The Nicene Creed - Part 1
This month I begin a new series of monthly articles for the parish magazine. In the past, I have looked at the letters of the New Testament and the Lord’s Prayer. Now my attention turns to the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that we recite every Sunday during the Eucharist. Clearly the Creed is important, as it sets out what we as Christians believe. But how often (if ever) do we stop to actually consider what it is we are saying, what the words mean, and why they are important? It will be my aim to do this in this series of articles, as we examine the Creed section by section.
In this first article, I want to set the scene by considering why we have a Creed in the first place. Who wrote it, and when? Who decided what should be in it? Why do we recite it during the Eucharist?
In the early days of the Church, there was a lot of debate and discussion about what Christians should believe. This was only natural, since the whole idea of Christianity was very new, and things were developing quickly. Different groups or regions had their own particular versions of what they believed. If this continued, it would have led to chaos, and many divisions. So, an officially recognised statement of what Christians believed was needed. For this reason, the First Council of Nicaea was held in the year 325. This was a meeting of bishops from across the Roman Empire, held in the city of Nicaea, which is now in modern-day Turkey. One of the matters the council had to decided was whether Jesus is actually divine, one with God the Father, or just a very good human being. This is known as the Arian controversy after the priest Arius, who denied that Jesus was divine. The council decided that Jesus was “of one substance with the Father”. What this means and why it is important we shall discuss when we come to that section in a future article!
This statement was included in what became known as the Nicene Creed (after Nicaea where it was written), along with other things which they agreed Christians should believe. The creed we use today is actually an amended version of the one drawn up in 325. At a later Council, held in the city of Constantinople in 381, it was agreed that the Holy Spirit is also divine, and the section stating (about the Spirit) “who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified” was added, as well as the final section which begins “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church…” So, the version we use today is technically the “Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed”, reflecting the two places where it was compiled. However, that is rather a mouthful, so we tend just to use “Nicene Creed” today!
It might be worth saying that the Nicene Creed is not the first Christian creed ever to be written. You may have heard of the Apostles’ Creed, which is used in the Church in Wales green prayer book at morning and evening prayer. This is much earlier (supposedly from the time of the apostles), was not so universally accepted as the Nicene Creed came to be, and is much shorter. It was often used at baptisms, where new converts had to declare their faith before they could be baptised.
The reason why we have the Creed during the Eucharist is this. The church community in Antioch thought that a later council had departed from the teachings of Nicaea. So, in 473 they started reciting the Nicene Creed in every service, as though to make a point. This gradually spread, though it wasn’t adopted in Rome until 1014. Its place in the liturgy today, after the readings and the sermon, forms the people’s response to what they have heard, reminding ourselves, and declaring to everyone who may care to listen, what we believe.
Fr Richard Green
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