12.09.2025
Our Common Bond – Ecumenical Focus on the Nicene Creed
Ecumenical Bible Week 2025.
The 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church – the Council of Nicaea – provided a fitting theme for Ecumenical Bible Week 2025. Held in 325 CE, the Council gave rise to the Nicene Creed. Ecumenical Bible Week organised a number of events in Dublin to celebrate the anniversary and reflect on the Creed under the heading – ‘Nazareth to Nicea” The Bible and the Nicene Creed’.
Thinking Allowed gathered seven speakers who offered plenty of food for thought in the Sacred Heart Church in Donnybrook on September 10. They answered the question ‘Why is the Nicene Creed important to me?” Drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, from Orthodox to Lutheran, Methodist to Catholic and Evangelical to Church of Ireland, each speaker gave their personal reflections on the Nicene Creed in just five minutes. The evening was very ably chaired by RTE’s David McCullagh.
Romanian Orthodox Priest Fr Călin Florea got proceedings underway with his reflection on the Nicene Creed which he described as a symbol of faith. He spoke of the power of its words on our lives and the energy that flowed from them. He said that today, tragically, words of Scripture are used to justify discrimination and suggested that this was because people do not grasp their meaning. One of the greatest obstacles lies in language, he said and pointed out that Romanian, like English, has a duality of meaning. “We know the Creed by heart yet the power of it we have not understood,” he stated.
Pastor Florian von Issendorff of the Lutheran Church in Ireland explained how the Nicene Creed is used in the Lutheran Faith where it is said on high feasts so that when he thinks of the Nicene Creed it puts him in festive mood. In Lutheran theology, he explained, the three early Creeds belong to the binding canons of the church but the theology did not end there. “It is in the critical moments in the life of the Church that we cry a strong confession of faith,” he said explaining that the most recent Creed of the Lutheran Church dated back to the Church’s struggle in Nazi Germany. The debate surrounding the Nicene Creed is ongoing, he said, highlighting the breakthrough in the conversations between the Lutheran World Federation and the Orthodox Church regarding the Filioque which they agreed should no longer be used.
President of the National Bible Society of Ireland and former Methodist Council Lay Leader Gillian Kingston highlighted the differentiation between the creeds. She said the Nicene Creed is the creed of the believer (‘I believe’) while the Apostles’ Creed is the creed of the Church. She said that the Nicene Creed joins Churches around the world and also joins believers with the faith of the saints 1,700 years ago. But she continued that we need to look at the Creed in terms of what it is saying to us today. “We have to think today about what it is to say ‘I believe in one God, the Father, the almighty, creator of Heaven and earth’ in a climate crisis. We have to think what it means to say ‘I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God’ in a world of many ideologies and secularism,” she said.
Augustinian theologian, author and EBW board member Fr Kieran O’Mahony OSA said that the Creed is part of our shared inheritance across the traditions and an important signal in today’s divided world. He declared himself a “Nicene believer”. He spoke of the tension between the Western and Orthodox narratives on salvation – the Western seeing the sinner as having to be punished – and the Orthodox narrative – seeing God in Christ reconciling the world to himself. “In Christ, God has reached out compassionately to share solidarity. Compassion and solidarity are modern and understandable… In brokenness, disease and war our God is standing with us. This is unique in the Christian proclamation that God is willing to stand with us and for that reason I am a Nicene believer,” he stated.
Fr Mikhail Nasonov of the Russian Orthodox Church said that to understand the Creed we need to look at why it was written. “The creed expresses the true faith if the creed is true, and the false faith if the creed is false. The function of the creed is to recognise those of the same faith, to define the faith, to separate true from false. The importance of the Nicene Creed is to define the Church’s faith with great precision and accuracy. Why was this important? Because the faith defines our relationship with God and our salvation. The confession of faith is essential for baptism,” he said. He added that the message of the early Church is clear – what faith you have, what creed you profess, ensures your salvation.
Pastor of the Solid Rock Church in Drogheda and chair of the Evangelical Alliance, the Revd Nick Park, suggested that the Council of Nicea was the first Ecumenical Bible Week, except that it lasted three months and was quite rowdy at times. “One of the reasons the Council of Nicea is important to me is because it helps me to understand the boundaries of my unity with fellow Christians. As an evangelical Christian my understanding is that ecumenism is important – I can worship with other Christians as my brothers and sisters because at the root of it all we share common beliefs,” he explained. He added that the Nicene Creed also helps him form relationships with non–Christians because it gives him boundaries.
Representing the Church of Ireland, lecturer in the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin, Dr Andrew Pierce, spoke of his participation in an ecumenical cross border discussion group. Members are encouraged to think about aspects of religion, politics and culture that have become enmeshed, helpfully and unhelpfully, on this island and he said that as part of the process members were asked to write what they believed in. “I was uncomfortable about it because there was a monopoly on believing. Believing is linked to belonging – we don’t believe on our own. We belong with a community. That gives shape to our belief… Belief and belonging were being lost,” he recalled adding that people came back with different things they believed in. “I said I was going to say the Nicene Creed. It gives us the shape of belief… It shapes us as communities and religions.” He said the Nicene Creed points to something bigger.
The event was organised by the Revd Kevin Conroy and Fr Kieran O’Mahony and supported by the Archdiocese of Dublin, the United Dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough and the National Bible Society of Ireland.