Proclamation and Confirmation of the Symbol of Faith

¹ Holding the most true and divine teaching of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ within the bosoms of our understanding with unhesitating mind, and being grounded in purity of faith, and through his holy disciples and apostles maintaining the sacred ordinances and the canonical norms with most unerring judgment and preserving them intact; and likewise honoring with most sincere and unshaken belief and guarding together the proclamation and the canonical statutes of the seven holy and ecumenical councils—as guided and raised up by the inspirations of one and the same Holy Spirit—unbroken and unassailable: we cast off those whom they excommunicated; and we hold as welcome and worthy of acceptance those who, judged to be of the same belief and teachers against impiety, have rendered the honor and holy reverence that is owed. For, thinking and proclaiming concerning these things the definition of the most pure Christian faith that has come down from the Fathers of old even to us, working it out both in mind and tongue, we announce it to all with a far-sounding voice: taking nothing away, adding nothing, altering nothing, falsifying nothing. For neither the removal nor the addition, when no heresy is being stirred up by the devices of the evil one, introduces anything but a condemnation of the unimpeachable and an inexcusable insult to the Fathers. And to alter the definitions of the Fathers with adulterated words is far more grievous than the former. Therefore this holy and ecumenical council, working with divine longing and uprightness of mind upon the definition of the faith handed down from the beginning, and establishing and raising up in it the support of salvation, cries aloud to all to think and proclaim thus: I believe in one God, the Father almighty—and so forth to the end.

² [The Symbol of Faith—recited in full according to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan formulation.]

³ Thus we believe; in this confession of faith we were baptized. Through it the word of truth has exposed every heresy scattered abroad and dissolved. Those who think thus we inscribe as brethren and fathers and fellow heirs of the commonwealth on high. But if anyone should dare to write out another exposition besides this sacred Symbol, which has been handed down to us from of old from our blessed and holy fathers even to us, and to call it a definition of faith, robbing the dignity of the confession of those divinely inspired men and attaching this to it by his own quibbling inventions, and to set it forth as a common lesson to the faithful, or even to certain who are returning from some heresy; and if with counterfeit words, or additions, or subtractions, he should be so brazen as to falsify the antiquity of this sacred and venerable definition—then, according to the sentence already proclaimed before us by the holy and ecumenical councils, if he be one of the clergy, we subject him to deposition; but if of the laity, we hand him over to the anathema.

⁴ And after the reading, the sacred assembly that was present cried out: We all think thus, thus we believe; in this confession we were baptized and were deemed worthy of the priestly rank. Those who think otherwise than these things, or who dare to put forward another definition in place of this one, we subject to the anathema.

⁵ Elias, the most God-fearing presbyter and vicar of Jerusalem, and Kosmas, the apocrisiary of Alexandria, said: Anathema to those who think anything other than this. Anathema to those who do not confess this common Symbol of the faith.

⁶ Photios the most holy patriarch said: If it seems good to you, O sacred and holy assembly—as also at the beginning our exalted and holy emperor assented—to seal and ratify by his own subscription the things transacted and defined by the council, let this now be accomplished. The most holy metropolitans said: Not only do we think it good, but we also beg and entreat his holy and exalted Majesty to accept and seal by his own subscription all the things accomplished in this holy and ecumenical council. And Basil the Christ-loving emperor, taking it, subscribed with his own hand. And after the subscription the sacred company present acclaimed him. And after the acclamation the holy council again said: We beg that not only our exalted and great emperor confirm the things that have seemed good to this holy council, but also his God-supported and God-guarded offshoots, our great and holy emperors, and indeed now Stephen the Porphyrogennetos, the spiritual child of the Church—that each of them likewise subscribe.

⁷ Basil the Christ-loving emperor said: Let it be done according to your request. And Leo, taking it, subscribed; then Alexander—the emperors. And after them Stephen the most pious subdeacon and Porphyrogennetos.

⁸ And after all had subscribed, Theophanes the most reverend deacon and inspector, taking it, read.