Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed is a creed that summarizes the orthodox faith of the Christian Church and is used in the liturgy of most Christian Churches.
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.
The Creed
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the substance of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.
Who for us humanity and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, became human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. By whom He took body, soul, and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and not in semblance.
He suffered, was crucified, was buried, rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven with the same body, [and] sat at the right hand of the Father.
He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father, to judge the living and the dead; of His kingdom there is no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, the prophets, and the Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and lived in the saints.
We believe also in only One, Universal, Apostolic, and [Holy] Church; in one baptism with repentance for the remission and forgiveness of sins; and in the resurrection of the dead, in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, in the Kingdom of Heaven and in the everlasting life.