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Letters concerning the Establishment of the Holy Synod (1723)

Eastern Patriarchs, tr. King, 1865

4. Article 4

We believe that the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—is the creator of all things, visible and invisible; the invisible are the angelic powers, and rational souls, and devils, although God did not create devils such as they afterward became of their own choice; but the visible are the heavens, and things under heaven; that the Creator, by nature good, created all things, whatever he made, very good, nor can he ever be the Creator of evil. If there is any thing evil, in man or devil, that is to say, sin which takes place against the Divine will, that evil is of man, or of the devil. For we do not know that any thing evil exists in nature itself. For it is a true and infallible rule that God is in no wise the Creator of evil, nor by any just reason can it be attributed to God.