Nikænum i dansk liturgisk tradition1

Resumé

This article examines the use of the Nicene Creed in the Church of Denmark from 1514 to 1992 when a new Service Book, Den Danske Alterbog, was authorized for use in the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of Denmark. The Reformation replaced the Nicene Creed with a Danish hymn, but until 1640 the Latin Nicene Creed was sung in some cases. The Latin text was the same as in the medieval
missals and was printed 1573 in the Gradval edited by Niels Jesperssøn. From 1640 to the 19th century the creed was sung only in the hymnal form. In the 19th century the creed as a hymn gradually
disappeared. In 1949 the Danish bishops edited a new Service Book with an order for High Mass, where the creed was the Apostles’ Creed, and where the Nicene Creed in Danish translation was placed
in a footnote. In the Service Book from 1992 the two creeds are in principle placed at the same level. The article ends with the proposal of a new Danish translation of the Nicene Creed based on the
Greek version known from the Council of Chalcedon 451.