On not using the Creed at St Gregory’s Church
2 April 2008 - 27 אדר ב' 5768 by Huw
The topic of the topic of SGN’s non-use of the Creed at Eucharist came up in the comments to Serge’s recent post on the video of the Easter Liturgy.
It took a while for me to find a copy of “Worship At St Gregory’s” by Rick Fabian. I finally had to resort to the Way Back machine on the Web Archive. It took a while, even then, for the Archive seems to like to generate errors.
But inside is the (edited) passage regarding the longer and shorter Creeds traditional in the western liturgy.
Students of Prayer Book rubrics will note that we do not say the so-called “Nicene” Creed at the main Sunday service-even though our patron, Gregory of Nyssa, was chief theologian at the second council of Constantinople, which actually produced it. This creed was never meant for liturgical recitation. It got put into the liturgy for blatantly schismatic purposes, and modern reformers lament that it interrupts the natural flow of worship and duplicates the credal material in the Great Thanksgiving prayer.
Peter the Fuller was patriarch of Antioch and leader of the monophysite party that had been defeated at the council of Chalcedon in 451. In 473, as a defiant challenge to the (orthodox) majority, he inserted this creed to start the liturgical Preface in his cathedral, implying that he was faithful to the earlier council of Nicaea (325) and the majority were not, and might not share his communion unless they recanted. The majority quickly deposed him, but dared not remove the “Nicene” Creed for fear of lending his charges substance. [G. Dix,The Shape of the Liturgy, 1945.] It has remained there like a massive monument to doctrinal quarrels ever since. Its use was long resisted in the west, especially in England (a country renowned for good liturgy in the middle ages) and only squeaked into Anglican Sunday worship in the 15th century, just in time for Cranmer to preserve it. Donald Schell reckons that it gained popularity among Episcopalians-especially Californians-because under former Prayer Books the “Nicene” Creed was the only place laypeople could affirm something aloud, rather than accusing themselves. By contrast, St Gregory’s liturgy keeps the people busy with affirmations, so that no one complains that the “Nicene” Creed is missing, and only rarely does a newcomer ask why. A growing number of congregations omit it as we do.
Modern parish experience using the “Nicene” Creed suggests that its sectarian sense is intrinsic, and for most people quite conscious. I advise ordinands that if they must use the “Nicene” Creed in their parishes, they might march about waving American and Episcopal Church flags, while their church wardens tear up photographs of the Mormon Tabernacle: these gestures would express the custom’s fundamental spirit, and employ beloved Episcopalian paraphernalia lately fallen into disuse.
The Apostles’ Creed at initiatory services works quite differently, and we use that when baptizing. The American and New Zealand Prayer Books ingeniously incorporate the “Apostle’s” Creed into the Baptismal service, where indeed it may have originated, and where it allows the whole congregation to join the candidates in affirming their faith. This usage is unitive, whereas the customary “Nicene” Creed usage always implies division from other Christians.
The editing I’ve done: the document is riddled with foot notes - most of which are longer than the original text. In this quote I’ve parsed the former and the latter together into a sensible whole. Someone needs to do the same thing to the entire book!
Huw,
You did a good piece of work integrating the footnotes. Thanks for sharing the piece. I don’t know where you found ‘Worship at St. Gregory’s’ in the end, but it is posted on our All Saints Company website, where it’s a PDF.
Rick’s the author of it, so I can say I think the whole document has treasures in it. I also know there are ways we could polish it and answer some of the questions from the fresh experience and perspective of our having moved on to working with the church beyond the boundaries of St. Gregory’s. We may even want to re-think the title.
I’ll be watching here for any response. Every question, appreciation, challenge, or criticism could be valuable to developing the document and making useful to even more people.
Again, thanks.
love,
donald