[B-Greek] Creed of Nicaea change in gender

James Ernest j.d.ernest at bc.edu
Sun Jul 13 22:48:52 EDT 2008


One final clarification: when people say "The Nicene Creed" they
usually mean the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed (of 381). That's the
one that gets used in church (with filioque if Catholic or Protestant,
without if Orthodox). They don't say "Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan
Creed" because nobody can pronounce all those syllables without a
great deal of daily practice, and who has time for that? So when
people want to refer to the creed of 325 (which nobody recites in
church), they usually say "the Creed of Nicaea" of "the 325 version of
the Nicene Creed" or "the original Nicene Creed before it got changed
at Constantinople."

Blame Constantine--if he had named his new capital something like
Ghent or Troy instead of Constantinopolis, we wouldn't have this
problem.

James Ernest



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