We consider a bivariate stationary Markov chain $(X_n,Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ in a Polish state space, where only the process $(Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ is presumed to be observable. The goal of this paper is to investigate the ergodic theory and stability properties of the measure-valued process $(Π_n)_{n\ge0}$, where $Π_n$ is the conditional distribution of $X_n$ given $Y_0,...,Y_n$. We show that the ergodic and stability properties of $(Π_n)_{n\ge0}$ are inherited from the ergodicity of the unobserved process $(X_n)_{n\ge0}$ provided that the Markov chain $(X_n,Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ is nondegenerate, that is, its transition kernel is equivalent to the product of independent transition kernels. Our main results generalize, subsume and in some cases correct previous results on the ergodic theory of nonlinear filters.