Credo vs. Creed

Main Difference

The main difference between Credo and Creed is that the Credo is a Christian statement of belief and Creed is a statement of belief.

• Credo

  A credo (pronounced [ˈkɾeːdoː], Latin for “I believe”) is a statement of religious belief, such as the Apostles’ Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (or less often, the Apostles’ Creed) in the Mass, either as spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical settings of the Mass.

• Creed

  A creed (also known as a confession, symbol, or statement of faith) is a statement of the shared beliefs of a religious community in the form of a fixed formula summarizing core tenets.

  The earliest creed in Christianity, “Jesus is Lord”, originated in the writings of Saint Paul. One of the most widely used creeds in Christianity is the Nicene Creed, first formulated in AD 325 at the First Council of Nicaea. It was based on Christian understanding of the Canonical Gospels, the letters of the New Testament and to a lesser extent the Old Testament. Affirmation of this creed, which describes the Trinity, is generally taken as a fundamental test of orthodoxy for most Christian denominations. The Apostles’ Creed is also broadly accepted. Some Christian denominations and other groups have rejected the authority of those creeds.

  Muslims declare the shahada, or testimony: “I bear witness that there is no god but (the One) God (Allah), and I bear witness that Muhammad is God’s messenger.”Whether Judaism is creedal has been a point of some controversy. Although some say Judaism is noncreedal in nature, others say it recognizes a single creed, the Shema Yisrael, which begins: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”