From the Canon Precentor: Ecumenism and the Nicene Creed

6 Years of the Original Creed at Saint John’s

In 1994, the General Convention of The Episcopal Church passed a resolution reaffirming its intention to, “remove the words ‘and the Son’ from the third paragraph of the Nicene Creed at the next revision of the Book of Common Prayer.” This was in response to decades of dialogue between Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The original version of the Nicene Creed does not include the phrase “and the Son” – later called the Filioque* , due to its Latin origins – in the third clause. It reads, as it is recited at Saint John’s: “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from Father…” Composed in the fourth century by bishops from Africa, Europe, and Asia Minor, the Nicene Creed is the Church’s definitive summary of Trinitarian faith. According to Dr. Ruth Meyers, Christians in Toledo, Spain, responding to a local controversy regarding the equality of God the Son with God the Father encouraged them to add “…and the Son..” to the first sentence of the Creed’s third clause.**

This regional decision happened in the West and has never been recognized by the Eastern Orthodox churches and has thus been a significant barrier to an eventual reunion between East and West. When living in baptismal union with other Christians, it is scandalous to unilaterally add and subtract the sacred words of the Church’s faith. Anglicans tend to approach ecumenical dialogue with an eye toward the era called the “undivided church”, the ten centuries between Jesus’s ascension and the Great Schism of 1054 when Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholics officially split from one another. While the Nicene Creed and its Toledo Addition were both articulated before the Great Schism, the Creed’s original composition holds more weight because its universal – or catholic – in nature than era- and region-specific editorial liberties.

The strong Name of the Trinity is spoken over us in the waters and is thus the heartbeat of Christian worship and prayer. Just as God the Son pours himself out unreservedly to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, the other Two Persons of the Trinity do so to God the Son, and so on. When we begin our liturgies invoking the Trinity, we are made conscious of the truth at the center of reality: God is constantly and infinitely offering God’s self to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and it is in this dance between the Three Persons that we and the whole creation are held and loved. When we recite the Creed at the Sunday morning liturgies or sing the paraphrase of it I wrote at The Wilderness, God is immersing us in this dizzying expression of Divine Love.

Six years ago, on the First Sunday in Lent, Saint John’s Cathedral transitioned from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer translation of the Nicene Creed to the one provided by Enriching Our Worship 1, an approved supplement to the Prayer Book. Those coming from other Episcopal parishes or churches like us with a Western Catholic patrimony may experience this translation of the Creed as a “change” when it is actually a reversion. This reversion positions the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion to repair broader breaches of unity with the Eastern Orthodox churches. In 2003, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation made the following recommendation to Roman Catholic bishops regarding the Filioque: “..that our Churches commit themselves to a new and earnest dialogue con­cerning the origin and person of the Holy Spirit…” and that “Orthodox and Catholics refrain from labeling as heretical the traditions of the other side on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit”***. Their judgments in these matters regarding humility around God the Holy Spirit is the posture each of us aspires toward when discussing the great mysteries of Christian faith and life.

While the Apostles’ Creed is the creed traditionally associated with Holy Baptism, the Nicene Creed is traditionally paired with the Holy Eucharist. Our celebrations of our Lord’s Real Presence in the bread and wine, in his Word proclaimed, and in the baptized assembly orient us to the God who cherishes and treasures us beyond measure in Christ. And when we recite or sing the Nicene Creed, we are saying, “God, you’re here; we’re here; we celebrate you as Trinity.” As we offer ourselves to this sacred mystery, we will become the very Trinity we so faithfully profess.

— Broderick

Notes

* A friend in seminary once jokingly asked a few classmates if we “Feel-y okay about the Filioque”, a very funny theological quip I’ll never forget.
** Church Publishing Incorporated. (1998). Notes. In Enriching Our Worship 1: Morning and Evening Prayer, The Great Litany, The Holy Eucharist(pp. 74–77). essay.
***  The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?: An Agreed Statement. (2003, October 25). Washington, D.C.