The profession of faith – also known as the ‘Symbol’ - is a sign of the identity of the baptized person. The profession of faith expresses the central content of the faith: it succinctly captures the main truths that a believer accepts and witnesses to on the day of his or her baptism and shares with the entire Christian community for the rest of his or her life.
There are various professions of faith which show the richness of the experience of encountering Jesus Christ. Traditionally, however, there are two that have gained special recognition in the Church: the baptismal creed of the church of Rome and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed, originally formulated in 325 at the Council of Nicaea, in present-day Turkey, and then refined at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved,” (Romans 10:9-10). This passage from St. Paul emphasizes how proclaiming the mystery of faith requires a deep conversion not only in one's words, but above all in one’s understanding of God, of oneself and of the world. “To say the Creed with faith is to enter into communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also with the whole Church which transmits the faith to us and in whose midst, we believe” (CCC 197).