Dear Good Samaritans,

Have you found yourself getting tripped up over some of the words in the Nicene Creed since Lent started? If you have you are not alone. It is a piece of the liturgy that many of us have come to memorize. It’s also problematic. Look at these sections from two versions of the Creed taken from the Book of Common Prayer and from Enriching Our Worship. These are the two authorized versions of the Nicene Creed that we have in The Episcopal Church.

Book of Common Prayer

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.

Enriching Our Worship

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

There are two major differences. The first is that the phrase “of the Son” is removed in the second version. This change was approved by General Convention in 1994 with the intention of changing the text of the Nicene Creed with the publication of a new Book of Common Prayer, which has yet to happen.

Here is a short background and rationale that was provided at the time it was voted on by General Convention:

“The original wording of the Nicene Creed, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,’ was agreed upon at the fourth-century Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (Ecumenical Councils are councils of bishops and theologians of the entire Church). The wording was altered in the Latin half of the Church by the addition of the words, ‘who proceeds from the Father and the Son,’ a change expressed in Latin by one word: filioque. This addition was made at a sixth-century regional synod meeting in Toledo, Spain. In this region many Christians had originally been Arians who denied the full divinity of the Son. The synod apparently believed that the constant liturgical repetition of the filioque clause would aid in teaching the faithful that the Son was fully God. The phrase gradually spread until, by the eleventh century, it was in general use in the Latin Church. Its inclusion has never been authorized by an Ecumenical Council and has never been adopted by the Eastern churches.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Anglican theologians were unanimous in claiming that the only true bases of doctrine were Scripture and the teaching of the undivided Church (i.e., the five Ecumenical Councils held between the years 325 and 451). The Church of England taught only what Scripture and tradition taught, they asserted. Not knowing the full history of the filioque addition and mistakenly assuming that it had always formed part of the Creed, Anglicans retained the phrase, and some theologians even went to great lengths to explain why the Greeks deleted it!

The continued use of the filioque phrase by churches in the West remains a source of irritation between East and West. The unilateral altering of a Creed originally authorized by an Ecumenical Council strikes Eastern Orthodox Christians as ecclesiologically high-handed and canonically indefensible.

[The issue is not, nor has ever been theological] the relation of the Holy Spirit to the first and second persons of the Holy Trinity remains a matter of theological discussion and is ultimately unknowable, at least on this side of the grave.

The real issues are: 1) on what authority a statement of faith agreed upon by bishops and theologians of the whole Church, East and West, may be changed; and 2) what course is most faithful to the theological traditions of Anglicanism.”

The other significant difference in the rewording is the removal of the gendered pronouns for the Holy Spirit—the ineffable and mysterious third person of the Trinity. There has been experimentation at Good Samaritan in the past to allow people to insert the pronouns they find most appropriate in the Creed, which is a step in the right direction.

Many scholars and theologians have asserted that the Holy Spirit is the feminine aspect of God. The ancient Syriac language was derived from Aramaic, the language commonly believed to have been spoken by Jesus. In both languages the word for Spirit is of a feminine gender.

In the Catholic Church, while references to the Holy Spirit use the pronoun, “he,” it is the official position of their doctrine that “the established gender usage of each respective language [is] to be maintained.”

The Enriching Our Worship revision brings us nearly as close as we can come in English toward neutralizing gendered language for at least this most mysterious and enigmatic person of the Trinity. And, it does so, while also affirming The Episcopal Church’s and the Anglican Communion’s dedication toward Ecumenical relationship and restoring past hurts with our Eastern Orthodox siblings in Christ.

I know this was a lot of explanation for only a few wording changes. I applaud you for making it to the end! And, I hope you appreciate the loaded and historical weight that these words and phrases hold.

Blessings on your Lenten journey!

Peace,

Fr. Chris