The Creed

The faith of the whole Church in a few lines, confessed, not composed, at every Liturgy.

The Creed, the Symbol of Faith, is the concise confession of what the Orthodox Church believes, recited by the faithful at every Divine Liturgy. It was set forth by the first two Ecumenical Councils, at Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381, to guard the apostolic faith against distortion, and it has been prayed unchanged ever since.

It is called a Symbol not in the modern sense but in the ancient: a token by which believers recognise one another, a boundary that marks what is inside the faith and what is not. Line by line it confesses one God the Father, the Son “of one essence with the Father,” the Holy Spirit “the Lord and Giver of life,” the one Church, one baptism, and the resurrection of the dead.

The Orthodox Church confesses the Creed exactly as the councils gave it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Holy Spirit. To say the Creed is not to offer one's private opinion but to stand within the faith of the whole Church across every age, to say, with the martyrs and the Fathers, we believe.

Said at every Liturgy

The Symbol of Faith

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages; Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made.

Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried.

And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father.

And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the prophets.

In one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.

I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come. Amen.

Hapgood, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church (1906) · Public domain · lightly modernized by Orthros

“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”

The Nicene Creed, opening (public domain)

In Orthros

Orthros keeps the Creed in its twelve articles, each a boundary stone, with catechesis on what each confesses, free to read, each with its source shown.