Program / Course 11: Church, Sacraments, and Authority / Lesson 1.2
What you will learn
- State the four marks of the church as they appear in the Nicene Creed.
- Explain what each mark means in plain language.
- Describe how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians apply the marks differently.
- Distinguish a mark of the church from a claim about which church possesses it.
The big idea
The Nicene Creed, as used in worship by most Christians, confesses belief in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. These four words are called the marks of the church. Nearly every tradition accepts them, and nearly every tradition reads them differently. For Catholics and Orthodox the marks point to a visible communion with bishops. For many Protestants they describe a church known to God, recognized where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are given. The words are shared. The arguments are about what they require.
Key terms
- Mark of the church
- A quality by which the true church can be recognized, or that it is confessed to have.
- Nicene Creed
- The statement of faith from the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), used in worship by Catholic, Orthodox and many Protestant churches.
- Catholic (lowercase)
- From a Greek word meaning according to the whole. It describes a church that is universal and complete in its faith.
- Apostolic
- Connected to the apostles by teaching, mission and, in some traditions, a line of ordained ministers.
- Schism
- A break in communion between Christians or churches, even where basic doctrine may be shared.
- Communion
- Shared life among Christians and churches, shown especially by sharing the Eucharist and recognizing each other’s ministers.
- Notae ecclesiae
- Latin for notes or marks of the church. Used by theologians in the sixteenth century onward.
Background
The Nicene Creed, in the form that most churches use in worship, confesses belief in one holy catholic and apostolic church. Some versions begin with I believe and some with we believe, and the wording of the older texts varies. The four marks were not invented in a classroom. They came from worship, where Christians confessed what they believed about the community that gathered them.
In the sixteenth century the marks became a focus of dispute. When Western Christians divided, each side had to say where the true church could be found. Catholics pointed to unity under the pope and bishops. The Reformers, such as Luther and Calvin, pointed to the preached Word and the right use of the sacraments. The Orthodox, who were not part of that Western quarrel, spoke from their own sense of continuity with the early church. This lesson follows each mark and asks what each tradition does with it.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: One
Unity is rooted in the New Testament. Paul writes of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5), and Jesus prays that his followers may be one (John 17:21). The creed confesses that the church is one even though Christians are divided.
Catholics teach that this unity is visible: shared faith, shared sacraments and shared governance under the bishops, with the bishop of Rome as the principle of unity. The Orthodox also hold that unity is visible, found in communion among bishops who share the same faith and the Eucharist, but they place the center in the college of bishops and not in a single universal head. Many Protestants distinguish the invisible unity of all believers from the visible divisions of denominations, and hold that the first is already real while the second is a cause for sorrow and for work toward reunion.
Step 2: Holy
Holy means set apart for God. Paul addresses his churches as saints, meaning holy ones, even when he must correct them harshly (1 Corinthians 1:2). The church is not holy because its members are flawless. It is holy because Christ has joined it to himself and the Spirit dwells in it.
All three traditions agree that the church is made up of sinners. Catholics say the church is holy in Christ and in its means of grace, and that it always needs purification. The Orthodox speak of the church as holy through the Spirit while its members are on the way to sanctification. Protestants often use the Latin phrase simul justus et peccator, at once righteous and sinner, for the believer, and apply a similar thought to the church: holy by God’s gift, not by the achievement of its members.
Step 3: Catholic
The word comes from Greek and means according to the whole. Ignatius of Antioch, writing early in the second century, is the earliest surviving writer to use the phrase the catholic church (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8). Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth century gave several senses: it is spread throughout the world, it teaches the whole faith, it is for every kind of person, and it heals every kind of sin.
Today Catholic with a capital letter can name the Roman Catholic Church, which understands itself as the church that fully possesses this mark. Orthodox Christians hold that the Orthodox Church is the catholic church in its fullness and that catholicity is a quality of each local church that is in the true faith. Protestants who say the creed generally mean that the church is universal and spread across all nations and times, and many deliberately explain that they do not mean the Roman church.
Step 4: Apostolic
The church is built on the apostles (Ephesians 2:20) and sent as the apostles were sent (John 20:21). Christians agree that the church must remain faithful to the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42). They differ on what guarantees that faithfulness.
Catholic and Orthodox churches hold that apostolic faith is carried by an unbroken succession of bishops who received their office from those before them, going back to the apostles. Anglicans and some Lutherans, such as the Church of Sweden, also keep the historic episcopate. Most other Protestant churches hold that the church is apostolic when it teaches what the apostles taught, as found in the New Testament, whether or not it can trace a line of ordinations. A later lesson looks at the details.
Step 5: Marks and claims are different things
To confess the marks is to say what the church is. To claim that one communion alone fully has them is a further step. The Catholic Church makes such a claim in its own terms, and Orthodox teaching makes a parallel one. Protestants usually make a different kind of claim: that the true church is found wherever the gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly given. A fair student keeps these claims apart and describes each as its holders would, without treating a disagreement about the claim as a disagreement about the creed.
- How does this tradition define each of the four marks in its own words?
- Is the mark described as visible, invisible or both?
- What would count as losing the mark?
- Does the tradition say the mark belongs only to itself, or can others share it in part?
- How does the mark relate to the sins and failures of church members?
- What passage of Scripture does the tradition use to support its reading?
Examples
Unity without agreement
Two churches in one town each say the creed on Sunday. They do not share communion, they ordain differently, and their members rarely meet. Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants would each describe the situation differently, but all would agree that it falls short of the unity Jesus prays for in John 17. (A constructed example.)
Holy but not perfect
Paul writes to the Corinthians as saints, and in the same letter rebukes them for factions, for lawsuits among believers and for abuse at the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 1 to 6; 11). The same letter shows that a church can be both holy in calling and troubled in conduct.
Reading catholic
A Lutheran says the creed in a Sunday service and means that the church of Christ exists in every land and age. A Catholic hearing the same word also understands a visible communion under the pope. Both are using the same word, with overlapping but different content.
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the four marks are inseparably linked and belong to the church as Christ founded it. The Second Vatican Council taught that the church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, while recognizing that many elements of sanctification and truth are found outside its visible boundaries, and that other Christians are in a real if imperfect communion with it.
Orthodox
The Orthodox Church understands itself as the one church of the creed, preserving the faith and sacramental life of the apostles. Orthodox theologians differ on how to speak of other Christians: some are cautious and some speak of the grace found outside. All stress that unity is a communion of faith and the Eucharist and cannot be achieved by agreement on paper alone.
Protestant
Lutheran and Reformed confessions describe the church as the assembly of believers where the gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered rightly (Augsburg Confession, Article 7; Belgic Confession, Article 29, which adds church discipline). Protestants generally confess all four marks while understanding unity and apostolicity as spiritual and doctrinal, though Anglicans hold to a visible historic ministry.
Scholarly note
Historians point out that the creed’s four marks were originally part of a statement about the Holy Spirit, and that the sixteenth century turned them into tests for identifying the true church. That second use is later than the creed itself and is a major reason the same words carry different weight today.
Why it matters
The four marks appear in worship every Sunday in many churches, but they are rarely examined. Understanding them lets a student see why Christians who say the same words can still be separated. It also protects against two errors: assuming that the creed settles every dispute, and assuming that the creed is only a formality. It is a real shared confession, and the quarrel is about how to apply it.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Catholic in the creed means Roman Catholic.
Correction: The word means universal and whole. Protestants and Orthodox use it of the church in that sense. Whether the Roman Catholic Church alone fully possesses the mark is a separate question on which traditions disagree.
Misunderstanding: A holy church means a church with no sinners.
Correction: All three traditions teach that the church includes sinners and needs continual repentance. Holiness describes the church’s relation to God, not the record of its members.
Misunderstanding: Protestants do not believe in the four marks.
Correction: Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and many other Protestant churches confess the Nicene Creed. They interpret the marks differently, usually by giving less weight to a visible institutional line.
Misunderstanding: The marks were written to settle the Reformation quarrel.
Correction: The creed comes from the fourth century. The sixteenth century turned the marks into tests for the true church, which is a later use.
Knowledge check
List the four marks of the church in the Nicene Creed.
One, holy, catholic and apostolic. They are confessed together in the creed’s article on the church. They are called marks because they describe qualities by which the church is known or believed to be.
What does catholic mean as a mark, apart from any denomination?
It means according to the whole: universal across all places and times, whole in faith, and open to all kinds of people. Cyril of Jerusalem and others used it in several of these senses. The word does not by itself name any one denomination.
How do Catholics and many Protestants differ in reading the mark apostolic?
Catholics hold that apostolicity includes an unbroken line of bishops from the apostles, as well as faithful teaching. Many Protestants hold that apostolicity means faithful teaching of the apostles’ doctrine as found in Scripture, whether or not a line of ordinations can be traced.
Why is confessing the marks different from claiming that one church alone has them?
Confessing the marks states what the church is. Claiming that one communion alone possesses them in fullness is a further judgment about where the church is found. Traditions that share the creed can disagree about that judgment.
Think it through
- Which of the four marks do you find hardest to see in the churches you know, and why?
- Is it possible for a church to be one in faith but divided in communion? What would that look like?
- What does it mean to call a flawed community holy?
- How might someone confess the marks sincerely while disagreeing with their own tradition’s interpretation?
Independent assignment
The marks in three traditions
In your notebook, write one paragraph (80 to 120 words) per mark stating how a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant Christian would each understand it, using primary sources if you can (the Catechism, the Augsburg or Belgic Confession, or an Orthodox author). Then write 200 words naming which differences are about the meaning of a word and which are about where the church is found. Keep the work in your notebook.
Further study
- Council of Nicaea (325) and Council of Constantinople (381), The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed Read the article on the church and note the exact wording.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church See the section on the four marks of the church.
- Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3: The Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches Read Article 7 of the Augsburg Confession and compare it with other confessions on the church.
- Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians Notice how Ignatius links unity with the bishop and the gathered church.
- Ephesians 4:4 One body and one Spirit.
- John 17:21 Jesus prays that his followers may be one.
- 1 Corinthians 1:2 Paul addresses a troubled church as sanctified saints.
- Acts 2:42 The first believers continued in the apostles’ teaching.