You have been shown the texts of the creeds in question in this very thread. Why do you persist in spreading falsehoods about their content?
Please either point out
where the Nicene, Apostles, or Pseudo-Athanasian creeds teach us to worship the Theotokos or stop insisting that they say something that they do not say. You cannot simply keep repeating lies about texts that are
known and available and have been posted in this very thread as though it is not possible to definitively say that they do or do not teach something.
At the level at which you continuously write negatively about the creeds on account of something that they do not say, the issue is not whether you agree with them or think them to be useful, but what they actually say versus what you have several times erroneously claimed that they say. They would still say the same things regardless of your (or anyone's) reaction to them. It's about
the actual texts, not what you or I or anyone thinks about them. I don't need to be a Muslim to accurately quote from the Qur'an, or a Hindu to accurately quote from the Upanishads. Please maintain the same level of intellectual honesty concerning the creeds of the major Christian churches.
Well, from the Orthodox point of view the Nicene Creed in its Niceno-Constantinopolitan form (from 381) is the only real creed we have as an entire Church. There are more 'local' creeds (like that which the Armenians have used for centuries, which is more like an intermediate form between the 325 and 381 versions, likely attributable to St. Epiphanius of Salamis and a synod he attended in Jerusalem in the 360s), but in terms of something that
every Christian of
every Church can agree on and recognize, the Nicene Creed is it.
That being said, not everyone is Orthodox, so of course the historical reality of these other creeds such as that of the Apostles or that which is pseudoepigraphically attributed to HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic should not be denied, even if we don't personally make use of them. Again, it's not about us, it's about what they say. If they are acceptable within whatever traditions may use them, then they are to form the basis of those traditions. Since I am not from those traditions, I will refrain from commenting.
I will say, however, that any such 'primitivists', be they Baptist or of any other variety, may not actively teach or recite the Creed, and may tout themselves as 'non-creedal', as many varieties of Christianity (as well as Christianity-based parasitic religions, such as Mormonism) do, but their theology itself will tell where they are. This is how we can and do still recognize many of the 'low church' varieties of Protestantism as being in Christian in some sense: they may not recognize the historical streams from which they came (and primitivism, like many similar movements, definitely has it roots that extend beyond the foundation of any one group, no matter if they are independent and 'non-creedal'), but if the theology is solid in its very basics (the very things which the Creed has outlined over 1,600 years ago), then okay. Would it be better for them to recite the Creed, and to study it, and to have a firmer sense of the historicity of Christianity? Yes, I think so. I think everyone can benefit from that. This is part of the reason why we study the fathers and mothers of our faith, because they have much to teach us. But again, the theology itself is the key, not whether or not they can tell anything about how it came to be (even if it could be edifying if they would commit themselves to doing so).
The average peasant in Upper Egypt or Sudan or Romania or wherever may not know much of anything
beyond the Creed, and may not be able to say much about it beyond pointing out that they recite it several times during the liturgy in their church and in private worship (the Copt will likely keep at least the morning and evening of the daily hours, as the vast majority of Egyptians are Orthodox, and that is our common practice; these include several recitations of the Creed such that probably everyone knows it by heart. I
almost know it in Arabic by now, and that's my fourth language which I only ever get to use in Church, so you can get a sense that for those who recite it multiple times a day it's pretty well stuck in there), but that does not matter. You don't need to be a history professor or a monk to be able to affirm the Creed. That's why it was written to begin with: to be a basic statement of the outline/boundary/foundation of the Christian faith, such that those who claim that faith but would not affirm it show themselves to be something other than what they say they are. (Specifically, it was written to refute the Arian heresy which had captured much of the world by that point.)
That is why not affirming the Creed would amount to teaching heresy -- because any theology that is outside of its bounds must either be speculative (and kept at that level; what the Greeks call
theologoumena, a theological opinion on some non-doctrinal matter), should it concern those matters which are not addressed by the Creed (e.g., certain...
aspects of Christology...
), or in contradiction to it and to be rejected. This is precisely how we keep from being in the mess that is described in this thread where nobody knows what they are to believe, and instead are taken this way or that way in their individual opinions that they picked up from God knows where, to the point of denying the resurrection and all kinds of other insanity. No. That is not acceptable. Our fathers decided this so many centuries ago.
Any who will not confess the Creed are therefore anathema, or outside of the Church and the faith as defended and preached by bishops over the entire world.
