The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are two of the Church’s most ancient and beloved confessions of faith. They share the same essential structure—affirming belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—and the same Gospel truth. However, the Nicene Creed expands and clarifies certain doctrines in response to false teachings, particularly regarding the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. As such, it includes fuller language about Jesus being “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,” and declares that the Holy Spirit is “the Lord, the giver of life… who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].”

The Apostles’ Creed is shorter and likely developed as an early baptismal confession in the Church of Rome. Its simplicity and clarity make it ideal for catechesis and personal devotion. It emphasizes the basic content of the faith—creation, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and the return of Christ to judge. It omits certain theological terms not yet formulated in the early centuries. John Stott called the Apostles’ Creed “the simplest and most profound summary of Christian faith.”

By contrast, the Nicene Creed was formally composed at the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325) and later refined at Constantinople (A.D. 381) to address the Arian heresy, which denied the full deity of Christ. The Creed affirms that Christ is “begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father.” These theological clarifications were critical in defending the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), and they continue to shape the Church’s worship and doctrine to this day.

In Anglican liturgy, both creeds are valued and used. The Apostles’ Creed is recited at Morning and Evening Prayer and at baptisms. The Nicene Creed is used in Holy Communion as the public declaration of Christian belief. Article VIII of the Thirty-Nine Articles affirms both creeds, along with the Athanasian Creed, as “to be thoroughly received and believed” because they are “provable by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.” Thus, Anglican faith stands not on shifting opinion, but on the tested consensus of the Church throughout time.

Bishop Lancelot Andrewes once summed up the Anglican rule of faith as “One canon reduced to writing by God Himself, two testaments, three creeds, four councils, and five centuries.” In this spirit, the Nicene Creed builds upon the Apostles’ Creed, not replacing it but clarifying and defending the same truths more deeply. To know both is to be rooted in the living tradition of the Church, confessing one faith in many voices, across the centuries.