Christian Creeds

The Nicene Creed is a Christian statement of faith that is accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and major Protestant churches.

Until the early 20th century, it was universally assumed that the "Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed" was an enlarged version of the Creed of Nicaea, the original having been promulgated at the Council of Nicaea ( AD 325). It had also been assumed that this version had been created at the Council of Constantinople (AD 381) for the purpose of dealing with heresies about the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit that had arisen since the Council of Nicaea.

New discoveries in the 20th century, however, indicated that the situation was more complex, and the actual development of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed has been the result of scholarly dispute. It was probably issued by the Council of Constantinople, a notion that was first stated at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. It could have been based upon an existing baptismal creed, but it was an independent document and not an enlargement of the Creed of Nicaea.

The addition of the clause, “and the son,” inserted after the words “the Holy Spirit,…who proceeds from the Father,” was gradually introduced in the beginning in the 6th century as part of the creed in the Western church. It has been retained by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant churches, but the Eastern churches have rejected it, considering it a theological error.

Versions of the Creed