– ———-

The Nicene (or Niceano-Constantinopolitan) Creed is one of the primary confessions of faith in the Christian church. It was written to address perhaps the most serious challenge the church faced in its first few centuries: the Arian controversy.

Arianism taught that Jesus Christ was not God at all, but was created by God; not an ordinary human, but nevertheless, not divine. This was in opposition to the orthodox teaching that Jesus Christ IS God. The church was split over the doctrine, and the very first Ecumenical Council (a council representing the entire church) was called in 325 in Nicea to come to a consensus around what the church believed and taught about Jesus. 318 bishops attended the Council and ultimately decided that Jesus was indeed “the Son of God, begotten of the Father, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father,” as they wrote in what became the Creed of Nicea.

Though the First Council of Nicea came to its decision, the Arian controversy didn’t go away. Arian and orthodox sections of the church continued to fight, deposing and replacing each other, and causing general chaos in the church. In 381, another Ecumenical Council was called in 381 and met in Constantinople to once again deal with the Arian controversy. This Council also dealt with questions around the Holy Spirit that remained unanswered (the Creed of Nicea only said, “And we believe in the Holy Spirit”). While it’s not exactly clear how it came about, by the Fourth Ecumenical Council held in 451 CE in Chalcedon, it was believed that the council in Constantinople had produced a revision of the 325 Creed of Nicea that we now know as the Niceano-Constantinopolian (because it came from both Nicea and Constantinople) Creed.

The creeds that came out of Nicea and Constantinople were vitally important to the church. The Third Ecumenical Council, held in Ephesus in 431 not only affirmed the creed, but stated “it is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different faith as a rival to that established by the Holy Fathers with the Holy Spirit in Nicea”. The Nicene Creed is the only Creed affirmed by both Western and Eastern churches–Roman Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist–and is considered THE unifying confession of the church.

Which is why it was a BIG deal when someone changed the words.

The relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as the Holy Trinity was an intense debate in the early church; understandable, since the church was young and hadn’t figured out how to express and describe the deeply complex and complicated “thing” that is the Trinity (they even had to invent new words to do it!). The Nicene Creed said, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” But there already had been and still was lively debate and discussion about this relationship between the Holy Spirit and the rest of the Trinity, with some talking about the Holy Spirit coming from the Father through the Son, or Father and the Son, or from the Father sent by the Son.

Sometime in the sixth century CE, though not officially, Latin Christians in the Western church started saying in the creed that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father AND FROM THE SON (“filioque”), who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.” Theologians in the Eastern church opposed this addition on two grounds: the first, that it (in their view) changed the theology around the Holy Spirit; and second, that it changed the words of the creed in violation of the laws set in the Ecumenical Council that prohibited changing it.

Truthfully, the controversy was probably a linguistic matter. The Greek and Latin for “proceeds” used in the Nicene Creed (the Creed was originally written in Greek) don’t mean exactly the same thing. It’s been argued that the Latin addition of “and from the Son” was to help clarify, not change, the theology of the Holy Spirit.

But, as always seems to happen, the “filioque” controversy became about more than just theology. Tension had been growing between the Eastern and Western churches for centuries, motivated by political factors as much as theological ones. In the eleventh century CE the Creed with “filioque” added was officially included in the Latin liturgy. The West and East traded barbs back and forth, attacking each other theologically, politically, and sometimes physically. It all came to a head when, in 1054 CE, the Pope of the Catholic church excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, the “first among equals” of the Orthodox churches. In response, the Patriarch excommunicated those who had delivered his excommunication. While bishops had excommunicated each other before, and at the time, it was assumed things would blow over, this event traditionally marks the Great Schism in Christianity of East from West.

While the Catholic and Orthodox churches rescinded their mutual excommunications of 1054 in 1965 (after 900 years!), they did not reunify. There are still major differences to be addressed before Orthodox and Catholic churches (and, by extension, Protestant churches) could be one church again. One of those major differences is the lingering anger over the insertion of “and from the Son” into the Nicene Creed.

The Lutheran churches, being descended from the Roman Catholic church, inherited the use of the Nicene Creed with “and from the Son” as part of it, and it has always been printed that way in our books and hymnals.

Since 1965 though, when the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches began making real and substantial strives toward peace and unity, many churches have been reevaluating their use of the Creed. The Anglican churches urged for the removal of the “filioque” clause from their printed versions of the Creed since the 1970s, and our Episcopalian siblings here in the United States have stated their intent to remove it when they next revise their Book of Common Prayer (whenever that is). Some Methodist conferences advise removing the clause. The World Council of Churches recommends its removal.

In our own ELCA, a statement issued by the Lutheran-Orthodox Dialogue in the United States recommended removing the “filioque” from the Nicene Creed in our worship texts.

While a number of major Western traditions have agreed to or recommend to remove the clause and restore the text of the Creed as written in 381 and affirmed in 451, movement has been slow. Understandably, traditions that have used the “filioque” for hundreds or even a thousand years aren’t willing to just drop it overnight. Still, the movement is gaining traction, and who knows? In the next century, we may see churches start officially removing it from their liturgical texts.

When the ELCA published “Evangelical Lutheran Worship” in 2006, it printed the Nicene Creed with “and the Son” still included. However, it marked the clause with an asterisk, and the footnote says, “Or, ‘who proceeds from the Father.’ The phrase ‘and the Son’ is a later addition to the creed.”

For this reason, whenever we print the Nicene Creed at Bethlehem, the phrase “and the Son” is printed in brackets to indicate that there is still controversy over its inclusion.

Personally? When I say the Nicene Creed, I omit the phrase (some may notice this on Sunday mornings when that creed is used). My experience with an Eastern Orthodox seminary student made me realize just how important this controversy is to the Eastern churches. So out of respect for them, and a hope for a greater unity in the future, I take the ELCA’s recommendation not to include it. But I don’t expect or mandate anyone else to do the same. It’s up to each person whether or not they want to say the Nicene Creed with the “filioque”.

— Pastor Ken Ranos

Previous Columns:

Ask the Pastor, Nov. 2020 (Heaven and the Resurrection)

Ask the Pastor, Dec. 2020 (Faith and Belief)

Ask the Pastor, May 2021 (The Gnostics)