectfully seated the bishops ahead of himself." As Eusebius describes, Constantine "himself proceeded through the midst of the assembly, like some heavenly messenger of God, clothed in raiment which glittered as it were with rays of light, reflecting the glowing radiance of a purple robe, and adorned with the brilliant splendor of gold and precious stones." The emperor was present as an overseer and presider but did not cast any official vote. Constantine organized the Council along the lines of the Roman Senate. Hosius of Cordoba may have presided over its deliberations; he was probably one of the papal legates. Eusebius of Nicomedia probably gave the welcoming address.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The Council was formally opened 20 May 325, in the central structure of the imperial palace at Nicaea, with preliminary discussions of the Arian question. Emperor Constantine arrived nearly a month later on 14 June. In these discussions, some dominant figures were Arius, with several adherents. "Some 22 of the bishops at the Council, led by Eusebius of Nicomedia, came as supporters of Arius. But when some of the more shocking passages from his writings were read, they were almost universally seen as blasphemous." Bishops Theognis of Nicaea and Maris of Chalcedon were among the initial supporters of Arius.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Eusebius of Caesarea called to mind the baptismal creed of his own diocese at Caesarea at Palestine, as a form of reconciliation. The majority of the bishops agreed. For some time, scholars thought that the original Nicene Creed was based on this statement of Eusebius. Today, most scholars think that the creed is derived from the baptismal creed of Jerusalem, as Hans Lietzmann proposes.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The orthodox bishops won approval of every one of their proposals regarding the creed. After being in session for an entire month, the Council promulgated on 19 June the original Nicene Creed. This profession of faith was adopted by all the bishops "but two from Libya who had been closely associated with Arius from the beginning". No explicit historical record of their dissent actually exists; the signatures of these bishops are simply absent from the creed. The sessions continued to deal with minor matters until 25 August.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The Arian controversy arose in Alexandria when the newly reinstated presbyter Arius began to spread doctrinal views that were contrary to those of his bishop, Alexander of Alexandria. The disputed issues centered on the natures and relationship of God (the Father) and the Son of God (Jesus). The disagreements sprang from different ideas about the Godhead and what it meant for Jesus to be God's Son. Alexander maintained that the Son was divine in just the same sense that the Father is, coeternal with the Father, else he could not be a true Son.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Arius emphasized the supremacy and uniqueness of God the Father, meaning that the Father alone is almighty and infinite, and that therefore the Father's divinity must be greater than the Son's. Arius taught that the Son had a beginning and that he possessed neither the eternity nor the true divinity of the Father, but was rather made "God" only by the Father's permission and power, and that the Son was rather the first and the most perfect of God's creatures.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The Arian discussions and debates at the Council extended from about 20 May through about 19 June. According to legendary accounts, debate became so heated that at one point, Arius was struck in the face by Nicholas of Myra, who would later be canonized. This account is almost certainly apocryphal, as Arius would not have been present in the council chamber because he was not a bishop.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Much of the debate hinged on the difference between being "born" or "created" and being "begotten". Arians saw these as essentially the same; followers of Alexander did not. The exact meaning of many of the words used in the debates at Nicaea were still unclear to speakers of other languages. Greek words like "essence" (), "substance" (), "nature" (), "person" () bore a variety of meanings drawn from pre-Christian philosophers, which could not but entail misunderstandings until they were cleared up. The word , in particular, was initially disliked by many bishops because of its associations with Gnostics (who used it in their theology), and because their beliefs had been condemned at the 264–268 Synods of Antioch.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: According to surviving accounts, the presbyter Arius argued for the supremacy of God the Father, and maintained that the Son of God was created as an act of the Father's will, and therefore that the Son was a creature made by God, begotten directly of the infinite eternal God. Arius's argument was that the Son was God's first production, before all ages, the position being that the Son had a beginning, and that only the Father has no beginning. Arius argued that everything else was created through the Son. Thus, said the Arians, only the Son was directly created and begotten of God; and therefore there was a time that he had no existence. Arius believed that the Son of God was capable of his own free will of right and wrong, and that "were He in the truest sense a son, He must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when He was not, and hence He was a finite being", and that he was under God the Father. Therefore, Arius insisted that the Father's divinity was greater than the Son's. The Arians appealed to Scripture, quoting biblical statements such as "the Father is greater than I" (John 14:28), and also that the Son is "firstborn of all creation" ().


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The opposing view stemmed from the idea that begetting the Son is itself in the nature of the Father, which is eternal. Thus, the Father was always a Father, and both Father and Son existed always together, eternally, coequally and consubstantially. The anti-Arian argument thus stated that the Logos was "eternally begotten", therefore with no beginning. Those in opposition to Arius believed that to follow the Arian view destroyed the unity of the Godhead and made the Son unequal to the Father. They insisted that such a view was in contravention of such Scriptures as "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) and "the Word was God" (John 1:1), as such verses were interpreted. They declared, as did Athanasius, that the Son had no beginning but had an "eternal derivation" from the Father and therefore was coeternal with him and equal to God in all aspects.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The Council declared that the Son was true God, coeternal with the Father and begotten from his same substance, arguing that such a doctrine best codified the Scriptural presentation of the Son as well as traditional Christian belief about him handed down from the Apostles. This belief was expressed by the bishops in the Creed of Nicaea, which would form the basis of what has since been known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: One of the projects undertaken by the Council was the creation of a creed, a declaration and summary of the Christian faith. Several creeds were already in existence; many creeds were acceptable to the members of the Council, including Arius. From earliest times, various creeds served as a means of identification for Christians, as a means of inclusion and recognition, especially at baptism. In Rome, for example, the Apostles' Creed was popular, especially for use in Lent and the Easter season. In the Council of Nicaea, one specific creed was used to define the Church's faith clearly, to include those who professed it, and to exclude those who did not.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Some distinctive elements in the Nicene Creed, perhaps from the hand of Hosius of Cordova, were added, some specifically to counter the Arian point of view.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: At the end of the creed came a list of anathemas, designed to repudiate explicitly the Arians' stated claims.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Thus, instead of a baptismal creed acceptable to both the Arians and their opponents, the Council promulgated one which was clearly opposed to Arianism and incompatible with the distinctive core of their beliefs. The text of this profession of faith is preserved in a letter of Eusebius to his congregation, in Athanasius' works, and elsewhere. Although the most vocal of anti-Arians, the Homoousians (from the Koine Greek word translated as "of same substance" which was condemned at the Council of Antioch in 264–268) were in the minority, the creed was accepted by the Council.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: Bishop Hosius of Cordova, one of the firm Homoousians, may well have helped bring the Council to consensus. At the time of the Council, he was the confidant of the emperor in all Church matters. Hosius stands at the head of the lists of bishops, and Athanasius ascribes to him the actual formulation of the creed. Leaders such as Eustathius of Antioch, Alexander of Alexandria, Athanasius, and Marcellus of Ancyra all adhered to the Homoousian position.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: In spite of his sympathy for Arius, Eusebius of Caesarea adhered to the decisions of the Council, accepting the entire creed. The initial number of bishops supporting Arius was small. After a month of discussion, on 19 June, there were only two left: Theonas of Marmarica in Libya and Secundus of Ptolemais. Maris of Chalcedon, who initially supported Arianism, agreed to the whole creed. Similarly, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theognis of Nice also agreed, except for certain statements.


title: First Council of Nicaea

text: The emperor carried out his earlier statement: everybody who refused to endorse the creed would be exiled. Arius, Theonas, and Secundus refused to adhere to the creed and were thus exiled to Illyria, in addition to being excommunicated. The works of Arius were ordered to be confiscated and consigned to the flames, while his supporters were considered as "enemies of Christianity." Nevertheless, the controversy continued in various parts of the empire.