«With this letter, I wish to encourage throughout the Church a renewed impulse in the profession of faith, whose truth, which for centuries has been the shared heritage of Christians, deserves to be confessed and deepened in ever new and contemporary ways,» begins Pope Leo XIV's Apostolic Letter. «In unity of faith», written on the occasion of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea and published shortly before the first papal trip to Turkey on the occasion of this anniversary.
In this letter, which is not particularly long, the Pope compares the times when the Council of Nicaea was convened in 325 with the present day, pointing out how those times «were no less turbulent» than today.
The pontiff recounts the main historical milestones that led Bishop Alexander of Alexandria to summon the bishops of Egypt and Libya to a synod to combat Arian teachings and, subsequently, Emperor Constantine to call «all bishops to an ecumenical, that is, universal council in Nicaea to restore unity. The synod, called the “318 Fathers,” was held under the presidency of the emperor: the number of bishops gathered was unprecedented.
God «has come to meet us in Jesus Christ.»
The Pope elaborates on the debate that arose at this council, which was «due to the need to respond to the question raised by Arius about how the statement “Son of God” should be understood and how it could be reconciled with biblical monotheism.».
At this meeting, «the Fathers confessed that Jesus is the Son of God insofar as he is ‘of the same substance (ousia) of the Father […] generated, not created, from the same substance (of the same substance) of the Father.' This statement is completely distinct from Arian theory and, in practice, means »reaffirming that the one true God is not unreachably distant from us, but rather has drawn near and come to meet us in Jesus Christ.«.
God from God, light from light, true God from true God
León XIV then focuses on the statement in the Creed that God is «God from God, light from light, true God from true God.» Explaining each of these points, he emphasizes: «The Council then adopts the biblical metaphor of light: ‘God is light’ (1 Jn 1.5; cf. Jn 1:4-5). Like light that radiates and communicates itself without diminishing, so the Son is the reflection (apaugasma) of God's glory and the image (character) of your being (hypostasis) (cf. Hb 1,3; 2 Co 4:4). The incarnate Son, Jesus, is therefore the light of the world and of life (cf. Jn 8:12). Through baptism, the eyes of our hearts are enlightened (cf. Ef 1:18), so that we too may be light in the world.».
It also states that «the Creed affirms that the Son is ‘true God from true God’. The true God is the God who speaks and acts in the history of salvation,» «The Christian,» continues Leo XIV, «is therefore called to convert from dead idols to the living and true God.».
The Creed is not a philosophical formula.
The Pope has placed great emphasis on live out the Creed, In this apostolic letter: «The Nicene Creed does not formulate a philosophical theory. It professes faith in the God who has redeemed us through Jesus Christ,» emphasizes the pontiff, who recalls how, by virtue of the incarnation of the Son of God, «we find the Lord in our brothers and sisters in need.».
«The Nicene Creed does not speak to us, therefore, of a distant, unreachable, immobile God who rests in himself, but of a God who is close to us,» the pontiff recalled.
In this regard, quoting St. Athanasius, emphasizes that «having himself become man, he divinized men. It is not that, being man, he subsequently became God, but that, being God, he became man in order to divinize us.».
A deification that, far from being a self-deification of man, «protects us from the primordial temptation of wanting to be like God (cf. Gn 3.5). What Christ is by nature, we become by grace. Through the work of redemption, God has not only restored our human dignity as the image of God, but He who created us in a wonderful way has made us participants, in an even more admirable way, in His divine nature (cf. 2 P 1,4). Divinization is, therefore, true humanization.
Path of unity and witness of life
The letter concludes with a strong call to continue and intensify the journey toward unity with other Christian denominations.
In this regard, Leo XIV recalls that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed became a bond of unity between East and West. In the 16th century, it was also upheld by the ecclesial communities born of the Reformation. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed is thus the common profession of all Christian traditions. It has been a long and linear path that has led from Sacred Scripture to the Nicene profession of faith, then to its reception by Constantinople and Chalcedon, and again to the 16th century and our 21st century.«.
At the end of the letter, the Pope reiterates the need for the Creed to come alive in the lives of Christians, serving as a guide for witness: «The liturgy and Christian life are therefore firmly anchored in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: what we say with our mouths must come from the heart, so that it may be witnessed in our lives. (...) The Nicene Creed invites us, then, to an examination of conscience. What does God mean to me and how do I bear witness to my faith in Him?».
Along with this call to bear witness to the Creed with our lives, the Pope has focused on the ecumenical task of the Church. In this regard, he recalls how «Saint John Paul II continued and promoted the conciliar message in the Encyclical Ut unum sint (May 25, 1995). Thus, with the great commemoration of the First Council of Nicaea, we also celebrate the anniversary of the first ecumenical encyclical. It can be considered a manifesto that has updated those same ecumenical foundations laid by the Council of Nicaea. In this letter, Leo XIV wanted to call for »walking together to achieve unity and reconciliation among all Christians,« noting further that »the Nicene Creed can be the basis and reference point for this journey.«.
The Pope does not hide the fact that this path of unity «is a theological challenge and, even more, a spiritual challenge, which requires repentance and conversion on the part of all. For this reason, we need a spiritual ecumenism of prayer, praise, and worship, as happened in the Nicene and Constantinople Creeds,» in order to arrive, as he emphasizes in this Apostolic Letter, at «a future-oriented ecumenism of reconciliation on the path of dialogue, of exchange of our gifts and spiritual heritage.».
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