Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is the only Creed that all branches of theChurch, Orthodox (without the filioque), Roman Catholic and mainstreamProtestant, can accept, and so is an important basis for Christian Unity. Since797 AD, no Council has been convened which is truly ecumenical, binding onboth Eastern and Western Churches; the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is aCreed coming from this period of the ‘undivided’ Church.At first, creeds were used as baptismal confessions; later thay wereincorporated into liturgies. So creeds are meant to be assertions of faith, afaith that binds all Christians to God and to one another. These classical creedshave bound the people of God together through the long history of theChurch. Here is the value of retaining the creeds substantially as they were firstformed.Where churches have dispensed with creedal confessions, they have tended tolapse into some form of Unitarianism. This is graphically illustrated by thehistory of the English Presbyterians, who abandoned creeds in the mid-18 thCentury: all their congregations ended up as Unitarian churches. Moderngroups like the Brethren and the Pentecostal Churches, while not recitingCreeds liturgically, have strong commitments to their doctrines. Cults like theJehovah’s Witnesses and the Mormons reject the Creeds.Page 225