Nicene Creed at 1700: The Christian Profession of Faith \u201cI believe in one God\u2026\u201d \u2014 just a few words that, for two thousand years, have shaped the faith of billions of people. But what does it really mean to recite the Creed? And how did it begin? The Creed Christians recite every Sunday is not a random text. It was forged in the life of the first Christian communities and stood at the center of the earliest disputes about the faith. By the second century, those preparing for baptism were already professing a simple Trinitarian formula: \u201cI believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.\u201d Here in Rome, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Giulio Maspero \u2014 curator of the exhibition \u201cLight from Light: Nicaea 1700 Years Later\u201d \u2014 explains the origins of this symbol of faith. \u201cThe Apostles\u2019 Creed is Roman in origin. In the early Church, every local church had its own creed: there was one in Caesarea, one in Alexandria, and so on\u2026 But over time, depending on the history and the sensitivity of each local church, certain elements were added or especially emphasized.\u201d For Rome, simplicity was essential. Their Creed is relatively short, while \u201cThe Greek world, on the other hand, is more intellectual, more rich in its expression.\u201d\u201c… These differences between the local churches could create tensions. So while the Apostles\u2019 Creed worked very well in Rome, tensions arose between the way the faith was handed on in Alexandria and the way it was done in Caesarea. From there a small conflict emerged, which led to the Creed of Nicaea, formulated to heal this conflict, and later to the Creed of Constantinople. That is the creed we still recite at Mass on Sundays\u2014at least in the Latin tradition: the Nicene Creed, enriched with further elements, especially concerning the Holy Spirit.\u201d The Council of Nicaea, held in 325 A.D. in what is now modern-day Turkey, was the first ecumenical council of Christianity. There the bishops gathered to define, in one solemn profession, what Christians believe \u2014 the prayer known today as the Creed. But its roots reach back to Rome. Tradition holds that in 324, on the eve of the Council, the Nicene faith was first proclaimed in Rome as part of the Church\u2019s preparation for the gathering. That proclamation is remembered in the ancient chapel beneath the Basilica of San Martino ai Monti, where a medieval fresco commemorates the Council of Nicaea, the proclamation of the Creed, and the Church\u2019s victory over Arianism, reaffirming the full divinity of Christ. Built over an early Christian house-church and dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, the basilica has been closely connected to the Roman presbyters who defended the Nicene faith through the turbulent centuries that followed. Fr. Maspero explains that the council\u2019s central teaching is that the Son is homoousios, one with the Father. \u201cThe meaning of this term cannot be separated from the reference to the Father. It\u2019s not just \u2018being the same thing\u2019 in a generic way, as you might say of a chocolate bar: if you break off a piece, philosophically it\u2019s of the same substance as the rest. \u201cBut here it\u2019s not about parts. The Father is Father, and so when the Father gives being to the Son, precisely because he is Father, he doesn\u2019t give him just something \u2013 he gives him his whole self. This means that behind this expression, which is at the heart of the Creed, \u2018consubstantial with the Father,\u2019 there is the reality of a gift.\u201d In 381, at Constantinople, the Creed was expanded, giving rise to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed still used in the liturgy today. It is not a theological treatise, but a profession of faith set against doctrinal deviations. Fr. Maspero continues: \u201cOnce they had, so to speak, resolved the question of the relationship between the Father and the Son, the question of the Holy Spirit arose. Because a son always has the same nature as the father: a horse begets a horse, a man begets a man, so God begets God.\u201d Still, the Spirit is not begotten, \u201cso he is not the Son. Scripture is very clear on this. So who is the Spirit, then? In a certain sense, some heretics had begun to make the Holy Spirit play the role that Arius had once assigned to the Son: a kind of intermediary between God and the world. At Constantinople in 381, thanks above all to the Cappadocian Fathers \u2013 Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus \u2013 the Church was able to state clearly that the Holy Spirit is God: he is not created, he is of the same reality, but not in the sense of being begotten. We say that he \u2018proceeds,\u2019 that he has his origin from.\u201d In the Middle Ages, the Creed underwent further development with the addition of the Filioque \u2014 \u201cand from the Son\u201d \u2014 a Western clarification about the Holy Spirit that would later contribute to the Great Schism of 1054. Fr. Maspero explains the linguistic roots of the issue: \u201cGreek has the definite article; Latin doesn\u2019t. It may sound like a small detail, but one of the first ways Greek theology expressed that the Son is God but not the Father was precisely this: they placed the definite article on theos \u2014 on the word \u2018God\u2019 \u2014 when referring to the Father, and left it out when referring to the Son.\u201d These differences are tied to language and tradition. \u201cTo make it clear in the Latin world that the Son is truly God, they stressed his role in the procession of the Holy Spirit.Up to a certain point \u2014 let\u2019s say until the ninth century \u2014 this was not really a problem. The Greek Fathers knew that the Latins expressed it this way, and they were in full communion. All of the first seven ecumenical councils were aware of this difference, which was not a difference in substance, but in expression.\u201d However, this co-existence did not last forever, as \u201cat a certain point the Franks \u2013 Charlemagne and his theologians \u2013 partly for political reasons and partly out of ignorance, because Greek and Latin were no longer known at the respective imperial courts, began to think that the Greeks had removed the Filioque.\u201d This misunderstanding was considered \u201cabsurd, because to use Filioque in Greek \u2013 to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son \u2013 would be a grave heresy. It would mean that the Spirit comes from two different principles, which nobody has ever intended to say.\u201d Ultimately, Fr. Maspero explains, \u201cit\u2019s a deeply linguistic problem, even though the Latins did have their own reasons for using the formula, since in the Latin language and tradition it helped to highlight the Son\u2019s role.\u201d Ilaria Vigorelli, co-curator of \u201cLight from Light,\u201d reflects on the meaning of Nicaea, which she understands to be a response to these anxieties. \u201cThe faith of the Fathers was the faith of those who discovered that God does not exist without the Son \u2014 that God is Father, He doesn\u2019t just act as a father. And this being originally, from the very beginning, Father seemed to us the key for speaking to contemporary men and women about hope, about boldness, about the possibility of forgiveness. Precisely because the Father is the One who gives life, and always gives life \u2014 He gives only life.\u201d Vigorelli notes \u201cLight from Light means that God never stops illuminating the world; God never ceases to give Himself to humanity, even when humanity ignores Him, rejects Him, or keeps its distance. And yet this light is not scattered, it does not grow dim, precisely because the Son is Light from Light and has the same capital \u2018L\u2019 as the Father.\u201d For many, the Creed is a formula repeated automatically. Yet it remains a performative act: saying \u201cI believe\u201d is a lready an act of faith. In a secularized world, it continues to stand as a counterweight to relativism: \u201cIt\u2019s not my truth \u2014 it\u2019s the Truth that comes before me.\u201d Adapted by Jacob Stein. Produced by Alexey Gotovskiy; Camera by Sergio Natoli; Video edited by Giada D\u2019Ottavi Receive the most important news from EWTN Vatican via WhatsApp. It has become increasingly difficult to see Catholic news on social media. Subscribe to our free channel today EWTN Vatican on WhatsApp Giada D\u2019Ottavi Would you like to receive the latest updates on the Pope and the Vatican Receive articles and updates from our EWTN Newsletter. More news related to this article Jubilee of Youth: Meet the brave Catholic communicators who are telling their stories Report: Nicaragua closes Vatican embassy in Managua, Nicaraguan embassy to Holy See World Day of the Poor 2024 These are the celebrations that Pope Francis will preside over in January \u201cCaminos Lebanon\u201d: A Pilgrimage with Saints Through Lebanon\u2019s Sacred Trails Head doctor for Athletico Madrid Football Club calls Pope Francis a \u2018very stubborn patient\u2019<\/p>\n