When Pope Leo XIV proclaims at Nicaea the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed without the Filioque, he will not simply be quoting an ancient formula — he will be sending a message across centuries. The very words, "We believe in the Holy Spirit… who proceeds from the Father," will be pronounced at the birthplace of that Creed, where the Christian world was still united.
This is not the abolition of Latin theological heritage, but rather the healing of a later accretion that became, over time, a symbol of division. The Filioque — added in the Latin West long after Nicaea — eventually crystallized as a doctrinal frontier between East and West. Today, what once was a theological boundary becomes an opportunity for reconciliation.
Pope Leo XIV is not pursuing unity through absorption — not repeating the model in which other Christians must "return to" the Catholic Church by being incorporated into it. Instead, he embraces the vision of the first millennium, when difference in liturgy, language, spirituality, and theological emphasis enriched the one Church rather than tearing it apart.
His vision echoes Pope Francis' call to "walk together." Unity is not achieved by administrative enforcement, but by shared prayer, mutual recognition, and symbolic acts that open doors. This is visible in Pope Leo's engagement with the Church of England, with common services of prayer and shared declarations of faith.
A historical contrast is instructive. In 1995, Pope John Paul II's encyclical Ut unum sint powerfully affirmed the commitment to Christian unity. Yet it remained framed in a paradigm of "return to full communion with the Catholic Church." Pope Leo XIV moves further: he seeks not to erase differences, but to honor them as part of the symphony of the Church.
Reciting the Creed in its original form is thus a gesture of historical integrity and theological humility. It recognizes that the unity of the Church does not need to be invented, only rediscovered. Unity is not the construction of a new structure, but the uncovering of an ancient one.
Within this horizon comes another significant step: the call for a common date for Easter, based on the Nicene norm — celebrated according to the Julian reckoning, as practiced by the Orthodox Churches and the Byzantine Catholic Churches. To celebrate the Resurrection together would mean witnessing to the world a Christianity reconciled in its very heart.
The Catholic Church will remain Latin in its liturgical and canonical identity, and the Bishop of Rome will continue to exercise his petrine ministry. Yet the gestures of Pope Leo XIV reveal a Church willing to be catholic in the deepest sense of the word: universal, embracing, polyphonic.
Nicaea 2025 will not merely be a commemoration of the past. It may well become the turning point in which Christians glimpse a future where East and West do not face each other as strangers, but as brothers — united in the same Creed, proclaimed with one heart, one voice, and one hope in Christ
Marco Baratto
