Sunday School Students Learn About Nicene Creed

Students from Grades 3-6 Sunday School class (from left to right): Callie Kienle, Garen Tokatlian, Michael Bulbulian, Narineh Boloian, Mariam Poladian, Armen Kourkounian, Aram Ozoonian

    Students from our 3rd-6th grade class learned a lesson about the Nicene Creed during their Sunday School class. Composed in the year 325 A.D., the Creed is a profession of the Orthodox Christian faith that was generated by the first Ecumenical Council, which took place in Nicaea with the participation of 318 bishops from around the world. (Historical records show the Armenian Apostolic Church was represented at the council by Catholicos St. Arisdages, the son of St. Gregory the Illuminator.
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     The Nicene Creed is an expansion on older creeds, including the much shorter Apostles' Creed, which traditionally traces its origins back to the first century. In its current form as used in the Divine Liturgy every Sunday, it is an expansion of an older, shorter version of itself. Some of this expansion (including the anathematization of those who deny the eternity of the Son and the Holy Spirit) was accomplished in subsequent decades. The Creed took its final form at the subsequent Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, which took place in 381.
       Its content is notable in that it is a clear refutation of the prevalent teaching of one Bishop Arius, who was preaching heretically that God the Son was a created being (however exalted), and therefore not sharing in divinity with God the Father. It is also the first dogmatic statement of the early church to assert that the Son and the Father are of the same "essence" (substance) and "nature." This means, rightly so, that "Sonship" or being begotten (born) of the Father is tantamount to being God, as that which is born of the Divine, must be of that very divine nature or substance himself, and therefore -- God.

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