Four Marks of the Church

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Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine, accompanied by the bishops of the First
Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.), holding the Niceno�Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.
The Four Marks of the Church, also known as the Attributes of the Church, is a term
describing four distinctive adjectives�"one, holy, catholic and apostolic"[1]�of
traditional Christian ecclesiology as expressed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed completed at the First Council of Constantinople in AD 381: "[I believe] in
one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."[2] This ecumenical creed is today
recited in the liturgy of the Catholic Church (both Latin and Eastern Rites), the
Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Church of the East,
the Moravian Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Methodist Churches, the Anglican
Communion, the Reformed Churches, and other Christian denominations.[3]

While many doctrines, based on both tradition and different interpretations of the
Bible, distinguish one denomination from another, largely explaining why there are
so many different ones, the Four Marks, when defined the same way, represent a
summary of what many clerical authorities have historically considered to be the
most important affirmations of the Christian faith.

Contents
1 History
2 Marks
2.1 One
2.2 Holy
2.3 Catholic
2.4 Apostolic
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
History
The ideas behind the Four Marks have been in the Christian Church since early
Christianity. Allusions to them can be found in the writings of 2nd century early
Church Father and bishop Ignatius of Antioch. They were not established in doctrine
until the First Council of Constantinople in 381 as an antidote to certain heresies
that had crept into the Church in its early history. There the Council elaborated
on the Nicene Creed, established by the First Council of Nicea 56 years before by
adding to the end a section that included the affirmation: "[We believe] in one,
holy, catholic, and apostolic Church."[4] The phrase has remained in versions of
the Nicene Creed to this day.

In some languages, for example, German, the Latin "catholica" was substituted by
"Christian" before the Reformation, though this was an anomaly[5] and continues in
use by some Protestant churches today. Hence, "holy catholic" becomes "holy
Christian."[6]

Roman Catholics believe the description "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church"
to be applicable only to the Roman Catholic Church. They hold that "Christ
established here on earth only one Church" and they believe in "the full identity
of the Church of Christ with the Catholic Church". While "there are numerous
elements of sanctification and of truth which are found outside her structure",
these, "as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, impel towards Catholic
Unity". The eastern Churches not in full communion with the Catholic Church thereby
"lack something in their condition as particular Churches". The communities born
out of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation "do not enjoy apostolic succession
in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constituent element
of the Church."[7]

The Eastern Orthodox Church, in disagreement with the Roman Catholic, regards
itself as the historical and organic continuation of the original Church founded by
Christ and his apostles.[8] The Oriental Orthodox Church disagrees with both and
claims to be the historical and organic continuation of the original Church founded
by Christ and his apostles, the "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic" Church of the
ancient Christian creeds and the only Church that has always kept the true
Christology and faith declared by the first three councils, Nicaea, Constantinople,
and Ephesus affirmed by the Church Fathers and the Holy Tradition.

The Augsburg Confession found within the Book of Concord, a compendium of belief of
the Lutheran Churches, teaches that "the faith as confessed by Luther and his
followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that their churches
represent the true catholic or universal church."[9] When the Lutherans presented
the Augsburg Confession to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1530, they believe to
have "showed that each article of faith and practice was true first of all to Holy
Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the church fathers and the
councils."[9] As such, the Lutheran Churches traditionally hold that theirs
represents the true visible Church.[10]

Marks
One
See also: One true church and Christendom
"There is one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that
belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all."[Eph. 4:5-6] This list in the Pauline
letters of factors making Christians one body, one church, is doubtless not meant
to be exhaustive, says Francis Aloysius Sullivan, but it affirms the oneness of the
body, the church, through what Christians have in common, what they have communion
in. Elsewhere, Paul the Apostle says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ
Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). This statement was about Christians as individuals, but it
applied to them also as groups, as local churches, whether composed mainly of
Jewish or Gentile Christians. In 1 Cor. 15:9, Paul spoke of himself as having
persecuted "the church of God", not just the local church in Jerusalem but the same
church that he addresses at the beginning of that letter as "the church of God that
is in Corinth" (1 Cor. 1:2). In the same letter, he tells Christians: "You are the
body of Christ and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12:27), and declares that,
"just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body,
though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (1 Cor. 12:12).[11][12]

Holy
Main articles: Sacred and Sanctity
The word holy means set apart for a special purpose by and for God. Christians
understand the holiness of the universal Church to derive from Christ's holiness.
[13]

Catholic
Further information: Catholic (term) and Catholicity
The word "catholic" is derived from the Greek adjective ?a??????? (katholikos),
meaning "general", "universal".[14][15] It is associated with the Greek adverb ?
a????? (katholou), meaning "according to the whole", "entirely", or "in general", a
combination of the preposition ?at? meaning "according to" and the adjective ????
meaning "whole".[16][17]

Applied to the church, the adjective "catholic" means that in the church the
wholeness of the Christian faith, full and complete, all-embracing, and with
nothing lacking, is proclaimed to all people without excluding any part of the
faith or any class or group of people.[18][19][20] The adjective can be applied not
only to the church as spread throughout the world but also to each local
manifestation of the church, in each of which nothing essential is lacking for it
to be the genuine Church of Christ.[20][21][22]

For his subjects, Emperor Theodosius I restricted the term "catholic christians" to
believers in "the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal
majesty and in a holy Trinity", and applied the name "heretics" to others (Edict of
Thessalonica of 27 February 380).[23]

In the following year 381, the First Council of Constantinople adopted the Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed, expressing belief in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic
Church".

Apostolic
See also: Apostles and apostolic succession
This describes the Church's foundation and beliefs as rooted and continuing in the
living Tradition of the Apostles of Jesus.[24] The Catholic Church, the Eastern
Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Church of the East, each claim to have
preserved the original teaching of the apostles. They also have apostolic
succession in that their bishops derive their authority through a direct line of
laying on of hands from the apostles, a claim that they accept can be made by the
other churches in this group. Many Lutheran Churches, such as the Church of Sweden,
and the Anglican Communion likewise teach the doctrine of apostolic succession.[25]
[26] Other Christian denominations, on the other hand, usually hold that what
preserves apostolic continuity is the written word: as Bruce Milne put it, "A
church is apostolic as it recognizes in practice the supreme authority of the
apostolic scriptures."[27]

See also
First Council of Constantinople
Marks of the Church
Nicene Creed
State church of the Roman Empire
References
Greek: �?a, ???a, ?a?????? ?a? ?p?st????? ?????s?a.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (London: Banner of Truth, 1949), 572.
Scharper, Philip J. (1969). Meet the American Catholic. Broadman Press. p. 34. It
is interesting to note, however, that the Nicene Creed, recited by Roman Catholics
in their worship, is also accepted by millions of other Christians as a testimony
of their faith�Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and members of
many of the Reformed Churches.
Creeds of Christendom
See footnote 12 in The Book of Concord, Translators Kolb, R. and Wengert, T.
Augsburg Fortress, 2000, p. 22. ISBN 978-0-8006-2740-9
For example, see Lutheran Service Book. Concordia Publishing House, 2006, p. 158.
ISBN 978-0-7586-1217-5
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responses to some questions regarding
certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church Archived August 13, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine
Bishop Kallistos (Ware). The Orthodox Church. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-014656-3.
p. 307
Ludwig, Alan (12 September 2016). "Luther's Catholic Reformation". The Lutheran
Witness. When the Lutherans presented the Augsburg Confession before Emperor
Charles V in 1530, they carefully showed that each article of faith and practice
was true first of all to Holy Scripture, and then also to the teaching of the
church fathers and the councils and even the canon law of the Church of Rome. They
boldly claim, �This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen,
there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or
from the Church of Rome as known from its writers� (AC XXI Conclusion 1). The
underlying thesis of the Augsburg Confession is that the faith as confessed by
Luther and his followers is nothing new, but the true catholic faith, and that
their churches represent the true catholic or universal church. In fact, it is
actually the Church of Rome that has departed from the ancient faith and practice
of the catholic church (see AC XXIII 13, XXVIII 72 and other places). Missing or
empty |url= (help)
Frey, H. (1918). Is One Church as Good as Another?. 37. The Lutheran Witness. pp.
82�83.
Francis Aloysius Sullivan, The Church We Believe In (Paulist Press 1988 ISBN 978-
0-80913039-9), pp. 36�38
"Bible Gateway passage: Ephesians 5:30-33 - New International Version". Bible
Gateway. Retrieved 2018-12-17.
Whitehead, Kenneth D. "The Church of the Apostles," This Rock, March 1995. See
article at ewtn.com
"Catholic". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
September 2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
(cf. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon)
"Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved 2011-09-16.
"On Being Catholic", by Claire Anderson M.Div.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 830-856 Archived April 7, 2015, at the Wayback
Machine
NULL (2013-10-09). "On the Catholicity of the Church". ZENIT - English. Retrieved
2018-12-17.
Hopko, Thomas. "The Orthodox Faith". oca.org. Orthodox Church in America.
Retrieved 18 February 2015.
Jenson, Matt; Wilhite, David (2010). The Church: A Guide for the Perplexed. A&C
Black. pp. 70�75. ISBN 9780567033376. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
Second Vatican Council. "Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the
Church, Christus Dominus, 11". Archived from the original on 2 August 2013.
Retrieved 18 February 2015.
Henry Bettenson (editor), Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford University
Press 1970 ISBN 978-0-19501293-4), p. 22
Cf. also an Armenian statement, a Roman Catholic statement.
Gassmann, G�nther; Larson, Duane Howard; Oldenburg, Mark W. (2001). Historical
Dictionary of Lutheranism. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810839458. Retrieved 11
November 2012. In addition to the primary understanding of succession, the Lutheran
confessions do express openness, however, to the continuation of the succession of
bishops. This is a narrower understanding of apostolic succession, to be affirmed
under the condition that the bishops support the Gospel and are ready to ordain
evangelical preachers. This form of succession, for example, was continued by the
Church of Sweden (which included Finland) at the time of the Reformation.
Benedetto, Robert; Duke, James O. (13 August 2008). The New Westminster Dictionary
of Church History: The Early, Medieval, and Reformation Eras. Westminster John Knox
Press. p. 594. ISBN 978-0664224165. Retrieved 10 June 2013. In Sweden the apostolic
succession was preserved because the Catholic bishops were allowed to stay in
office, but they had to approve changes in the ceremonies.
Bruce Milne, "Know the Truth" (2nd edition). (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press,
1998), 271.
Further reading
The Symbol of Faith by Father Thomas Hopko
Four Marks of the Church by Kenneth D. Whitehead
The Four Marks of the Church by Fr. William Saunders
Marks of the Church by Loyola Press
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