Creed

Creed. Formal statement of religious belief or doctrine; a confession of faith. Among several ancient creeds, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (adopted 381) is the version accepted by most Christians today. The creed has been used in public and private prayers and read or sung during the liturgy since the 5th century. A popular text of the creed was published by Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov) in his Azbuka (Alphabet, 1574) and by Taras Shevchenko in his Bukvar' iuzhnorusskii (Primer, 1861). A reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and also the Son (Filioque as this was known in the Western church) received the most varied interpretation in the Eastern and Western churches and was one of the reasons for their schism in 1054. Ukrainian polemical literature of the 16th–17th century devoted particular attention to this question. The Orthodox church does not accept the phrase ‘and the Son,’ while the Ukrainian Catholic church accepted this added phrase at the Synod of Zamostia in 1720.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]