Creed
Thursday, December 22, 2022
7:08 AM
During this time, people who wanted to become a Christian would go through a long period of preparation call the Catechumenate.  A statement of belief known as “The Apostles’ Creed” started out as a baptismal confession that would be affirmed as a person was about to be baptized.   
A major turning point came with the Roman Emperor Constantine.  He made toleration of Christianity the official policy of the Roman Empire and then ultimately led the way to making Christianity the official state religion in the Roman empire (ca., 325 AD).  During this time, the Church became more organized, politically powerful and popular.  It began to consolidate religious belief and it could oppress religious heresy.  There were several councils that were authorized subsequent to Constantine’s conversion and the adoption of Christianity by his successors. These church councils led to defining policies and creeds about belief and practice that still govern the church today.  Probably the most important of these was the Niceno-Constantinoplitan.  Also during Constantine’s reign, the Roman Empire began to fracture between East and West with the Eastern portion of the Empire gravitating to Constantinople and the Western portion continuing to regard Rome as its capital.  This cultural and political divide also divided the Church. Even though both groups participated in the council of Nicea and subsequent “ecumenical” councils and both groups, roughly, subscribe to the creeds emerging out of these councils, eventually these two groups formed two distinct branches of Christianity—the West became Roman Catholicism and the East became Eastern Orthodox (or simply Orthodox).  
Following the council of Ephesus in 431.  Once Constantine converted to Christianity (321), the Emperor of the Roman Empire became involved in church affairs. The emperor had an interesting in seeing continuity in religious faith and practice across the empire. Emperors convened councils of bishops through the fourth and fifth centuries to consolidate faith. Four councils came to be regarded as “ecumenical” meaning that they defined orthodoxy for the majority of Christians: (a) the Council of Nicaea, 325 (read “The Nicene Creed” [link]), (b) the Council of Constantinople (381), (c) The Council of Ephesus (431), and (d) Council of Chalcedon (451)