www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Response to Catechism

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

Here is a link to the Eastern Catholic Conference of Diocesan Directors [ecdd.org] on the problems with Eastern Catholics using the Roman Catachism as if it was universal. This is well written.

Is there a date for this document?
-ML

For centuries the catechetical tradition has quite unselfconsciously used the baptismal creed of the Roman Church, which has become a basic prayer of Western Christianity under the name "Apostles' Creed". But it was now objected that the Apostolicum is a Latin creed, whereas the Catechism belongs to the whole Catholic Church, of the West and of the East. It thus seemed advisable to retain the so-called "Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed", as, for example, the German Adult Catechism had done. Subsequent reflection on the peculiarity of each of the several types of creed persuaded us to forego this plan. The Nicenum is, in fact, a conciliar creed, that is, a creed for bishops, which at later date began to do double duty as the creed of the community gathered in the eucharistic liturgy. In other words, it already presupposes catechesis in order to develop it further. Catechesis as such has traditionally preferred baptismal creeds, because by nature it is propaedeutic to Baptism, or else to the existence which is born out of Baptism. Now, it is true that baptismal creeds, unlike the great conciliar creeds, differ from place to place; one has to choose the creed of a local church. Nevertheless, they are so close to one another in their essential structure that the decision in favor of the Roman creed-the Apostolicum-is not a one-sided option for Western tradition, but rather throws open the doors to the whole Church's common tradition of faith.