The Athanasian Creed
Minister’s Letter - 28 May 2026
St Athanasius
Dear Friends, this coming Sunday is Trinity Sunday in the church calendar. It is traditional to recite the Athanasian Creed together. The following background information is drawn from How to use the Book of Common Prayer by Samuel L. Bray and Drew Keane.
The Athanasian Creed is the longest of the three creeds that are contained in the Book of Common Prayer. The others are the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. These creeds “ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture.” That’s a quote from one of the Articles of Religion, which are the confession of faith for the Anglican tradition.
The Athanasian Creed is a detailed and careful statement of two doctrines that are central to the Christian faith. One is the Trinity: the doctrine that God is one substance and three persons.
The other is the incarnation: the doctrine that the Son became man, taking a human body and human nature, and so is fully God and fully man…
The background to this creed is a time when the church was ravaged by heresies, including the teachings of Arius, who denied that Jesus was truly and eternally God. Arius had many supporters, and at one point most of the church in the West actually supported him. But there were faithful bishops who taught the doctrine of the Trinity, and one was Saint Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria during the mid-300s. Athanasius was a theological brawler and an ardent foe of heretics, especially of Arians and any others who denied the full deity of the Son of God.
These controversies were settled by the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) and the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), both held under the watchful eye of the emperor.
In settling these disputes, the church was forced to articulate systematically what the Scriptures teach about Jesus and his relationship to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The church did this most famously in the Nicene Creed [which we focussed on last year].
The Athanasian Creed has been accepted in the Western church as another statement of the orthodox teaching about the Trinity, because it spells out some details of the biblical teaching on the Trinity that are not addressed in the Nicene Creed, particularly the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) on Christ’s human and divine natures.
Despite the name, the Athanasian Creed wasn’t actually written by Athanasius. It’s associated with him because of his stalwart defense of the Trinity, but it probably dates to the 500s and seems to have been written in Gaul (modern day France).
Sometimes objections are raised about the Athanasian Creed. It speaks of the “catholic faith” (p. 27), but as in the other creeds, catholic means the universal church, not just the Roman Catholic Church.
The Athanasian Creed ties one’s eternal fate to the presence or absence of good works (p. 30). But those lines, like so many in the creeds, are taken directly from the Bible (Matthew 25:31-46; John 5:28-29). These good works are not the reason we are justified, that is, counted righteous by God. Instead, as the Articles of Religion put it, good works are “pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit”…
More surprising may be the opening sentences of the creed, which say that to be saved one must “hold” and “keep” the catholic faith.
To be sure, a person doesn’t have to know all the technicalities of the Athanasian Creed in order to be saved – the thief on the cross didn’t have to memorize this creed before Jesus could say to him, “today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43 RSV).
But the creed does state the catholic faith, based on the Scriptures, and it expresses in stern language the necessity of adhering to that faith. The Athanasian Creed reminds us of the importance of right belief, as a basis for right action…
You can read the official Anglican version of the Athanasian Creed here which we will use at 8:30am. I also wrote about it last year, and included a modern English version we use at other services, prepared by our Precentor Jonathan Adams (and approved by Bishop Stead).
If all this is new or unfamiliar to you, it is quite proper just to listen when others recite this Creed at church on Sunday.
Warmly in Christ,
Sandy Grant
Dean of Sydney