«I BELIEVE TO UNDERSTAND». A JOURNEY INSIDE THE PROFESSION OF FAITH THAT GIVES BACK TO CREDO ITS ORIGINAL POWER

The author, Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, in this book of his published on the occasion of 1700 years of the Council celebrated in Nicaea in 325, returns to Symbol of Faith its primordial strength as a word to live. The I believe it ceases to be the "summary" of faith and becomes what it has always been in tradition: the spiritual grammar of Christian existence, the code that introduces the mystery and that allows man to rediscover himself in the face of the incarnate God.

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In the time when faith dissolves into emotional feelings and truth in consensus, I think to understand presents itself as a necessary and courageous work: a return to the rock from which the Church is recognized.

The author, Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo, in this book of his published on the occasion of 1700 years of the Council celebrated in Nicaea in 325, returns to Symbol of Faith its primordial strength as a word to live. The I believe it ceases to be the "summary" of faith and becomes what it has always been in tradition: the spiritual grammar of Christian existence, the code that introduces the mystery and that allows man to rediscover himself in the face of the incarnate God.

In an era of fragmented languages ​​and liquid identities, the text reaffirms - with rigor and patristic breadth - that Christian truth is not a vague feeling nor a personal impression, but an act of freedom born from the encounter with Christ. The word "I believe" thus regains its highest meaning: not the opinion of the believer, but man's communion with the truth that saves.

The Author proposes a theological and spiritual journey to the roots of faith within the revelation that God makes of himself; within the history of the dogma that preserves the truth; within the drama of the Ecumenical Councils, who defended the Christian identity from the danger of being reduced to philosophy; within the life of the believer, who finds the unity of his own person in the act of faith.

The Reader immediately feels the great breath of the Fathers of the Church, the echo of the martyrs who professed the I believe before offering himself up for sacrifice, the luminous force of Tradition that, far from suffocating, free.

The text is crossed by a red thread: only the truth sets you free and only a conscious faith allows you to understand what you profess, what is experienced and what is announced.

The Author shows at the same time how the loss of a rigorous theological language has led to the loss of the very sense of mystery and how many contemporary crises arise from the removal of what the Church has always proclaimed: that truth does not arise from man, but it comes to him as a gift. In this sense, I think to understand it also appears as a pastoral book, because it gives back to the Christian people the possibility of understand to believe e believe to understand, according to the great teaching of Saint Augustine and Saint Anselm of Aosta.

The volume thus fits into the path already started by the Author with other theological-doctrinal works that unite the dimensions of truth and that of freedom with the root of faith.

It is a book that presents continuity with the entire editorial process of the magazine The Island of Patmos: founded in 2014 and from which they were born in 2018 the editions of the same name to render a service to the Church, an act of doctrinal clarification e, at the same time, a call to personal responsibility of the believer.

In a publishing landscape often dominated by generic spiritual texts, This volume gives the reader back the taste of theological authenticity and the joy of the intelligence of faith. It is an invitation to rediscover the I believe as a gesture, as an act, as a voice that crosses the centuries and continues to say - today as yesterday - who God is and who man is in the light of his face.

A book destined to stay, to meditate slowly and for a long time, because it leads not only to the understanding of Symbol, but at the very heart of Christian life. A book that also constitutes an act of gratitude on the part of the Author who wanted to dedicate it to the memory of Jesuit theologian Peter Gumpel (Hannover 1923 – Roma †2022), "to whom I owe", he writes in the dedication: «my training in dogmatic theology and in the history of dogma».

the Island of Patmos, 21 November 2025

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