User:Pseudo-Richard/Filioque

Icon by Andrei Rublev depicting theHoly Trinity.

Filioque (Latin pronunciation: [filiˈɔkwe]), Latin for "and (from) the Son", is a phrase found in the form of Nicene Creed in use in the Latin Church. It is not present in the Greek text of the Nicene Creed as originally formulated at the First Council of Constantinople, which says only that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from the Father":

Καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον, τὸ κύριον, τὸ ζωοποιόν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον

(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, from the Father proceeding).

The Latin text speaks of the Holy Spirit as proceeding "from the Father and the Son".

Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit

(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who from the Father and the Son proceeds).

The first known case in the West of insertion of "and the Son" into the Nicene Creed was when the word Filioque was added, perhaps unintentionally, to the Latin text of the Creed at the local Third Council of Toledo (589) and its inclusion later spread spontaneously not only in Spain, but throughout the Frankish Empire.and elsewhere. In the 9th century, Pope Leo III, while accepting the doctrine, like his predecessor Pope Leo I, tried in vain to suppress the addition of the Filioque. In 1014, however, singing of the Creed, with Filioqueincluded, was adopted in the celebration of the Mass in Rome.Since its denunciation by Photios I of Constantinople (see the Photian schism of 863-867), the Filioque has been an ongoing source of conflict between the East and West, contributing to the East-West Schism of 1054 and proving an obstacle to attempts to reunify the two sides.

History

Main article: History of the Filioque controversy

New Testament

Anthony E. Siecienski asserts that it is important to recognize that "the New Testament does not explicitly address the procession of the Holy Spirit as later theology would understand the doctrine." However, he asserts that there are, nonetheless "certain principles established in the New Testament that shaped later Latin Trinitarian theology, and particular texts that both Latins and Greeks exploited to support their respective positions vis-à-vis the filioque." The Orthodox believe that the absence of an explicit mention of the double procession of the Holy Spirit is a strong indication that the filioque is a theologically erroneous doctrine.

In John 16:13–15 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit "he will take what is mine and declare it to you", and it is argued that in the relations between the Persons of the Trinity one Person cannot "take" or "receive" (λήψεται) anything from either of the others except by way of procession. Texts such as John 20:22 ("He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit"), were seen by Fathers of the Church, especially Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and Epiphanius of Cyprus as grounds for saying that the Spirit "proceeds substantially from both" the Father and the Son. Other texts that have been used include Galatians 4:6,Romans 8:9,Philippians 1:19, where the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of the Son", "the Spirit of Christ", "the Spirit of Jesus Christ", and texts in the Gospel of John on the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus (14:16,15:26,16:7).

The Nicene Creed

Main article: Nicene Creed

First Council of Constantinople, miniature inHomilies of Gregory Nazianzus (879-882), Biblothèque nationale de France

The first ecumenical council, that of Nicaea (325) ended its Creed with the words "and in the Holy Spirit". The second, that of Constantinople in 381 spoke of the Holy Spirit as "proceeding from the Father" (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον). This last phrase is based onJohn 15:26 (ὃ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται).

The third ecumenical council, held at Ephesus in 431, which quoted the creed in its 325 form, not in that of 381, decreed in its seventh canon:

“ "It is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa. But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the clergy; and if they be laymen, they shall be anathematized". ”

While the Council of Ephesus thus forbade setting up a different creed as a rival to that of the first ecumenical council, it was the creed of the second ecumenical council that was adopted liturgically in the East and later a Latin variant was adopted in the West. The form of this creed that the West adopted had two additions: "God from God" (Deum de Deo) and "and the Son" (Filioque).

The fourth ecumenical council, that of Chalcedon (451), quoted the creed of 381 and formally treated it as binding, together with that of 325. Within 80 years, therefore, the creed of 381 was normative in defining the Christian faith. In the early sixth century, it was widely used in the liturgy in the East and at the end of the same century in parts of the West, perhaps beginning with the Council of Toledo in 589.

Possible earliest use in the Creed

Recent discoveries have shown that the earliest known introduction of "and the Son" into the Nicene Creed may have been the work of a local council in the east, the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphonin Persia in about 410. This was some twenty years before the Nestorian Schism divided the Church in Persia, which after the schism became known as the Church of the East, from the Church in the Roman Empire. The Church of the East does not include "and the Son" in the Creed.

Church fathers

The writings of the early Church Fathers talk sometimes of the Holy Spirit as coming from the Father and the Son. These writings can be used to support either the Latin idea of the procession of the Holy Spirit, or the Orthodox idea. The writings of the Church fathers, announcing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son do not necessarily lend their support to either the Catholic position or the Orthodox one. The statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son can be used to support either position; that the Spirit comes from the Father and through the Son, or from Father and Son as principle cause.

Yves Congar commented, "These pieces of evidence are not sufficient, of course, to form a theological tradition, but they do create a link and a point to an openness. 'The walls of separation do not reach as high as heaven.'"

Before the creed of 381 became known in the West and even before it was adopted by the First Council of Constantinople, Christian writers in the West, of whom Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220),Jerome (347–420), Ambrose (c. 338 – 397) and Augustine (354–430) are representatives, spoke of the Spirit as coming from the Father and the Son, while the expression “from the Father through the Son” is also found among them.

Tertullian, writing at the beginning of the third century, emphasizes that Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share a single divine substance, quality and power, which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by the Son to the Spirit.

One Christian source for Augustine was Marius Victorinus (c. 280-365), who in his arguments against Arians strongly connected the Son and the Spirit.

Hilary of Poitiers, in the mid-fourth century, speaks of the Spirit as "coming forth from the Father" and being "sent by the Son" (De Trinitate 12.55); as being "from the Father through the Son" (ibid. 12.56); and as "having the Father and the Son as his source" (ibid. 2.29); in another passage, Hilary points to John 16.15 (where Jesus says: 'All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that [the Spirit] shall take from what is mine and declare it to you'), and wonders aloud whether "to receive from the Son is the same thing as to proceed from the Father" (ibid. 8.20).

Ambrose of Milan, writing in the 380s, openly asserts that the Spirit "proceeds from (procedit a) the Father and the Son", without ever being separated from either (On the Holy Spirit 1.11.20).

None of these writers, however, makes the Spirit’s mode of origin the object of special reflection; all are concerned, rather, to emphasize the equality of status of all three divine persons as God, and all acknowledge that the Father alone is the source of God’s eternal being."

Procession of the Holy Spirit

Already in the fourth century the distinction was made, in connection with the Trinity, between the two Greek verbs ἐκπορεύεσθαι (the verb used in the original Greek text of the 381 Nicene Creed) and προϊέναι. In his Oration on the Holy Lights (XXXIX), Saint Gregory of Nazianzus wrote: "The Holy Ghost is truly Spirit, coming forth (προϊέναι) from the Father indeed, but not after the manner of the Son, for it is not by Generation but by Procession (ἐκπορεύεσθαι)".

That the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from the Father and the Son in the sense of the Latin wordprocedere and the Greek προϊέναι (as opposed to the Greekἐκπορεύεσθαι) was taught by the early fifth century by Saint Cyril of Alexandria in the East The Athanasian Creed, probably of the middle of the fifth century, and a dogmatic epistle of Pope Leo I, who declared in 446 that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son.

Although the Eastern Fathers were aware that in the West the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son was taught, they did not generally regard it as heretical: "a whole series of Western writers, including popes who are venerated as saints by the Eastern church, confess the procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son; and it is even more striking that there is virtually no disagreement with this theory."

The phrase Filioque first appears as an anti-Arian interpolation in the Creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589), at which Visigothic Spain renounced Arianism, accepting Catholic Christianity. The addition was confirmed by subsequent local councils in Toledo and soon spread throughout the West, not only in Spain, but also in the kingdom of the Franks, who had adopted the Catholic faith in 496, and in England, where the Council of Hatfield imposed it in 680 as a response to Monothelitism. However, it was not adopted in Rome.

A number of Church Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries explicitly speak of the Holy Spirit as proceeding "from the Father and the Son" but not necessarily in the modern Catholic sense of a double procession. They include Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368),Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 – 373), Epiphanius of Salamis(c. 310–320 – 403), Ambrose (337–340 – 397), Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430),Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 - 444),and Pope Leo I (c. 400 – 461). In the 7th century, Saint Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – 662) declared it wrong to make accusations, based on a problem of translation between Greek and Latin, against the Romans for saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son, since the Romans were able to cite the unanimous support of the Latin Fathers and a statement by Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Apart from those already mentioned, these Latin Fathers included Saints Faustus of Riez (died between 490 and 495), Gennadius of Massilia (died c. 496),Avitus of Vienne (c. 470 – 523), Fulgentius of Ruspe (462 or 467 – 527 or 533), andIsidore of Seville (died 636).

Hilary of Poitiers is one of "the chief patristic source(s) for the Latin teaching on the filioque." However, Siecienski notes that "there is also reason for questioning Hilary's support for the filioque as later theology would understand it, especially given the ambiguous nature of (Hilary's) language as it concerns the procession."

Ambrose of Milan, though "firmly rooted in Eastern tradition", was nonetheless "one of the earliest witnesses to the explicit affirmation of the Spirit's procession from the Father andthe Son".

Siecienski characterizes Jerome's views on the procession of the Holy Spirit as "defying categorization". His name is often included in Latin florilegia as a supporter of the filioque and Photius even felt called to defend Jerome's reputation against those who invoked him in support of the doctrine. However, because Jerome's writing contains scant references to the doctrine and even those are "far from ambiguous affirmations of a double procession", Orthodox theologians such as John Meyendorff have argued that he "could hardly be regarded a proponent of the filioque".

Augustine's writings on the Trinity became the foundation of Latin trinitarian theology and serves as the foundation for the doctrine of the filioque.

Siecienski characterizes the writings of Pope Leo I on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit as a "sword that cuts both ways" in that "his writings would later be used by both Latins and Greeks to support their respective positions."

Pope Gregory the Great is usually counted as a supporter of the Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son, despite the fact that Photius and later Byzantine theologians counted him as an opponent of the doctrine. Siecienski attributes this apparent contradiction to two factors: Gregory's "loose and unguarded language" regarding the procession and differences between the original Latin text of Gregory's Dialogues and Pope Zacharias' Greek translation of them. Gregory's text, in Latin, clearly affirmed the Filioque, but Zacharias' translation into Greek used the phrase "abiding in the Son" rather than "proceeding from the Son", thus leading later Byzantine clerics to assert that Gregory did not support double procession.

"From the Father through the Son"

Church Fathers also use the phrase "from the Father through the Son". Cyril of Alexandria, who undeniably several times states that the Holy Spirit issues from the Father and the Son, also speaks of the Holy Spirit coming from the Father through the Son, two different expressions that for him are complementary: the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father does not exclude the Son's mediation and the Son receives from the Father a participation in the Holy Spirit's coming. He was attacked by Theodoret for saying the Holy Spirit has his existence "either from the Son or through the Son", but continued to use such formulae. The Roman Catholic Church accepts both phrases, and considers that they do not affect the reality of the same faith and instead express the same truth in slightly different ways. The influence of Augustine of Hippo made the phrase "proceeds from the Father through the Son" popular throughout the West. but, while used also in the East, "through the Son" was later, according to Philip Schaff, dropped or rejected by some as being nearly equivalent to "from the Son" or "and the Son". Others spoke of the Holy Spirit proceeding "from the Father", as in the text of the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which "did not state that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone".

First Eastern opposition

In 638, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, with the support of the Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, published the Ecthesis, which defined as the official imperial form of Christianity Monothelitism, the doctrine that, while Christ possessed two natures, he had only a single will. Before the Ecthesisreached Rome, Pope Honorius I, who had seemed to support Monothelitism, died. His successorPope Severinus condemned the Ecthesisoutright, and so was forbidden his seat until 640. His successor Pope John IV also rejected the doctrine completely, leading to a major schism between the eastern and western halves of the Chalcedonian Church.

Maximus the Confessor

Meanwhile in Africa, a monk named Maximus the Confessor carried on a furious campaign against Monothelitism, and in 646 he convinced the African councils to draw up a manifesto against the doctrine. This they forwarded to the new pope Theodore I, who in turn wrote toPatriarch Paul II of Constantinople, outlining the heretical nature of the doctrine. Paul, a devoted Monothelite, replied in a letter directing the Pope to adhere to the doctrine of one will. Theodore in turn excommunicated the Patriarch in 649, declaring him a heretic,after Paul, in 647 or 648, had issued in the name of Emperor Constans II an edict known as theTypos, which banned any mention of either one or two activities or wills in Christ. The Typos, instead of defusing the situation, made it worse by implying that either doctrine was a good as the other. Theodore planned the Lateran Council of 649 but died before he could convene it, which his successor, Pope Martin I, did. The Council condemns the Ecthesis and the Typos, and Pope Martin wrote to Constans, informing the emperor of its conclusions and requiring him to condemn both the Monothelite doctrine and his own Typos. Constans responded by having Pope Martin abducted to Constantinople, where he was tried and condemned to banishment and died as a result of the torture to which he had been submitted. Maximus also was tried and banished after having his tongue and his hand cut off.

It was in this context of conflict between East and West that the Monothelite Patriarch Paul of Constantinople made accusations against Pope Theodore of Rome for speaking of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son. This expression was not inserted in the Creed, which was not yet used liturgically in Rome.

Maximus the Confessor wrote a letter in defence of the expression used by the Pope. The words with which Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – 13 August 662) declared that it was wrong to condemn the Roman use of Filioque are as follows:

"They [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit – they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession –but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence. They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong to accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism]."

Later developments

Widespread use of the Filioque in the West led to controversy with envoys of the Byzantine EmperorConstantine Vat a synod held at Gentilly in 767. The use ofFilioque was defended by Saint Paulinus II, the Patriarch of Aquileia, at the Synod ofFriuli, Italy in 796, and it was endorsed in 809 at the local Council of Aachen. At the beginning of ninth century in 808, John, a Greek monk of the monastery of St. Sabas, charged the monks of Mt. Olivet with heresy, since they had inserted the Filioque into the Creed.

As the practice of chanting the Latin Credo at Mass spread in the West, theFilioque became a part of the Latin rite liturgy. This practice was adopted in Emperor Charlemagne's court in 798 and spread through his empire, but which, although it was in use in parts of Italy by the eighth century, was not accepted in Rome until 1014.

Beginning around 796 or 797, Paulinus, bishop of Aquileia, held a council for the region of Friuli (the part of Italy containing Aquileia). Paulinus was appointed the task of addressing Adoptionism and Arians as taught by a group of Spanish bishops includingElipando. Paulinus’ council spent a fair amount of time addressing the subject of the filioque, taking the position that a new council could add a valid interruption to the Creed. Paulinus primary argumentation is that the Filioque could be added and or subtracted if the addition or subtraction does not go against the Fathers’ “intention” and was “a blameless discernment.”

According to John Meyendorff, andJohn Romanides the Western efforts to get Pope Leo III to approve the addition of Filioque to the Creed were due to a desire of Charlemagne, who in 800 had been crowned in Rome as Emperor, to find grounds for accusations of heresy against the East. The Pope's refusal to approve the interpolation avoided arousing a conflict between East and West about this matter. EmperorCharlemagne accused the Patriarch of Constantinople (Saint Tarasios of Constantinople) of infidelity to the faith of the First Council of Nicaea, because he had not professed the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father "and the Son", but only "through the Son", an accusation strongly rejected by Rome, but repeated in Charlemagne's commissioned work the Libri Carolini, books also rejected by the Pope. Pope Leo rejected the request of Charlemagne's emissaries for approval of inclusion of the Filioque in the Latin Creed used in Rome. So, during the time of Pope Leo's leadership, 795-816, and for another two centuries, there was no Creed at all in the Roman rite Mass.

Although he approved the Filioque doctrine, Pope Leo III in 810 opposed adding the Filioque to the Creed, and had two heavy silver shields made and displayed in St Peter's, containing the original text of the Creed of 381 in both Greek and Latin,adding: "I, Leo, have placed these for love and protection of the orthodox faith".

In 808 or 809 controversy arose in Jerusalem between the Greek monks of one monastery and the Frankish Benedictines of another: the Greeks reproached the latter for, among other things, singing the creed with the Filioque included. In response, the theology of the Filioque was expressed in the 809 local Council of Aachen.

Photian controversy

Main article: Photios I of Constantinople

File:StPhotios.jpg

Patriarch Photius
of Constantinople

Later again around 860AD the controversy over the Filioque and the Frankish monks broke out in the course of the disputes between Saint Photius and Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople. In 867, Photius was Patriarch of Constantinople and issued an Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs, and called a council in Constantinople in which he charged the Western Church with heresy and schism because of differences in practices, in particular for the Filioque and the authority of the Papacy.This moved the issue from jurisdiction and custom to one of dogma. This council declared Pope Nicholas anathema, excommunicated and deposed.

Photius excluded not only "and the Son" but also "through the Son" with regard to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit: for him "through the Son" applied only to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit (the sending in time). He maintained that the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is "from the Father alone". This phrase was verbally a novelty However, Orthodox theologians generally hold that in substance the phrase was only a reaffirmation of traditional teaching. Sergei Bulgakov, on the other hand, declared that Photius's doctrine itself "represents a sort of novelty for the Eastern church".

Photius's importance endured in regard to relations between East and West. He is recognized as a Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church and his line of criticism has often been echoed later, making reconciliation between East and West difficult.

At least three councils (867, 869, 879) where held in Constantinople over the deposition of Ignatius by Emperor Michael III and the his replacement by Photius. The Council of Constantinople 867 was convened by Photius, so to address the question of Papal Supremacy over all of the churches and their patriarchs and the use of the filioque.

The council of 867 was followed by the Council of Constantinople 869, which reversed the previous council and was promulgated by Rome. The Council of Constantinople in 879 restored Photius to his see. It was attended by Western legates Cardinal Peter of St Chrysogonus, Paul Bishop of Ancona and Eugene Bishop of Ostia who approved its canons, but it is unclear whether it was ever promulgated by Rome.

Adoption in the Roman Rite

It was only in 1014, at the request of the German King Henry IIwho had come to Rome to be crowned Emperor and was surprised at the different custom in force there, that Pope Benedict VIII, who owed to Henry his restoration to the papal throne after usurpation by Antipope Gregory VI, had the Creed, with the addition ofFilioque, sung at Mass in Rome for the first time. In some other placesFilioque was incorporated in the Creed even later: at Paris seemingly not even by 1240, 34 years before the Second Council of Lyon defined that the Holy Spirit "proceeds eternally from the Father and from the Son, not as from two principles but from a single principle, not by two spirations but by a single spiration".

Since then the Filioque phrase has been included in the Creed throughout the Latin Riteexcept where Greek is used in the liturgy, although it was never adopted by Eastern Catholic Churches.

East-West controversy

Main article: East-West Schism

Eastern opposition to the Filioque strengthened with the East-West Schism of 1054. Two councils were held to heal the break discussed the question.

The Second Council of Lyon (1274) accepted the profession of faith of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in the Holy Spirit, "proceeding from the Father and the Son" and the Greek participants, including Patriarch Joseph I of Constantinople sang the Creed three times with theFilioque addition. Most Byzantine Christians feeling disgust and recovering from the Latin Crusaders' conquest and betrayal, refused to accept the agreement made at Lyon with the Latins. In 1282, Emperor Michael VIII died and Patriarch Joseph I's successor, John XI, who had become convinced that the teaching of the Greek Fathers was compatible with that of the Latins, was forced to resign, and was replaced by Gregory II, who was strongly of the opposite opinion.

The council required Eastern churches wishing to be reunited with Rome to accept the Filioque as a legitimate expression of the faith, while it did not require those Christians to change the recitation of the creed in their liturgy.

The council of Lyons also condemned "all who presume to deny that the holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, or rashly to assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and not as from one. "

John VIII Palaiologos
by Benozzo Gozzoli

Another attempt at reunion was made at the fifteenth-century Council of Florence, to which Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, and other bishops from the East had gone in the hope of getting Western military aid against the loomingOttoman Empire. Thirteen public sessions held in Ferrara from 8 October to 13 December 1438 the Filioque question was debated without agreement. The Greeks held that any addition whatever, even if doctrinally correct, to the Creed had been forbidden by the Council of Ephesus, while the Latins claimed that this prohibition concerned meaning, not words.

During the council of Florence in 1439, accord continued to be elusive, until the argument prevailed among the Greeks themselves that, though the Greek and the Latin saints expressed their faith differently, they were in agreement substantially, since saints cannot err in faith; and by 8 June the Greeks accepted the Latin statement of doctrine. On 10 June Patriarch Joseph II died. A statement on the Filioque question was included in theLaetentur Caeli decree of union, which was signed on 5 July 1439 and promulgated the next day, with Mark of Ephesus being the only bishop to refuse his signature.

The Eastern Church refused to consider the agreement reached at Florence binding, since the death of Joseph II had for the moment left it without a Patriarch of Constantinople. There was strong opposition to the agreement in the East, and when in 1453, 14 years after the agreement, the promised military aid from the West still had not arrived and Constantinople fell to the Turks, neither Eastern Christians nor their new rulers wished union between them and the West.

Council of Jerusalem in 1583 AD

The 1583 Synod of Jerusalem condemned those who do not believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone in essence, and from Father and Son in time. In addition, this synod re-affirmed adherence to the decisions of Council of Nicaea I in AD 325.

Council of Jerusalem in 1672 AD

Re-affirmed procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone.

Present position of various churches

Church of the East

Two of the present-day churches derived from the Church of the East, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East do not use "and the Son" when reciting the Nicene Creed. The other, known as the Chaldean Church, has recently, at the request of the Holy See, removed "and the Son" from its version of the Nicene Creed.

Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church does not include Filioque: when quoting theNiceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, such as in the 6 August 2000 document Dominus Iesus. In the liturgy also, the Roman Catholic Church does not add the phrase corresponding to Filioque (καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ) to the Greek text of the Creed, even for Latin Rite Catholics. Popes John Paul IIand Benedict XVI have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs Demetrius I and Bartholomew I in Greek without the Filioque clause. In addition, Eastern Catholic Churches do not necessarily include "Filioque" in their versions of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Even those Eastern Catholic Churches that are not of Greek tradition and that have incorporated the Filioque into their recitation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed are officially encouraged to omit it.

The agreement that brought about the 1595 Union of Brest expressly declared that those entering full communion with Rome "should remain with that which was handed down to (them) in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors, that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son."

Belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds, in this sense, "from the Father and the Son" was held in the West at an early stage. Anthony Edward Siecienski identifies Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368), the "Athanasius of the West", and Augustine of Hippo (354-430) as "the chief patristic source(s) for the Latin teaching on the filioque." Even before Rome, at the 451 Council of Chalcedon recognized and received the 381 Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed with its expression "from the Father", Pope Leo I declared in 446 that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son. The teaching of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son has been professed unanimously in the West. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes that, in the Greek language, the word used in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed to signify the proceeding of the Holy Spirit cannot appropriately be used with regard to the Son, but only with regard to the Father, a difficulty that does not exist in other languages.

Pope Leo III, repeating in this the teaching of Pope Leo I, the Pope whose Tome was approved at the Council of Chalcedon, and who, in 447, before even theMerovingian Frankish kingdom had been established, had confessed the Filioque doctrine dogmatically.

In the view of the Roman Catholic Church, what it calls the legitimate complementarity of the expressions "from the Father" and "from the Father and the Son" does not, provided it does not become rigid, affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.

Monarchy of the Father in the West

The monarchy of the Father is a doctrine upheld not only by those who like Photius speak of a procession from the Father alone. It is also by theologians who speak of a procession from the Father through the Son or from the Father and the Son. Examples cited in the bookThe Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy by A. Edward Siecienski include Bessarion, Maximus the Confessor,Bonaventure, and the Council of Worms (868), The same remark is made by Jürgen Moltmann. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity also states that not only the Eastern tradition, but also the Latin Filioque tradition "recognize that the 'Monarchy of the Father' implies that the Father is the sole Trinitarian Cause (αἰτία) or Principle (principium) of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The Roman Catholic Church, rejecting the notion that the Holy Spirit proceeds jointly and equally from two principles (Father and Son), teaches dogmatically that "the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles but as from one single principle". As the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares, the Father, as the "principle without principle", is the first origin of the Spirit, but also, as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds.

Anglicanism

In 1978 the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference requested "that all member Churches of the Anglican Communion should consider omitting the Filioque from the Nicene Creed, and that the Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission through the Anglican Consultative Council should assist them in presenting the theological issues to their appropriate synodical bodies and should be responsible for any necessary consultation with other Churches of the Western tradition."

In 1988 the conference "ask(ed) that further thought be given to the Filioque clause, recognising it to be a major point of disagreement (with the Orthodox) ... recommending to the provinces of the Anglican Communion that in future liturgical revisions the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed be printed without the Filioque clause." At a subsequent joint meeting of the Anglican Primates and Anglican Consultative Council in 1993, a resolution was passed urging Anglican churches to comply with the request that "in future liturgical revisions the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed be printed without the Filioque clause."

The recommendation was not specifically renewed in the 1998 and 2008 Lambeth Conferences and has not been implemented.

In 1985 the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (USA) recommended that the Filioque clause should be removed from the Nicene Creed, if this were endorsed by the 1988 Lambeth Council. Accordingly, at its 1994 General Convention, the Episcopal Church reaffirmed its intention to remove the words "and the son" from the Nicene Creed in the next revision of its Book of Common Prayer. The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was last revised in 1979, and has not been revised since the resolution.

Eastern Orthodoxy

The Eastern Orthodox interpretation is that the Holy Spirit originates, has his cause for existence or being (manner of existence) from the Father alone as "One God, One Father".That the filioque confuses the theology as it was defined at the councils at both Nicene and Constantinople.The position that having the creed say "the Holy Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son", does not mean that the Holy Spirit now has two origins, is not the position the West took at the Council of Florence. Where the Roman Catholic side explicitly stated that the Holy Spirit has its cause of existence from the Father and the Son.

Views of Eastern Orthodox saints

The addition of the Filioque to the Niceno-Constantinipolitan Creed has been condemned as heretical by many important Fathers and saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church, including Photios I of Constantinople, Gregory Palamas and Mark of Ephesus, sometimes referred to as the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy. However, the statement 'The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son' can be understood in an orthodox sense if it is clear from the context that 'procession from the Son' refers to the sending forth of the Spirit in time, not to an eternal, double procession within the Trinity Itself. Hence, Saint Maximus the Confessor defended the Western use of the Filioque in a context other than that of the Niceno-Constantinipolitan Creed.

“ “Concerning the Holy Spirit, it is said not that he has existence from the Son or through the Son, but rather that He proceeds from the Father and has the same nature as the Son, is in fact the Spirit of the Son as being One in Essence with Him” Saint Theodoret On the Third Ecumenical Council. ”

According to Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, it is Eastern Orthodox tradition that Saint Gregory of Nyssa himself composed the section of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed referring to the Holy Spirit adopted by the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381. There is no reason to suppose that St Gregory of Nyssa, or any of the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council, would have endorsed the addition of the Filioque, as later understood in the West, to the Creed.

Eastern Orthodox view of Roman Catholic theology

Eastern Orthodox theologians (e.g., Michael Pomazansky) say that the Nicene Creed as a Symbol of Faith, as dogma, is to address and define church theology specifically the Orthodox Trinitarian understanding of God. In the hypostases of God as correctly expressed against the teachings considered outside the church. The Father hypostasis of the Nicene Creed is the origin of all.Eastern Orthodox theologians have stated that New Testament passages (often quoted by the Latins) speak of the economy rather than the ontology of the Holy Spirit, and that in order to resolve this conflict Western theologians made further doctrinal changes, including declaring all persons of the Trinity to originate in the essence of God (the heresy of Sabellianism). Eastern Orthodox theologians see this as teaching of philosophical speculation rather than from actual experience of God via theoria.

The Father is the eternal, infinite and uncreated reality, that the Christ and the Holy Spirit are also eternal, infinite and uncreated, in that their origin is not in the ousia of God, but that their origin is in the hypostasis of God called the Father. The double procession of the Holy Spirit bears some resemblance to the teachings of Macedonius and his sect called the Pneumatomachians in that the Holy Spirit is created by the Son and a servant of the Father and the Son. It was Macedonius' position that caused the specific wording of the section on the Holy Spirit by St Gregory of Nyssa in the finalizedNicene creed.[60]

The following are points of the filioque as Roman Catholic dogma seen as in contention with Eastern Orthodoxy.

1. The Father is from no one; the Son is from the Father only; and the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Son equally. The Fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215,
2. A definition against the Albigenses and other heretics [We] confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles, but as from one; not by two spirations but by one. The Second Council of Lyon, 1274, Constitution on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
3. The Father is not begotten; the Son is begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Council of Florence, 1438–45, Decree for the Jacobites
4. The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: “The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration . . . . And, since the Father has through generation given to the only begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 246
5. “We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, just like the Father.” Council of Florence, Session 6
6. In particular the condemnation made at the Second Council of Lyons (1274) of those “who presume to deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son”

In the judgment of these Orthodox, the Roman Catholic Church is in fact teaching as a matter of Roman Catholic dogma that the Holy Spirit derives his origin and being (equally) from both the Father and the Son, making the Filioque a double procession. This being the very thing that Maximus the Confessor was stating in his work from the 7th century that would be wrong and that the West was not doing.

They thus perceive the West as teaching through more than one type of theological Filioque a different origin and cause of the Holy Spirit. That through the dogmatic Roman Catholic Filioque the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Father and the Son and not a free and independent and equal to the Father, hypostasis that receives his uncreatedness from the origin of all things, the Father hypostasis. Trinity expresses the idea of message, messenger and revealer, or mind, word and meaning. Eastern Orthodox Christians believe in one God the Father, whose person is uncaused and unoriginate, who, because He is love and communion, always exists with His Word and Spirit.

Eastern Orthodox theology

In Eastern Orthodox Christianity theology starts with the Father hypostasis, not the essence of God, since the Father is the God of the Old Testament. The Father is the origin of all things and this is the basis and starting point of the Orthodox trinitarian teaching of one God in Father, one God, of the essence of the Father (as the uncreated comes from the Father as this is what the Father is). In Eastern Orthodox theology, God's uncreatedness or being or essence in Greek is called ousia. Jesus Christ is the Son (God Man) of the uncreated Father (God). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the uncreated Father (God).

The activity and actuality of the Trinity in creation are called God's energies as God as creator is light and this uncreated light (energy) is the basis from which all things derive their existence. God has existences (hypostases) of being; this concept is translated as the word "person" in the West.Each hypostasis of God is a specific and unique existence of God. Each has the same essence (coming from the origin, without origin, Father (God) they are uncreated). Each specific quality that constitutes a hypostasis of God, is non-reductionist and not shared.

It is this immanence of the Trinity that was defined in the finalized Nicene Creed. The economy of God, as God expresses himself in reality (his energies) was not what the Creed addressed directly. Nor the specifics of God's interrelationships of his existences, is again not what is defined within the Nicene Creed. The attempt to use the Creed to explain God's energies by reducing God existences to mere energies (actualities, activities, potentials) could be perceived as the heresy of semi-modalism. Eastern Orthodox theologians have complained about this problem in the Roman Catholic dogmatic teaching of actus purus.

Theodoret's statement against Cyril

The issue of the Filioque can somewhat be dated to the 5th century where St Theodoret refused to endorse the deposition of Nestorius by the Council of Ephesus(431), where Theodoret accused StCyril of Alexandria of erroneously teaching that the Son has a role in the origin of the Holy Spirit. In fact, several statements by Saint Cyril exist in which he fleetingly declares that the Holy Spirit issues from the Father and the Son (with similar statements that the Spirit issues from the Father through the Son) in an intra-Trinitarian relationship. and Antony Maas wrote that what Theodoret denied was not the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but only the claim that the Holy Spirit was created by or through the Son. Photius's position that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone has been described as only a restatement of Theodoret's. In spite of Theodoret's attack on him for saying "the Spirit has his existence either from the Son or through the Son", Cyril continued to use such formulae.

Under persistent urging by the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon (451), Theodoret finally pronounced an anathema on Nestorius. He died in 457. Almost exactly one hundred years later, the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) declared anathema anyone who would defend the writings of Theodoret against Saint Cyril and his Twelve Anathemas, the ninth of which Theodoret had attacked for what it said of the procession of the Holy Spirit. (See Three-Chapter Controversy). He is considered a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but is called "the excommunicate" by the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Both sides consider Cyril of Alexandria a saint. As Cyril spoke of the matter of which Theodoret accused him of as a misunderstanding. Cyril himself taught that the Latin teaching of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son appears to confuse the three hypostases of God with the common attributes of each hypostasis, and to the God's energetic manifestation in the world.

John Damascus

Before Photius, St John Damascus spoke explicitly of the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son.

” Of the Holy Ghost, we both say that He is from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father; while we nowise say that He is from the Son, but only call Him the Spirit of the Son.” (Theol., lib. l.c. 11, v. 4.)

Saint John of Damascus's position stated that the procession of the Holy Spirit is from the Father alone, but through the Son as mediator, in this way differing from Photius. John Damascus along with Photius, never endorsed the Filioque in the Creed.

Photius and the Monarchy of the Father

Photius insisted on the expression "from the Father" and excluded "through the Son" (Christ as co-cause of the Holy Spirit rather than primary cause) with regard to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit : "through the Son" applied only to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit (the sending in time). Photius addresses in his entire work on the Filioque the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. That any addition to the Creed would be to complicate and confuse an already very clear and simple definition of the ontology of the Holy Spirit that the Ecumenical Councils already gave.

Photius' position has been called a reaffirmation of Orthodox doctrine of the Monarchy of the Father. Photius's position that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone has also been described as a restatement of the Cappadocian Antiochian school (as opposed to the Alexandrian) teaching of the "monarchy of the Father".

Of the Eastern Orthodox's teaching ("from the Father alone"), Vladimir Lossky says that, while "verbally it may seem novel", it expresses in its doctrinal tenor the traditional teaching which is considered Orthodox. The phrase "from the Father alone" arises from the fact that the Creed itself only has "from the Father". So that the word "alone", which Photius nor the Orthodox suggest be added to the Creed, has been called a "gloss on the Creed", a clarification, an explanation or interpretation of its meaning.

Photius as well as the Eastern Orthodox, have never seen the need, nor ever suggested the word "alone" be added to the Creed itself. With this, the Eastern Orthodox Church generally considers the added Filioque phrase "from the Father and the Son" to be heretical, and accordingly procession "from the Fatheralone" has been referred to as "a main dogma of the Greek Church". In his study of the matter, Avery Dulles does not go so far and only states that the procession of the Spirit from the Father alone was the formula preferred by Photius and his strict disciples.

Eastern Orthodox theologians maintain that by the expression "from the Father alone", and Photius' opposition to the Filioque, Photius was confirming what is Orthodox and consistent with church tradition. Drawing the teaching of the Father as cause alone (their interpretation of the Monarchy of the Father) from such expressions from various saints and biblical text. Such as that of Saint Irenaeus, when he called the Word and the Spirit "the two hands of God". They interpret the phrase "monarchy of the Father" differently from those who see it as not in conflict with a procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through or from the Son. As the Father has given to the Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father (see examples given above of those who in this way uphold the monarchy of the Father).

By insistence of the Filioque, Orthodox representatives say that the West appears to deny the monarchy of Father and the Father as principle origin of the Trinity. Which would indeed be the heresy of Modalism (which states the essence of God and not the Father is the origin of, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The idea of Photius having invented that the Father is sole source of cause of the Holy Trinity is to attribute to him something that predates Photius' existence i.e.Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia,Theodoret of Cyrus and John of Damascus. "Photius never explored the deeper meaning behind the formula 'through the Son' (διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ), or the necessary eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, even though it was a traditional teaching of the previous Greek fathers".

Photius did recognize that the Spirit maybe said to proceed temporally through the Son orfrom the Son. Photius stated that this was not the eternal Trinitarian relationships that was actually the thing being defined in the Creed. The Nicene Creed in Greek, speaks of the procession of the Holy Spirit "from the Father", not "from the Father alone", nor "From the Father and the Son", nor "From the Father through the Son".

Photius taught this in light of the teachings from Saints like Irenaeus whose Monarchy of the Father is in contrast to subordinationism, as the Orthodox officially condemnedsubordinationism in the 2nd council of Constantinople. That the Monarchy of Father which is in the Nicene Creed, Photius (and the Eastern Orthodox) endorse as official doctrine. As well as StJohn of Damascus who taught the Holy Spirit proceeds from the being of God (as does Zizilious). Which is the Father expressed in the concept of the 'monarchy of the Father' via John 14:28 (“The Father is greater than I am”).

Gregory Palamas' Tomus of 1351

In St Gregory of Palamas' Tomus (1351) on the issue of the Filioque he very clearly denotes the distinctions of the Eastern and Western churches positions on the procession of the Holy Spirit here St Gregory was not only following the Eastern Tradition of what was addressed in the Nicene Creed by the Greek Fathers but he also clarifies what the divergent phrases of those in the East whom appear to support the Filioque and what distinction is actually being made by the Eastern fathers whom oppose the use of Filioque.

"The Great Maximus, the holy Tarasius, and even the saintly John [Damascene] recognize that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, from whom it subsists in terms of its hypostasis and the cause of its being. At the same time, they acknowledge that the Spirit is given, revealed, and, manifeste, comes forth, and is known through the Son."

Orthodox theologians who do not condemn the Filioque

Not all Orthodox theologians share the view taken by Vladimir Lossky, Dumitru Stăniloae,John Romanides and Michael Pomazansky, who condemn the Filioque. There is a liberal view within the Orthodox tradition which is more accepting of the Filioque. The Encyclopedia of Christian Theology lists Vasily Bolotov, Paul Evdokimov, I. Voronov and Sergei Bulgakov as seeing the Filioque as a permissible theological opinion or "theologoumenon." Since a Theologoumenon is a theological opinion on what is defined outside of dogma, in the case of any Orthodox theologians open to the filioque as opinion, it is unclear if they would accept that the filioque ever be added into the Creed for the whole church, or just something exclusive for the Latin language based church of the West. For Vasily Bolotov this is confirmed by other sources, even if they do not themselves adopt that opinion. Though Bolotov firmly rejects the Filioque in the procession of the Spirit from the Father.

Sergei Bulgakov's own work The Comforter states:

"from the Son" and "through the Son" are theological opinions which were dogmatized prematurely and erroneously. There is no dogma of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son and therefore particular opinions on this subject are not heresies but merely dogmatic hypotheses, which have been transformed into heresies by the schismatic spirit that has established itself in the Church and that eagerly exploits all sorts of liturgical and even cultural differences" (emphasis in the original).

As an Orthodox theologian, Bulgakov acknowledges that dogma can only established by an ecumenical council.

Boris Bobrinskoy sees the Filioque as having positive theological content. Bishop Kallistos Ware suggests that the problem is of semantics rather than of basic doctrinal differences. Saint Theophylact of Ohrid likewise held that the difference was linguistic in nature and not actually theological.

Recent theological perspectives

"It should be noted … that those who favour retention of the Filioque are often thinking of the Trinity as revealed and active in human affairs, whereas the original Greek text is concerned about relationships within the Godhead itself. As with many historical disputes, the two parties may not be discussing the same thing." - English Language Liturgical Consultation, 1988.

Orthodox reconsideration of the Filioque

Several Orthodox theologians have considered the Filioque anew, with a view to reconciliation of East and West. In 1898, Orthodox theologian Vasily Bolotov published his "Thesen über dasFilioque", in which he asserted that the Filioque, like Photios's "from the Fatheralone", was a permissible theological opinion (a theologoumenon, not a dogma) that cannot be an absolute impediment to reestablishment of communion. This thesis was supported by Orthodox theologiansSergei Bulgakov, Paul Evdokimov and I. Voronov, but was rejected by Vladimir Lossky.

In 1986, Theodore Stylianopoulos provided an extensive, scholarly overview of the contemporary discussion. Twenty years after writing the first (1975) edition of his book, The Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia said that he had changed his mind and had concluded that "the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases than in any basic doctrinal differences": "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone" and "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" may both have orthodox meanings if the words translated "proceeds" actually have different meanings. For some Orthodox, then, theFilioque, while still a matter of conflict, would not impede full communion of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches if other issues were resolved. But many Orthodox consider that the Filioque is in flagrant contravention of the words of Christ in the Gospel,. has been specifically condemned by the Orthodox Church, and remains a fundamental heretical teaching which divides East and West.

John Romanides too, while personally opposing the "Filioque", has stated that in itself, outside the Creed, the phrase is not considered to have been condemned by the 878-880 Council of Constantinople, "since it did not teach that the Son is 'cause' or 'co-cause' of the existence of the Holy Spirit"; however, it could not be added to the Creed, "where 'procession' means 'cause' of existence of the Holy Spirit".

Inclusion in the Nicene Creed

Eastern Orthodox Christians also object that, even if the teaching of the Filioque can be defended, its medieval interpretation and unilateral interpolation into the Creed is anti-canonical and unacceptable. "The Catholic Church acknowledges the conciliar, ecumenical, normative and irrevocable value, as expression of the one common faith of the Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council. No profession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical tradition can contradict this expression of the faith taught and professed by the undivided Church." It allows liturgical use of theApostles' Creed as well of the Nicene Creed, and sees no essential difference between the recitation in the liturgy of a creed with orthodox additions and a profession of faith outside the liturgy such that of the Patriarch of Constantinople Saint Tarasius, who developed the Nicene Creed with an addition as follows: "the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father through the Son". It sees the addition of "and the Son" also as an elucidation of the faith already expressed by the Church Fathers.

The elucidations that the Armenian Apostolic Church adds to the Nicene Creed are much more numerous than the two added by theLatin Church. Another change made to the text of the Nicene Creed by both the Latins and the Greeks is to use the singular "I believe" in place of the plural "we believe", while all the Churches of Oriental Orthodoxy, not only the Armenian, but also the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Malankara Orthodox Church, and the Syrian Orthodox Church, have on the contrary preserved the "we believe" of the original text.

Some theologians have even envisaged as possible acceptance of Filioque by the Eastern Orthodox Church (Vladimir Lossky) or of "from the Father alone" by the Roman Catholic Church (André de Halleux).

The Roman Catholic view that the Greek and the Latin expressions of faith in this regard are not contradictory but complementary has been expressed as follows:

At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son. The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque). … This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.

For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church has refused the addition of καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ to the formula ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον of the Nicene Creed in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek with the Greek verb "έκπορεύεσθαι".

At the same time, the Eastern Catholic Churches, although they do not use the Filioque in the Creed, are in full communion with Rome, which accepts the Filioque in both liturgy and dogma.

Greek verbs translated as "proceeds"

See also: Perichoresis

In 1995 the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity published in various languages a study on The Greek and the Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit, which pointed out an important difference in meaning between the Greek verbἐκπορεύεσθαι and the Latin verb procedere, both of which are commonly translated as "proceed". The pontifical council stated that the Greek verb ἐκπορεύεσθαιindicates that the Spirit "takes his origin from the Father ... in a principal, proper and immediate manner", while the Latin verb, which corresponds rather to the verb προϊέναι in Greek, can be applied to proceeding even from a mediate channel.

Metropolitan John Zizioulas, while maintaining the explicit Orthodox position of the Father as the single origin and source of the Holy Spirit, has declared that the recent document thePontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity shows positive signs of reconciliation. Zizioulas states "Closely related to the question of the single cause is the problem of the exact meaning of the Son's involvement in the procession of the Spirit. Saint Gregory of Nyssaexplicitly admits a 'mediating' role of the Son in the procession of the Spirit from the Father. Is this role to be expressed with the help of the preposition δία (through) the Son (εκ Πατρός δι'Υιού), as Saint Maximus and other Patristic sources seem to suggest?"

Zizioulas continues with "The Vatican statement notes that this is 'the basis that must serve for the continuation of the current theological dialogue between Catholic and Orthodox'. I would agree with this, adding that the discussion should take place in the light of the 'single cause' principle to which I have just referred." Zizioulas continues with saying that this "constitutes an encouraging attempt to clarify the basic aspects of the 'Filioque' problem and show that a rapprochement between West and East on this matter is eventually possible".

Focus on Saint Maximus as a point of mutual agreement

Recently, theological debate about the filioque has focused on the writings of Maximus the Confessor. Siecienski writes that, "Among the hundreds of figures involved in the filioque debates throughout the centuries, Maximus the Confessor enjoys a privileged position." During the lengthy proceedings at Ferrara-Florence, the Orthodox delegates presented a text from Maximus the Confessor that they felt could provide the key to resolving the theological differences between East and West.

The study published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity states that, according to Saint Maximus, the phrase "and from the Son" does not contradict the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father as first origin (ἐκπόρευσις), since it concerns only the Holy Spirit's coming (in the sense of the Latin wordprocessio and Saint Cyril of Alexandria's προϊέναι) from the Son in a way that excludes any idea of subordinationism.

Orthodox theologian and Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, says: "For Saint Maximus the Filioque was not heretical because its intention was to denote not the ἐκπορεύεσθαι (ekporeuesthai) but the προϊέναι (proienai) of the Spirit."

Metropolitan John Zizioulas also wrote:

"As Saint Maximus the Confessor insisted, however, in defence of the Roman use of the Filioque, the decisive thing in this defence lies precisely in the point that in using the Filioque the Romans do not imply a "cause" other than the Father. The notion of "cause" seems to be of special significance and importance in the Greek Patristic argument concerning the Filioque. If Roman Catholic theology would be ready to admit that the Son in no way constitutes a "cause" (aition) in the procession of the Spirit, this would bring the two traditions much closer to each other with regard to the Filioque."This is precisely what Saint Maximus said of the Roman view, that "they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit – they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession".

In this regard, the letter of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity on "The Greek and the Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit" upholds the monarchy of the Father as the "sole Trinitarian Cause [aitia] or principle [principium] of the Son and the Holy Spirit" While the Council of Florence proposed the equivalency of the two terms "cause" and "principle" and therefore implied that the Son is a cause (aitia) of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, the letter of the Pontifical Council distinguishes

between what the Greeks mean by 'procession' in the sense of taking origin from, applicable only to the Holy Spirit relative to the Father (ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon), and what the Latins mean by 'procession' as the more common term applicable to both Son and Spirit (ex Patre Filioque procedit; ek tou Patros kai tou Huiou proion). This preserves the monarchy of the Father as the sole origin of the Holy Spirit while simultaneously allowing for an intratrinitarian relation between the Son and Holy Spirit that the document defines as 'signifying the communication of the consubstantial divinity from the Father to the Son and from the Father through and with the Son to the Holy Spirit'."

Roman Catholic theologian Avery Dulles, writing of the Eastern fathers who, while aware of the currency of theFilioque in the West, did not generally regard it as heretical, said: "Some, such as Maximus the Confessor, a seventh-century Byzantine monk, defended it as a legitimate variation of the Eastern formula that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son."

Michael Pomazansky and John Romanides hold that Maximus' position does not defend the actual way the Roman Catholic Church justifies and teaches the Filioque as dogma for the whole church. While accepting as a legitimate and complementary expression of the same faith and reality the teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. Maximus held strictly to the teaching of the Eastern Church that "the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit" and wrote a special treatise about this dogma.Later again at the Council of Florence in 1438, the West held that the two views were contradictory.

Per filium

Recently some Orthodox theologians have proposed the substitution of the formula a patre per filium ( I ek toupatros dia tou huiou) instead of a patre filioque.

Recent attempts at reconciliation

Starting in the latter half of the twentieth century, ecumenical efforts have gradually developed more nuanced understandings of the issues underlying the Filioque controversy and worked to remove them as an obstruction to Christian unity. Western churches have arrived at the position that, although the Filioque is doctrinally sound, the way that it was inserted into the Nicene Creed has created an unnecessary obstacle to ecumenical dialogue. Thus, without abandoning the Filioque, some Western churches have come to accept that it could be omitted from the Creed without violating any core theological principles. This accommodation on the part of Western Churches has the objective of allowing both East and West to once again to share a common understanding of the Creed as the traditional and fundamental statement of the Christian faith.

Lambeth Conferences

Three Lambeth Conferences (1888, 1978 and 1988) have recommended that the Filioque be dropped from the Nicene Creed by churches that belong to the Anglican Communion.

Joint statement in the United States in 2003

The Filioque was the main subject discussed at the 62nd meeting of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, in June 2002. In October 2003, the Consultation issued an agreed statement, The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?, which provides an extensive review of Scripture, history, and theology. The recommendations include:

1. That all involved in such dialogue expressly recognize the limitations of our ability to make definitive assertions about the inner life of God.
2. That, in the future, because of the progress in mutual understanding that has come about in recent decades, Orthodox and Catholics refrain from labeling as heretical the traditions of the other side on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit.
3. That Orthodox and Catholic theologians distinguish more clearly between the divinity and hypostatic identity of the Holy Spirit (which is a received dogma of our Churches) and the manner of the Spirit's origin, which still awaits full and final ecumenical resolution.
4. That those engaged in dialogue on this issue distinguish, as far as possible, the theological issues of the origin of the Holy Spirit from the ecclesiological issues of primacy and doctrinal authority in the Church, even as we pursue both questions seriously, together.
5. That the theological dialogue between our Churches also give careful consideration to the status of later councils held in both our Churches after those seven generally received as ecumenical.
6. That the Catholic Church, as a consequence of the normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381, use the original Greek text alone in making translations of that Creed for catechetical and liturgical use.
7. That the Catholic Church, following a growing theological consensus, and in particular the statements made by Pope Paul VI, declare that the condemnation made at the Second Council of Lyons (1274) of those "who presume to deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son" is no longer applicable.

In the judgment of the consultation, the question of the Filioque is no longer a "Church-dividing" issue, which would impede full reconciliation and full communion. It is for the bishops of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches to review this work and to make whatever decisions would be appropriate.

Summary

The Filioque was originally proposed to stress more clearly the connection between the Son and the Spirit, amid a heresy in which the Son was taken as less than the Father because he does not serve as a source of the Holy Spirit. When the Filioque came into use in Spain and Gaul in the West, the local churches were not aware that their language of procession would not translate well back into the Greek. Conversely, from Photius to the Council of Florence, the Greek Fathers were also not acquainted with the linguistic issues.

While the Filioque doctrine was traditional in the West, being declared dogmatically in 447 byPope Leo I, the Pope whose Tome was approved at the Council of Chalcedon, its inclusion in the Creed appeared in the anti-Arian situation of seventh-century Spain. However this dogma was never accepted in the East. The Filioque, included in the Creed by certain anti-Arian councils in Spain, was a means to affirm the full divinity of the Son in relation to both the Father and the Spirit.

Ironically, a similar anti-Arian emphasis also strongly influenced the development of the liturgy in the East, for example, in promoting prayer to "Christ Our God", an expression which also came to find a place in the West, where, largely as a result of "the Church's reaction to Teutonic Arianism", "'Christ our God' ... gradually assumes precedence over 'Christ our brother'". In this case, a common adversary, namely, Arianism, had profound, far-reaching effects, in the orthodox reaction in both East and West.

Church politics, authority conflicts, ethnic hostility, linguistic misunderstanding, personal rivalry, forced conversions, large scale wars, political intrigue, unfilled promises and secular motives all combined in various ways to divide East and West.

As regards the doctrine expressed by the phrase in Latin (in which the word "procedit" that is linked with "Filioque" does not have exactly the same meaning and overtones as the word used in Greek), any declaration by the West that it is heretical (something that not all Orthodox now insist on) would conflict with the Western doctrine of the infallibility of the Church, since it has been upheld by Councils recognized by the Roman Catholic Church as ecumenical and even by those Popes who, like Leo III,opposed insertion of the word into the Creed.

Bibliography

Much has been written on the Filioque; what follows is selective. As time goes on, this list will inevitably have to be updated.

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• "Filioque", article in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 614.
• David Bradshaw. Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 214–220.
• Laurent Cleenewerck. His Broken Body: Understanding and healing the schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Washington, DC: Euclid University Press, 2008, pp. 321–347.
• Joseph P. Farrell. God, History, & Dialectic: The Theological Foundations of the Two Europes and Their Cultural Consequences. Bound edition 1997. Electronic edition 2008.
• Joseph P. Farrell translator The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photius Publisher: Holy Cross Orthodox Press Language: English ISBN 978-0-916586-88-1
• John St. H. Gibaut, "The Cursus Honorum and the Western Case Against Photius", Logos 37 (1996), 35–73.
• Elizabeth Teresa Groppe. Yves Congar's Theology of the Holy Spirit. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. See esp. pp. 75–79, for a summary of Congar's work on theFilioque. Congar is widely considered the most important Roman Catholic ecclesiologist of the twentieth century. He was influential in the composition of several Vatican II documents. Most important of all, he was instrumental in the association in the West of pneumatology and ecclesiology, a new development.
• David Guretzki.Karl Barth on the Filioque.Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7546-6704-9. A close examination of Karl Barth's defense of the filioque and why his position is closer to an Eastern perspective than has typically been assumed.
• Richard Haugh. Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy. Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975.
• Joseph Jungmann, S.J. Pastoral Liturgy. London: Challoner, 1962. See "Christ our God", pp. 38–48.
• James Likoudis. Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism. New Rochelle, New York: 1992. An apologetic response to polemical attacks. A useful book for its inclusion of important texts and documents; see especially citations and works by Thomas Aquinas, O.P., Demetrios Kydones, Nikos A. Nissiotis, and Alexis Stawrowsky. The select bibliography is excellent. The author demonstrates that the Filioque dispute is only understood as part of a dispute over papal primacy and cannot be dealt with apart from ecclesiology.
• Bruce D. Marshall, "'Ex Occidente Lux?' Aquinas and Eastern Orthodox Theology", Modern Theology 20:1 (January, 2004), 23–50. Reconsideration of the views of Aquinas, especially on deification and grace, as well as his Orthodox critics. The author suggests that Aquinas may have a more accurate perspective than his critics, on the systematic questions of theology that relate to the Filioque dispute.
• John Meyendorff. Byzantine Theology. New York: Fordham University Press, 1979, pp. 91–94.
• Aristeides Papadakis. Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–1289). New York: Fordham University Press, 1983.
• Aristeides Papadakis. The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1994, pp. 232–238 and 379-408.
• Duncan Reid. Energies of the Spirit: Trinitarian Models in Eastern Orthodox and Western Theology. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1997.
• A. Edward Siecienski. The Use of Maximus the Confessor's Writing on the Filioque at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1439). Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services, 2005.
• A. Edward Siecienski. The Filioque. History of a Doctrinal Controversy. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Malon H. Smith, III. And Taking Bread: Cerularius and the Azyme Controversy of 1054. Paris: Beauschesne, 1978. This work is still valuable for understanding cultural and theological estrangement of East and West by the turn of the millennium. Now, it is evident that neither side understood the other; both Greek and Latin antagonists assumed their own practices were normative and authentic.
• Timothy Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Church. New edition. London: Penguin, 1993, pp. 52–61.
• Timothy [Kallistos] Ware. The Orthodox Way. Revised edition. Crestwood, New York: 1995, pp. 89–104.
• [World Council of Churches] /Conseil Oecuménique des Eglises. La théologie du Saint-Esprit dans le dialogue œcuménique Document # 103 [Faith and Order]/Foi et Constitution. Paris: Centurion, 1981.
• Sergius Bulgakov. The Comforter. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (June 2004) ISBN 978-0-8028-2112-6

External links

• The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit
• Joint North American Orthodox-Catholic Statement
• Filioque at OrthodoxWiki
• full-length article at OrthodoxAnswers.org
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Filioque" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Christian Cyclopedia entry
• Agreed statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consulation
• An Orthodox Response to the Filioque - Zizioulas
• The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine by V. Lossky

Category:East–West Schism Category:Trinitarianism Category:Eastern Orthodox theology Category:Christianity-related controversies Category:Christian terms Category:6th-century Christian texts Category:11th-century Christianity Category:Latin words and phrases