Christians:A question about the Nicene Creed?

Question

I am not Christian, but have been to services and Mass before. I know that in the services I went to The Nicene Creed was read.



I understand here the use of to mean coming from .

Is saying that your specific denomination and Church to be THE one universal church saying that all other denominations are wrong?

Do all sects/Churches use this Creed?
I'm confused.

Answer 1

Many denominations use this creed, and to avoid confusion with the Roman Catholic Church, many change one word in the creed.

They either change the phrase "holy catholic church" to "holy Christian church" or "holy universal church", since the word "catholic" does mean universal.

Not all churches recite this creed every Sunday like Roman Catholics and Lutheran tend to do.

Here is a list of about 50 denominations which don't believe that they are the only true church, they know that all 50 denominations are the "true church".

http://www.nae.net/index.cfm?FUSEACTION=nae.members

I hope that helps.

When a group claims, "we are the only true church", most likely its a false cult. Churches which really and truely follow Jesus would not make that claim.

Pastor Art

Answer 2

Many denominations (but not all) use the creed without specifically excluding other denominations. We may have different denominations, but we also to some degree or another recognize the others. This, however, is the basis of quite a few jokes, to wit:
St. Peter is introducing a new arrival to Heaven. As they walk down a gold-paved street, they pass a house with a party going on. They take a peek inside, and the Roman Catholics are drinking wine, dancing, and generally having a good time.
A similar occurrence happens at the next house, where the Anglicans and Episcopalians are partying down.
They get to a third house, and St. Peter warns: "Shhh! This is the Baptists' place, and they think they're the only ones here!"
You can change the denominations, but pretty well any Christian will get a grin out of some variant of that old joke.

Answer 3

The reason that the term "Catholic" was first used was because of heresies. There was only one Church which JESUS CHRIST established, thus there has always been understood to be only that Church of JESUS CHRIST period.

Heresies came after the fact of this Reality, the first Mebers of which were the Apostles and their companions in the Faith, who recognized their Authoritative Divinely empowered Stewardship of Ecclesiastical Office. Thus we say there is one, holy, apostolic Church. heretics differed from what we call Orthodoxy, which is to hold to the one substance or glory of the Church. True members have the true and only essence of the Church of which they are a part.

Each heretic started some local divergence that was detected as compared to the Orthodoxy of the Universal Church. In combatting a heresy, a true Christian spoke of the common Doctrine and Tradition of the whole Church everywhere. While the Trinitarians, for example, were everywhere, Arius' following can be traced from a locale, through a series of places, where he, or one of his followers went, spreading the heterodox wildfire from his original spark.

The Nicen Creed was formulated (not invented, but expressed in a formula) by the one, holy, apostolic and Catholic Church.

All of the Church Fathers were Catholic, including even the most loved by the so-called "Eastern Orthodox", from the centuries before the split of some Eastern Catholics from unity with the Successor of Peter, the First among the Apostles.

protestants also sometimes say this Creed or the Apostle's Creed, but have no legitimacy in saying it. However, many of them were born in exile from knowledge of the only Church, and have deep Chrsitain aspirations, and ignorantly aspire for the Reality in the Creed, while fighting it or remaining separate from it, even as Paul once did before his conversion, and I, before mine.

The Latin Rite still gives general precedence to the Apostles' Creed, but uses the Nicene on a few special occasions. The Byzantine Rite Catholics, however, use the Nicene Creed regularly.

Answer 4

The Roman church believes they are the True Church. All other Christians are by definition in some form of 'imperfect union' with Rome, according to this definition. They don't just have a blanket statement that "If you're not a Roman Catholic, you're going to hell."

All orthodox Christians either use the Nicene Creed, or will certainly give assent to its tenets.

Answer 5

I am not a christian but a "researcher" of religions. I could not run across the Nicean Creed but did run across the Apostles Creed. Out of all the research materials I have and "knowledge" as to what they are, the Nicean Creed is created by the Roman Catholic church, and is NOT part of the ORIGINAL "universal" or "Catholic" church which created the Apostles Creed. This is part of that which was written by the Apostles in Aramaic and not FROM the translations the Roman Catholics or Christians use from the Greek and Hebrew texts. I do not know "which" churches uses what, but thought this information might help understand that which you asked about.

Answer 6

I don't believe that the majority of Protestant denominations use the Creed, except for the Anglican/Episcopalian Church, & quite possibly the Lutheran Church.

The Catholic Church usually says the Apostles'Creed during weekly & daily Masses, & the Nicene Creed for very High Masses such as Christmas & Easter.

The Orthodox Church also uses the Nicene Creed.

Answer 7

Funny you bring uo this particular scripture, as I was just reading it. I've posted this quote on Y!A before, so why not post it again. "If following the Nicene Creed, which was set forth by the Emperor Constantine, not a man of God, is the ONLY determining factor for being Christian, then I guess we're not Christians. But the head of our church is Jesus Christ, and if the definition of a Christian is someone who believes in Jesus Christ, then saying that we're not Christians is just ignorant." I believe it was a MAN who set forth the Nicene Creed (Roman Emperor Constantine to name one and he was not necessarily a man of God), so, if you believe that following the Nicene Creed makes you Christian then you are following a MAN Yep, people keeping saying that Script. in Revelations says not to add to the Bible. We all can interpert the Bible in many different ways. Who's to say one way is right and the other is wrong? Could John have been saying not to add to Revelation? Was Relelavtion the last book written in the Bible or was the book just bound and the end of the Bible? Regardless, one cannot deny the facts that many metal plates have been found throughout the world made of such things as brass, gold, silver, bronze.... So does the above script. make all these anceint writings false? If you answer yes, I'd say you are being rather close-minded and ignorant to say the least. If you answer no, then whats wrong with the Book of Mormon? It takes faith to believe and some people are simply too scared to reach out to the unknown, misunderstood; to reach out for the "iron rod".

Answer 8

in my missouri synod lutheran church, we say ''one holy *christian* and apostolic church.'' yes, the word ''catholic'' means ''universal,'' but in my hometown (populated mostly by german-americans who came to america for religious freedom about a hundred fifty years ago), among the older people, that word ''catholic'' stirs up a lot of old feelings, so we avoid it. there was a lot of fighting in my hometown between the catholics and lutherans in the old days, so we simply say ''christian'' instead.

we don't believe our specific synod to be the only church that's right. we are actually taught that that kind of thing is religious pride, which is sinful. we do, however, refer to ''the invisible Church of God,'' that being the christian church as a whole, which includes believers from any and every denomination or sect or synod.

not all churches use the creed. certain protestant groups won't use it because it mentions the Trinity.

Answer 9

I think the word that is confusing you here is "church."

The word here is not referring to a building or even a specific denomination. It's referring to the body of believers; the whole of Christianity.

Just because I don't believe all the things a different denomination teaches, doesn't mean I don't consider them brothers or sisters in Christ. We are all one "church," if you see what I mean.

And no, not all denominations use, nor do they all believe the tenets in, the Nicene Creed.

Answer 10

No, its just a Catholic thing. It's supposed to refer to all of the churches becoming one and there not being any sects. Ironically at the time it was written, there were only 7 churches and now there are a ton. The Catholic church in Rome just uses the name. There is a Greek Catholic Church too