The truth of Christ by its very nature cannot be individual. Contact with the Light of Christ's Truth brings enlightenment to the mind, will, and entire life of the confessor.

Faith in God is the basis of man's salvation. The preaching of the one saving faith permeates the entire New Testament and constitutes its main content. Christ, says the Gospel, is "the True Light" (John 1:9). To all who "received Him, to those who believe in His name, He gave the power to become children of God" (John 1:12). The meaning of this power is that "whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:15).

Faith allows a person to see and recognize the facts of God's existence and to comprehend the paths of spiritual life that lead to living communion with God (James 2:20-26).

According to the testimony of the Church Fathers, a true follower of Christ was one who accepted the dogmas of the Church.195 According to Clement of Alexandria, "faith is the only universal salvation of mankind" (Pedagogue, 1, 4). "Right dogmas about God," says St. John Chrysostom, "sanctify the soul." Existence in the Church and acceptance of church dogmas, testifies St. Irenaeus of Lyons, constitute the essence of the "life-giving faith" (Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 3).

The word "symbol" in translation from Greek (to aѵtsRoLoѵ) means a sign, an image, an expression. The Symbol of Faith therefore signifies an exposition of the Church's doctrine, a confession of faith, a rule, a dogma, a tablet of faith by which the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church lives.196

The Creeds have been a generalizing synthesis of the faith and dogmatic truths of the Church since the first century of Christianity.

The church historian of the fourth century, Rufinus, says that the apostles, before departing to preach the Gospel, set before themselves a "model of future preaching," so that, being at a distance from one another, they would offer something uniform to those who were brought to the faith of Christ. To this end, all of them together, moved by the Holy Spirit, formed a single opinion on the faith and determined to give the faithful a sign or symbol, so that by it "he may be known who preaches Christ in truth, according to the rules of the

197

apostolic."

Until the beginning of the fourth century, the Creeds were mainly concerned with the preparation of catechumens for the Sacrament of Baptism. The catechumens pronounced briefly formulated confessional models on the day of their Baptism. Already from the second century, such models began to be called "rules" and "canons" of faith. In the era of the Ecumenical Councils, the Symbol of Faith began to be used as a witness to Orthodoxy, as a limit protecting the Church from heresy.

Symbols of a new type, responding to the need to accurately define Orthodox teaching as opposed to the doctrines of heretics, appear in the fourth century. They are no longer connected exclusively with Baptism, but acquire the meaning of the teaching of faith.

The Nicene Creed was the first dogmatic creed proclaimed by the First Ecumenical Council (325). This originally baptismal Creed of the Local Church, possibly of Jerusalem, was reworked by theologians, who had to expand it in order to more accurately express the confession of the divinity of Christ against the teaching of Arius. This Symbol was read out as a dogmatic confession of faith at the Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451).

Born from the baptismal Antiochian-Jerusalem Symbols, the exposition of the "Nicene Faith" was evidently revised and supplemented by the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council (381). The new edition of the Symbol was also approved by the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon (451) and since that time has been included in the liturgical practice of Constantinople and other Local Churches as a true "rule of faith." Affirming the immutable character of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Church, one might say, suffered for it in the struggle against heretics and apostates from the Christian faith.198

The confession of faith in word and word is at the heart of the Christian life. In it is expressed the unity of life which descends from above, from the Father of Lights, and is the unity of faith and love. It is by this unity that the Church lives. It is given and received through the word. The word of confession correlates the person who pronounces it with that reality and the experience of the Church which are more primary than the word and in relation to which "the word is a symbol: a manifestation, a gift... possession."199 The confession of faith in the words of the Symbol is thereby the gift of Christ's Truth and the believer's participation in the inheritance of Eternal Life.