Catechesis · Inquirer
What We Confess
Catechesis · Inquirer
What We Confess
The Nicene Creed is the Church's compact statement of everything she believes about God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and about what God has done for our salvation. It has been…
Question
What is the Nicene Creed?
The Nicene Creed is the Church's compact statement of everything she believes about God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — and about what God has done for our salvation. It has been recited at every Divine Liturgy since the sixth century. When you learn the Creed, you are receiving the map of the whole landscape we are about to walk through.
The Creed is not a list of propositions to agree with. It is a confession — an act of the whole person. The word *Credo* comes from the Latin for "I give my heart." To confess the Creed is to orient yourself toward God in every dimension of your being.
The Creed
Article by article
The Creed has twelve articles. They are not twelve separate topics — they are twelve movements of one continuous confession. Together they describe: who God is, what He did in history, how He remains present in the Church, and where all things are going.
Articles 1–3: The Trinity — Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Articles 4–8: what the Son did — Incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again. Articles 9–12: the Church, baptism, resurrection of the dead, and eternal life.
This faith is the faith of the Apostles. This faith has established the inhabited world. This faith is the faith of the Orthodox.
These words are sung at the Sunday Matins after a bishop has confessed the faith. They are not triumphalism. They are a reminder that what the Church confesses is not her own invention but the deposit received from the apostles, preserved through every century of controversy.
The Synodikon of Orthodoxy
First Sunday of Great Lent · since 843 AD
Holy Scripture
"I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day."
1 Corinthians 15:3–4
"Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter."
2 Thessalonians 2:15
The path ahead
You have the map. Now walk it.
The Creed in history
How the Church arrived at what it confesses
The Nicene Creed was not written in a committee room as a neat summary of the faith. It was forged in controversy. Arius taught that the Son was the first and greatest of God's creatures — not truly God. The Council of Nicaea (325) answered him with a single word: *homoousios* — of the same essence as the Father. That word changed everything.