The Greek Text, with English
Greek · Liturgical text
Πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα Θεόν,
Πατέρα, Παντοκράτορα,
ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς,
ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ ἀοράτων.
Καὶ εἰς ἕνα Κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν,
τὸν Υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ,
τὸν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γεννηθέντα
πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων·
φῶς ἐκ φωτός,
Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ,
γεννηθέντα οὐ ποιηθέντα,
ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί,
δι' οὗ τὰ πάντα ἐγένετο.
Τὸν δι' ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους
καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν
κατελθόντα ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν
καὶ σαρκωθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου
καὶ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου
καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα.
Σταυρωθέντα τε ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν
ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου,
καὶ παθόντα καὶ ταφέντα.
Καὶ ἀναστάντα τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ
κατὰ τὰς Γραφάς.
Καὶ ἀνελθόντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς
καὶ καθεζόμενον ἐκ δεξιῶν τοῦ Πατρός.
Καὶ πάλιν ἐρχόμενον μετὰ δόξης
κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς,
οὗ τῆς βασιλείας οὐκ ἔσται τέλος.
Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον,
τὸ κύριον, τὸ ζῳοποιόν,
τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον,
τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ
συμπροσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον,
τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν.
Εἰς μίαν, Ἁγίαν, Καθολικὴν
καὶ Ἀποστολικὴν Ἐκκλησίαν.
Ὁμολογῶ ἓν βάπτισμα
εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν.
Προσδοκῶ ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν.
Καὶ ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος.
Ἀμήν.
English · Roman Missal 2011
I believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the Only Begotten Son of God,
born of the Father
before all ages.
God from God,† Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
consubstantial with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us men
and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate
of the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
For our sake he was crucified
under Pontius Pilate,
he suffered death and was buried,
and rose again on the third day
in accordance with the Scriptures.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead
and his kingdom will have no end.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,*
who with the Father and the Son
is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
I believe in one, holy, catholic
and apostolic Church.
I confess one Baptism
for the forgiveness of sins
and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
The Greek is the liturgical text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed as recited in the Byzantine liturgy. The English is the 2011 Roman Missal translation, which follows the Latin of the Roman Rite; the two markers show where the Latin tradition differs from the Greek.
† “God from God” (Deum de Deo) stood in the original Creed of Nicaea (325) but was not carried into the Greek text of 381. The Latin liturgical text, and the English that translates it, restored the phrase from 325.
* “And the Son” (the Filioque) is a later Western addition. The Greek text says only that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father”; see the note below.
What the Greek Says About the Holy Spirit
The Greek text of the Creed says of the Holy Spirit only this: τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, “who proceeds from the Father”. It contains neither “and the Son” (the Western Filioque) nor “only” (the word some later Eastern polemic reads into it). The council of 381 affirmed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father; it did not address the further question either way.
This site states that plainly because accuracy is site policy. The Catechism itself acknowledges the fact (CCC 247), and the Catholic Church defends the Filioque not as part of the text of 381 but as a true development of the same faith, taught by Augustine, Ambrose and Leo the Great from Scripture (John 15:26; 16:14). How the word entered the Western creed at Toledo in 589, reached Rome only around 1014, and how the Catholic Church answers the Orthodox objection, is told in full on the Filioque page.
“We Believe” or “I Believe”?
The conciliar original of 381 opens in the plural: Πιστεύομεν εἰς ἕνα Θεόν, “we believe in one God”, and likewise ὁμολογοῦμεν (“we confess”) and προσδοκοῦμεν (“we await”). A council speaks with one corporate voice: the bishops were defining the faith of the whole Church, not making private professions.
When the Creed passed into the baptismal and eucharistic liturgy, the verbs became singular: Πιστεύω, “I believe”, the form given above and the form behind the Latin Credo and the English “I believe” at Mass. Nothing of substance changes; each of the baptised takes the Church's confession and makes it personally his own. The Roman Missal's 2011 translation deliberately returned to “I believe” for exactly this reason, where the 1973 version had used “we believe”.
Apart from the person of those verbs and trivial details of word order, the liturgical text above is the conciliar Creed of 381. The substance of the confession is identical.
Transliteration
For readers without Greek, here is the full text in Roman letters. Stress falls on the syllable marked with an acute accent; ē and ō are long vowels (eta and omega), and ch is the hard sound of Scottish “loch”.
Read the full transliteration
Pisteúō eis héna Theón, Patéra, Pantokrátora, poiētḗn ouranoú kaí gēs, horatṓn te pántōn kaí aorátōn.
Kaí eis héna Kýrion Iēsoún Christón, tón Hyión toú Theoú tón monogenḗ, tón ek toú Patrós gennēthénta pró pántōn tṓn aiṓnōn; phōs ek phōtós, Theón alēthinón ek Theoú alēthinoú, gennēthénta ou poiēthénta, homooúsion tō Patrí, di' hoú tá pánta egéneto. Tón di' hēmás toús anthrṓpous kaí diá tḗn hēmetéran sōtērían katelthónta ek tṓn ouranṓn kaí sarkōthénta ek Pneúmatos Hagíou kaí Marías tēs Parthénou kaí enanthrōpḗsanta.
Staurōthénta te hypér hēmṓn epí Pontíou Pilátou, kaí pathónta kaí taphénta. Kaí anastánta tē trítē hēmérā katá tás Graphás. Kaí anelthónta eis toús ouranoús kaí kathezómenon ek dexiṓn toú Patrós. Kaí pálin erchómenon metá dóxēs krínai zṓntas kaí nekroús, hoú tēs basileías ouk éstai télos.
Kaí eis tó Pneúma tó Hágion, tó Kýrion, tó zōopoión, tó ek toú Patrós ekporeuómenon, tó sýn Patrí kaí Hyiṓ symproskynoúmenon kaí syndoxazómenon, tó lalḗsan diá tṓn prophētṓn.
Eis mían, Hagían, Katholikḗn kaí Apostolikḗn Ekklēsían. Homologṓ hén báptisma eis áphesin hamartiṓn. Prosdokṓ anástasin nekrṓn. Kaí zōḗn toú méllontos aiṓnos. Amḗn.
Three Greek words are worth learning outright: homooúsion (ὁμοούσιον), “consubstantial”, the word the whole Arian battle was fought over; ekporeuómenon (ἐκπορευόμενον), “proceeding”, the word at the heart of the Filioque question; and katholikḗn (καθολικήν), “catholic”, universal, the mark the Creed gives the one Church. Each is unpacked line by line on the Meaning page.
Continue
The Original Creed of 325
What the bishops at Nicaea first wrote, anathema and all, and exactly what 381 added to it.
The Creed in Latin
Credo in unum Deum: the liturgical text of the Roman Rite with parallel English and a pronunciation guide.
The Filioque
An honest history of “and the Son”: Toledo 589, Rome 1014, the Orthodox objection and the Catholic answer.