The Nicene Creed is the first official formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity by the universal Christian congregation, which identifies itself therein as “the Catholic and Apostolic Church.” The creed was codified in 325 by the Council of Nicaea, the Church’s premier ecumenical— literally, “representing the entire inhabited world”— council, composed of 318 bishops from all regions where the Christian faith had spread. Since its development, the Nicene Creed has been embraced by all mainstream forms of Christianity, and its contents are therefore dogma in contemporary Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism. The creed became necessary soon after Christianity received toleration in 313 from the Roman Empire, which had persecuted the Church, sometimes regularly and sometimes sporadically, from the time of its first- century inception. While it was concerned with the fundamental matter of the survival of its adherents, the Church originally lacked the energy and leisure to resolve the theological question of precisely how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each of whom the New Testament calls “God,” could comprise the one monotheistic God.