The answer
In the Creed we declare: “We confess one baptism, for the remission of sins.” When some among the priests and laymen renounced their faith during the time of persecution, some of them repented and wished to return and become members of the Church once more. This raised questions such as: “What is the status of the believer if priest who baptized him later denied the faith? Should his baptism be considered to have been annulled? And what is the status of the believer who denies the faith and later wishes to return to the Christian faith? Should he be baptized again?” We often read in the writings of St. Augustine, “of no one let us despair.”338 The Creed therefore answers these questions thus: “We confess one baptism, for the remission of sins.” Baptism is not to be repeated if one returns to the faith. This clause was added to the Creed in 381 A.D. at the second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople.
St. Isaac the Syrian says, “As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with God's mind. As a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth so the mercy of the Creator is not vanquished by the wickedness of the creatures.”339
The Twelfth Article: “We look for the resurrection of the dead.”
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
338 E.g., St. Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms 56.18 (NPNF I/8:225).
339 St. Isaac the Syrian, Mystic Treatises by Isaac of Nineveh Homily, trans., A. J. Wensinck, (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 1923) 50: p. 231.