Filioque

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Icon by Andrei Rublev depicting the Holy Trinity.

Filioque (Ecclesiastical Latin: [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,^[1] to the Latin text of the Creed at the local Third Council of Toledo (589) and its inclusion later spread spontaneously^[2] not only in Spain, but throughout the Frankish Empire.^[3] and elsewhere.^[4] 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.^[3] In 1014, however, singing of the Creed, with Filioque included, was adopted in the celebration of the Mass in Rome.^[3] Since its denunciation by Photios I of Constantinople (see the Photian schism of 863-867),^[3] 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.^[5]

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."^[6] 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.^[7]

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.^[8] 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.^[9] 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).^[8]

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,^[10] 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".[11]

”

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).^[12]

The fourth ecumenical council, that of Chalcedon (451), quoted the creed of 381 and formally treated it as binding, together with that of 325.^[13] Within 80 years, therefore, the creed of 381 was normative in defining the Christian faith.^[13] 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.^[13]

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-Ctesiphon in Persia in about 410.^[14] 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.^[15] The Church of the East does not include "and the Son" in the Creed.^[16][17]

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. ^{[6][not in citation given]} 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.^{[18][not in citation given]}

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.'"^[19]

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,^[8] while the expression “from the Father through the Son” is also found among them.^[20][21]

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,^[22] which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by the Son to the Spirit.^[23]

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."^[13]

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)".^[24][25]

That the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from the Father and the Son in the sense of the Latin word procedere and theGreek προϊέναι (as opposed to the Greek ἐκπορεύεσθαι) was taught by the early fifth century by Saint Cyril of Alexandria in the East^[8][26] The Athanasian Creed, probably of the middle of the fifth century,^[27] and a dogmatic epistle of Pope Leo I,^[28][29] who declared in 446 that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son.^[30]

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:^[31] "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."^[32]

The phrase Filioque first appears as an anti-Arian^[33][34] 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,^[35] and in England, where the Council of Hatfield imposed it in 680 as a response to Monothelitism.^[4] 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.^{[citation needed]} They include Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368),^[36]Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 – 373),^[37][38] Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 310–320 – 403),^[39][38] Ambrose (337–340 – 397),^[40] Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430),^[41]Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 - 444),^[42][38] and Pope Leo I (c. 400 – 461).^[43] 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.^[44] 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), and Isidore of Seville (died 636).^[45]

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."^[46]

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 and the Son".^[47]

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".^[48]

Augustine's writings on the Trinity became the foundation of Latin trinitarian theology and serves as the foundation for the doctrine of the filioque.^[49]

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."^[50]

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.^[51]

"From the Father through the Son"

Church Fathers also use the phrase "from the Father through the Son".^[52] 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.^[53] 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.^[54][55] 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.^[56][57][58] The influence of Augustine of Hippo made the phrase "proceeds from the Father through the Son" popular throughout the West.^[59] 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".^[60] 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".^[61]

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.^[62][63] Before the Ecthesis reached Rome, Pope Honorius I, who had seemed to support Monothelitism, died. His successor Pope 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.^[64]

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 to Patriarch 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,^[65] after Paul, in 647 or 648, had issued in the name of Emperor Constans II an edict known as the Typos, which banned any mention of either one or two activities or wills in Christ.^[63] The Typos, instead of defusing the situation, made it worse by implying that either doctrine was a good as the other.^[66] 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.^[67] 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.^[68] Maximus also was tried and banished after having his tongue and his hand cut off.^[69]

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]."^[70]

Later developments

Widespread use of the Filioque in the West led to controversy with envoys of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine Vat a synod held at Gentilly in 767.^[71][72] The use of Filioque was defended by Saint Paulinus II, the Patriarch of Aquileia, at the Synod of Friuli, Italy in 796, and it was endorsed in 809 at the local Council of Aachen.^[3] 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, the Filioquebecame 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.^[34][73][74]

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 including Elipando. 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,^[75] and John Romanides^[76] 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. Emperor Charlemagne 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.^[77] 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,^{[3][13][78][79]} Pope Leo III in 810 opposed adding the Filioque to the Creed,^[3] 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,^[13] adding: "I, Leo, have placed these for love and protection of the orthodox faith".^[80]

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 Filioqueincluded.^{[13][81][82][83]} In response, the theology of the Filioque was expressed in the 809 local Council of Aachen.^{[13][83][84][85]}

Photian controversy

Main article: Photios I of Constantinople

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.^[74] 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.^[86]This moved the issue from jurisdiction and custom to one of dogma. This council declared Pope Nicholas anathema, excommunicated and deposed.^[87]

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).^[88][89][90] He maintained that the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is "from the Father alone".^[91] This phrase was verbally a novelty^[92][93] However, Orthodox theologians generally hold that in substance the phrase was only a reaffirmation of traditional teaching.^[92][93] Sergei Bulgakov, on the other hand, declared that Photius's doctrine itself "represents a sort of novelty for the Eastern church".^[94]

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 EmperorMichael 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.^{[95][96][97][98]}

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.^[99]

Adoption in the Roman Rite

It was only in 1014, at the request of the German King Henry II who 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 of Filioque, sung at Mass in Rome for the first time.^[34] In some other places Filioque 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".^[100]

Since then the Filioque phrase has been included in the Creed throughout the Latin Rite except where Greek is used in the liturgy,^{[101][101][102][102]} although it was never adopted by Eastern Catholic Churches.^[103]

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"^[104] and the Greek participants, including Patriarch Joseph I of Constantinople sang the Creed three times with the Filioque 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. "^{[13][105][106]}

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 looming Ottoman Empire. Thirteen public sessions held inFerrara 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.^[107]

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.^[107]

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.^[108]

Roman Catholicism

The Roman Catholic Church does not include Filioque: when quoting the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, such as in the 6 August 2000 document Dominus Iesus.^[109] 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.^[101] Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs Demetrius I and Bartholomew I in Greek without the Filioque clause.^{[13][110][111]} 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.^[112]

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."^[103][113]

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."^[46] 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.^[30] The teaching of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son has been professed unanimously in the West.^{[70][114][115]} 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.^[101]

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 the Merovingian Frankish kingdom had been established, had confessed the Filioque doctrine dogmatically.^[116]

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.^[113]

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 book The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy by A. Edward Siecienski^[117] include Bessarion,^[118] Maximus the Confessor,^[119] Bonaventure,^[120] and the Council of Worms (868),^[121] The same remark is made by Jürgen Moltmann.^[122] 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."^[101]

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".^[123] 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.^[124]

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."^[125]

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."^[126] 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."^[127]

The recommendation was not specifically renewed in the 1998 and 2008 Lambeth Conferences and has not been implemented.^[128]

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.^[129] 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.^[130] The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer was last revised in 1979, and has not been revised since the resolution.

Eastern Orthodoxy

“

“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.

”

^[131][132]

Views of Eastern Orthodox saints

The Filioque was qualified as a heresy by some of the Eastern Orthodox Church's saints, including Photios I of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, Gregory Palamas, who have been called the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy. Saint Maximus the Confessor defended the Western use of the Filioque in a context other than that of the Nicene Creed.^[133] Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos states that it is Eastern Orthodox tradition that the actual words of the passage in the Nicene Creed addressing the Holy Spirit as used by the East was crafted by Saint Gregory of Nyssa. Nyssa attending the council where he wrote the passage as it appeared and was accepted at the council of Constantinople in 381.^[134] St Gregory of Nyssa makes no expression in the passage in the creed that indicted that a filioque, as later understood in the West, was one he would have endorsed.^[135]

Theological contention

The Eastern Orthodox interpretation is that the Holy Spirit originates, has his cause for existence or being (manner of existence) from the Father alone^[136] as "One God, One Father".^[137] That the filioque confuses the theology as it was defined at the councils at both Nicene and Constantinople.^[138]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.^[139]

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.^[140] 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).^[141] 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^[142] 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 finalized Nicene creed.[58]^[143]

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^[144]
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 ^[145]
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”^[146]

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.^[147][148] 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.^{[149][not in citation given][150][151]}

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.^[152][153]

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.^[154] 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).^[155] In Eastern Orthodox theology, God's uncreatedness or being or essence in Greek is called ousia.^[156] Jesus Christ is the Son (God Man) of the uncreated Father (God). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the uncreated Father (God).^[157]

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.^[158] God has existences (hypostases) of being; this concept is translated as the word "person" in the West.^[159] Each hypostasis of God is a specific and unique existence of God.^[160] Each has the same essence (coming from the origin, without origin, Father (God) they are uncreated).^[161] Each specific quality that constitutes a hypostasis of God, is non-reductionist and not shared.^[162]

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.^[163] Nor the specifics of God's interrelationships of his existences, is again not what is defined within the Nicene Creed. ^[164] 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.^[165][166] Eastern Orthodox theologians have complained about this problem in the Roman Catholic dogmatic teaching of actus purus.^[167]

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),^{[not in citation given][168]} where Theodoret accused St Cyril of Alexandria of erroneously teaching that the Son has a role in the origin of the Holy Spirit.^{[169][not in citation given][170][not in citation given][171][not in citation given][172]} 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)^[173] in an intra-Trinitarian relationship.^{[174][175][176][177]} 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.^[178] 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.^[179][180]

Under persistent urging by the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon (451), Theodoret finally pronounced an anathema on Nestorius.^[181] 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,^[182] the ninth of which Theodoret had attacked for what it said of the procession of the Holy Spirit.^[170] (See Three-Chapter Controversy). He is considered a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but is called "the excommunicate" by the Oriental Orthodox Churches.^[183] 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.^[184][185]

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.)^[186][187]

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.^[188] 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" 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).^{[188][189][88]} 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.^[190]

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^[191][192] (as opposed to the Alexandrian)^{[101][193][194]} teaching of the "monarchy of the Father".^[195]

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.^[196] 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.^[197]

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,^[198] and accordingly procession "from the Father alone" has been referred to as "a main dogma of the Greek Church".^[199] 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.^[200]

Eastern Orthodox theologians maintain that by the expression "from the Father alone",^[195] 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".^[195][201] 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.^[202] "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".^{[203][citation needed]}

Photius did recognize that the Spirit maybe said to proceed temporally through the Son or from the Son.^{[188][189][88][204]} Photius stated that this was not the eternal Trinitarian relationships that was actually the thing being defined in the Creed.^[195] 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 condemned subordinationism 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.^[205] As well as St John 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”).^[206]

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."^[207]

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.^{[not in citation given][208]} The Encyclopedia of Christian Theology lists Vasily Bolotov,^[209] Paul Evdokimov, I. Voronov and Sergei Bulgakov as seeing the Filioque as a permissible theological opinion or "theologoumenon."^[209][210] 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.^[211] For Vasily Bolotov this is confirmed by other sources,^[212] even if they do not themselves adopt that opinion. Though Bolotov firmly rejects the Filioque in the procession of the Spirit from the Father.^[213]

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).^[214]

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.^[215][216] Bishop Kallistos Ware suggests that the problem is of semantics rather than of basic doctrinal differences.^[208][217] Saint Theophylact of Ohrid likewise held that the difference was linguistic in nature and not actually theological.

Recent attempts at reconciliation

Orthodox theologian Vasily Bolotov published in 1898 his "Thesen über das Filioque", in which he maintained that the Filioque, like Photios's "from the Father alone", was a permissible theological opinion (a theologoumenon, not a dogma) that cannot be an absolute impediment to reestablishment of communion.^[209][218] This thesis was supported by Orthodox theologiansSergei Bulgakov, Paul Evdokimov and I. Voronov, but was rejected by Vladimir Lossky.^[209]

Several Orthodox theologians have considered the Filioque anew, with a view to reconciliation of East and West. Theodore Stylianopoulos provided in 1986 an extensive, scholarly overview of the contemporary discussion.^[219] 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.^[220] For some Orthodox^[who?], then, the Filioque, 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^[who?] consider that the Filioque is in flagrant contravention of the words of Christ in the Gospel,.^[221] has been specifically condemned by the Orthodox Church, and remains a fundamental heretical teaching which divides East and West.

Interpolation into the Nicene Creed

Eastern Orthodox Christians also object that, even if the teaching of the Filioque can be defended, its interpolation into the Creed is anti-canonical.^[221] The Roman Catholic Church, which like the Eastern Orthodox Church considers the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils to be infallible, "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",^[101] but considers permissible additions that elucidate the teaching without in any way contradicting it,^[222] and that do not claim to have, on the basis of their insertion, the same authority that belongs to the original. It allows liturgical use of the Apostles' 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 ofthe Patriarch of Constantinople Saint Tarasius, who developed the Nicene Creed as follows: "the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father through the Son".^[101]

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).^[209]

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.^[113]

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".^[101]

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.^[223]

Importance of Saint Maximus in Ecumenical Relations

The study published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity^[101] says 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 ofsubordinationism.^[224]

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."^[225]

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."^[226]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"^[101] 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'."^[227]

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."^[31]

Michael Pomazansky and John Romanides^[228] 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.^[113] Maximus held strictly to the teaching of the Eastern Church that "the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit"^[229] and wrote a special treatise about this dogma.^{[230][231][232]}Later again at theCouncil of Florence in 1438, the West held that the two views were contradictory.^[233]

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,^[101] 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".^[234]

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'^[235] means 'cause' of existence of the Holy Spirit".^[236]

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.^{[citation needed]} Conversely, from Photius to the Council of Florence, the Greek Fathers were also not acquainted with the linguistic issues.^{[citation needed]}

While the Filioque doctrine was traditional in the West, being declared dogmatically in 447 by Pope Leo I, the Pope whose Tome was approved at the Council of Chalcedon,^[116] 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,^[237] was a means to affirm the full divinity of the Son in relation to both the Father and the Spirit.^{[238][239][240]}

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,^[241] where, largely as a result of "the Church's reaction to Teutonic Arianism", "'Christ our God' ... gradually assumes precedence over 'Christ our brother'".^[242] 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,^[243] opposed insertion of the word into the Creed.

References

1. ^ Phillip Schaff -Historical Excursus on the Introduction into the Creed of the Words "and the Son"
2. ^ Eugene F. Rogers, Jr, The Holy Spirit: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Wiley, John & Sons 2009 ISBN 9781405136235), 85
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Filioque
4. ^ ^{a b} Plested, "Filioque" in John Anthony McGuckin, The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Wiley, John & Sons 2011 ISBN 9781405185394), vol. 1, p. 251
5. ^ Wetterau, Bruce. World history. New York: Henry Holt and company. 1994.
6. ^ ^{a b} Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA17. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
7. ^ Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen (16 August 2010). Holy Spirit and Salvation: The Sources of Christian Theology. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 276. ISBN 978-0-664-23136-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=buA7YKLWe6YC. Retrieved 21 November 2011. 
8. ^ ^{a b c d} Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Double Procession of the Holy Spirit
9. ^ Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Marinus (PG 91:136), cited in John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (Fordham University Press 1987 ISBN 9780823209675), p. 93]
10. ^ Extracts from the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, The Epistle of Cyril to Nestorius]
11. ^  "Council of Ephesus". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. , 7th canon
12. ^ Nichols, Rome and the Eastern Churches (Ignatius Press 1992 ISBN 978-1-58617-282-4), p. 254) The two texts, Greek and Latin, are given in Nicene Creed#Ancient liturgical versions
13. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, 25 October 2003
14. ^ "the recent discovery that the earliest known introduction of the Filioque clause may have come ..." - Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, xxxii, 2000, p. 10, cited in Norman Tanner, New Short History of the Catholic Church (Burns & Oates 2011 ISBN 9780860124559), pp. 68-69
15. ^ O'Leary, De Lacy, The Syriac Church and Fathers (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London 1909, reproduced by Gorgias Press 2002 ISBN 9781931956055), chapter VI, "The Nestorian Schism"
16. ^ [1]
17. ^ [2]
18. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5.http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA17. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
19. ^ Congar, Yves (1983). I Believe in the Holy Spirit. 3. p. 89. 
20. ^ Tertullian, Adversus Praxeas IV
21. ^ Ad Praxeas V
22. ^ Ad Praxaes II
23. ^ Ad Praxeas, XIII
24. ^ Translation in Christian Classics Ethereal Library
25. ^ 39, 12
26. ^ Thesaurus, PG 75, 585
27. ^ The Origin and Terminology of the Athanasian Creed by Robert H. Krueger
28. ^ Ep. 15, c. 1
29. ^ "The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding". In the original Latin:"Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens".
30. ^ ^{a b} Catechism of the Catholic Church, 247
31. ^ ^{a b} Concordia Theological Quarterly, January-April 1995, p. 32, and cf. p. 40
32. ^ Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Wm. B. Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 0-8028-2112-X), p. 90
33. ^ Dale T. Irvin, Scott Sunquist, History of the World Christian Movement (2001), Volume 1, p. 340
34. ^ ^{a b c} Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (2005), p, 487
35. ^ The Conversion of Clovis
36. ^ Saint Hilary wrote: "Concerning the Holy Spirit I ought not to be silent, and yet I have no need to speak; still, for the sake of those who are in ignorance, I cannot refrain. There is no need to speak, because we are bound to confess Him, proceeding, as He does, from Father and Son." This English translation of De Trinitate 2:29 is cited in Swete, Henry Barclay (1912). The Holy Spirit in the ancient church: a study of Christian teaching in the age of the fathers. Macmillan. p. 298. http://books.google.com/books?id=p8kUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA298. Retrieved 16 November 2011.  The passage is cited also in Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Holy Spirit and Salvation (Westminster John Knox Press 2010 ISBN 9780664231361), p. 82, Kaiser, "The Development of Johannine Motifs in Hilary's Doctrine of the Trinity" in Scottish Journal of Theology 1976 and Joe Gallegos, "The Church Fathers and the Filioque". The text can be consulted also in theNicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 9. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1899) reproduced also, for instance, at Sacred Texts and Advent. He also said that the Holy Spirit "receives from both the Father and the Son" (Anthony McGuckin, The Orthodox Church (Wiley, John and Sons 2010 ISBN 9781444337310), p. 171)
37. ^ Saint Ephrem declared: "The Father is the Begetter, the Son the Begotten from the bosom of the Father, the Holy Spirit He that proceedeth from the Father and the Son" ([Hymnus de Defunctis et Trinitate, strophe 11:Thomas Josephus Lamy (editor), Sancti Ephaem Syri Hymni et Sermones (Mechlin 1889), col. 242). The text given inPrice, Charles P., "Some Notes on Filioque" inAnglican Theological Review, Summer 2001 has a misprint: "The Father is the Begotten", in place of "The Father is the Begetter". It is cited also in Palese, Il Concilio di Bari del 1098 (Edipuglia 1999), p. 232.
38. ^ ^{a b c} "Cyril of Alexandria could argue (against the Nestorians) that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In fact, Greek fathers from Epiphanius to as late as Cyril of Alexandria referred to the Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son (citing Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. I, pt. 1, 477, referring to Epiphanius, Ephraim and Cyril of Alexandria)."- Michael S. Horton,The Christian Faith (Zondervan 2010 ISBN 9780310409182), ch'. 8 ad finem
39. ^ Saint Epiphanius of Salamis wrote: "Christ is believed to be from the Father, God from God, and the Spirit from Christ, from both" (Χριστὸς ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς πιστεύεται Θεὸς ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἢ παρ’ ἀμφοτέρων – Ancoratus 67 in PG 43 137B). This is quoted also by Gerald Bray, "The Filioque Clause in History and Theology" in Tyndale Bulletin 34 (1983), p. 108. Epiphanius also stated: "The Spirit breathes from Father and Son" (τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκ Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ πνέει – Ancoratus 75 in PG 43 157A); "The Spirit is God from Father and Son" (Ἄρα Θεὸς ἐκ Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα – Ancoratus 9 in PG 32C). "Epiphanius could say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son" (Joel C. Elowsky, We Believe in the Holy Spirit(InterVarsity Press 2009 ISBN 9780830825349), p. 2200. He used the same phrase, "from Father and Son", also in hisPanarion 62, and a similar phrase in his Ancoratus 73, both of which are quoted by Bray.
40. ^ Saint Ambrose stated: "When the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, He is not separated from the Father, He is not separated from the Son" (Spiritus quoque sanctus cum procedit a Patre et Filio, non separatur a Patre, non separatur a Filio - PL 16:733A (Spiritu Sancto, 1:10:120).
41. ^ Saint Augustine wrote: "God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. And therefore I have added the word 'principally', because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also. But the Father gave Him this too, not as to one already existing, and not yet having it; but whatever He gave to the only-begotten Word, He gave by begetting Him. Therefore He so begat Him as that the common Gift should proceed from Him also, and the Holy Spirit should be the Spirit of both" (Schwartz, Christology (Eerdmans 1998 ISBN 9780802844637), p. 161, citing De Trinitate 15.19.29)
42. ^ Saint Cyril of Alexandria declared: "The Spirit proceeds (πρόεισι) from the Father and the Son; clearly, he is of the divine substance (οὐσίας), proceeding (προϊόν) substantially in it and from it" (Πρόεισι δὲ καὶ ἐκ Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ. πρόδηλον ὅτι τῆς θείας ἐστιν οὐσίας, οὐσιωδῶς ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς προϊόν) in Thesaurus, PG 75, 585A). This is cited in Eugene F. Rogers (editor), The Holy Spirit: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Wiley-Blackwell 2009 ISBN 9781405136242), p. 85. Cyril made similar statements also in other passages: "Cyril In Ev. Joh. 2, p. 126 (PG 74.443B); De adoratione in spiritu et veritate 1 (PG 68.148A), cited in Chadwick, East and West (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 9780199280162), p. 28 and G.C. Berthold, "Cyril of Alexandria and the Filioque” in Studia Patristica 19 (1989), pp. 145-146. The ninth of his anathemas against Nestorius states that "it was by his own proper Spirit through whom (Jesus) worked the divine wonders" (of Alexandria, Third epistle to Nestorius, including the twelve anathemas)
43. ^ Saint Leo the Great dogmatically condemned denial of the distinction between the Father, "who begot", the Son, "who is begotten", and the Holy Spirit, "who proceeds from both". See Denzinger, 284 and Catechism of the Catholic Church, 247
44. ^ He wrote that 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" (Letter to Marinus on the Filioque).
45. ^ Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Crossroads Publishing 1997 ISBN 9780824516963)
46. ^ ^{a b} Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA53. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
47. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA57. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
48. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA58. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
49. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA59. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
50. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. pp. 63-64. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA63. Retrieved 17 November 2011. 
51. ^ Siecienski, Anthony Edward (12 May 2010). The filioque: history of a doctrinal controversy. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5. http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA70. Retrieved 17 November 2011. }
52. ^ For instance, Tertullian ("I believe that the Spirit proceeds not otherwise than from the Father through the Son" - Against Praxeas 4:1) and John of Damascus ("The Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son" - An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book 1, chapter 8).
53. ^ [http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=Weinandy+%22different+but+complementary%22&btnG= Marie-Odile Boulnois, "The Mystery of the Trinity according to Cyril of Alexandria" in Thomas Gerard Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating (editors), The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria (T&T Clark 2003 ISBN 9780567089007), p. 107)
54. ^ John Farrelly, The Trinity (Rowman & Littlefield 2005 ISBN 9780742532267), p. 119
55. ^ Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Seabury Press 1983), vol. 3, p. 35
56. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 248
57. ^ Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas(Oxford University Press 1993 ISBN 9780198267539), pp. 205-206
58. ^ Gribble, The Everything Guide to Catholicism (Adams Media Corporation 2010 ISBN 9781440504099), p. 99
59. ^ [http://www.google.com/search?q=Ruper+Eric+Davies+%22Spirit+proceeds+from+the+Father+through%22&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1 Rupert Eric Davies,Making Sense of the Creeds (Epworth Press 1987)
60. ^ Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. IV, p. 486
61. ^ O'Collins, Mario Farrugia (editors), Catholicism: The Story of Catholic Christianity (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 9780199259953), p. 150
62. ^ Norwich, John J., Byzantium: The Early Centuries (1990), p. 309
63. ^ ^{a b} Pauline Allen & Bronwen Neil,Introduction to Maximus the Confessor (excerpt)
64. ^ Norwich, pg 310
65. ^ Bury, John B., A History of the Later Roman Empire from Arcadius to Irene, Volume 2 (2005), p. 292
66. ^ Bury, p. 293
67. ^ Norwich, pg 318
68. ^ Bury, pg 296
69. ^ Norwich, pg 319
70. ^ ^{a b} Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Marinus – on the Filioque
71. ^ Hinson, E. Glenn,The Church Triumphant, Mercer University Press (1995), ISBN 0-86554-436-0, p.315
72. ^  "Filioque". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
73. ^ Louth, Greek East and Latin West: The Church AD 681-1071 (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 2007 ISBN 978-0-88141-320-5), p. 142
74. ^ ^{a b} [3]
75. ^ The Orthodox Church, Crestwood, NY, 1981 quoted inOn the Question of the Filioque
76. ^ [4]
77. ^ Among the points of objection, Charlemagne’s legates claimed that Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople, at his installation, did not follow the Nicene faith and profess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but confessed rather his procession from the Father through the Son (Mansi 13.760). The Pope strongly rejected Charlemagne’s protest, showing at length that Tarasius and the Council, on this and other points, maintained the faith of the Fathers (ibid. 759-810). Following this exchange of letters, Charlemagne commissioned the so-called Libri Carolini (791-794), a work written to challenge the positions both of the iconoclast council of 754 and of the Council of Nicaea of 787 on the veneration of icons. Again because of poor translations, the Carolingians misunderstood the actual decision of the latter Council. Within this text, the Carolingian view of the Filioque also was emphasized again. Arguing that the word Filioque was part of the Creed of 381, the Libri Carolini reaffirmed the Latin tradition that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and rejected as inadequate the teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. An Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation Saint Paul’s College, Washington, DC October 25, 2003[5]
78. ^ Catholic Encyclopedia:Filioque
79. ^ "Leo defended the Filioque outside the Creed. At the same time he posted the Creed without the Filioque on two silver plaques in defense of the Orthodox Faith" (John S. Romanides, The Filioque in the Dublin Agreed Statement 1984).
80. ^ "Haec Leo posui amore et cautela orthodoxae fidei" (Vita Leonis, Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchêne, t. II, p. 26); cf. Treatise of Adam Zoernikaff, quoted in Palmer: A Harmony of Anglican Doctrine with the doctrine of the catholic and apostolic church of the East (Aberdeen 1846)
81. ^ Andrea Sterk,The Silver Shields of Pope Leo III in Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1988, p. 63]
82. ^ Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology, p. 646
83. ^ ^{a b} Harnack, History of Dogma, Volume IV:The Controversy regarding the Filioque and Pictures
84. ^ Interesting Facts about the History of the Filioque in the West
85. ^ Gerald Bray, The Filioque Clause in History and Theology The Tyndale Historical Lecture 1982, p. 121
86. ^ The Patriarch and the Pope. Photius and Nicolas
87. ^ Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Photius
88. ^ ^{a b c} "Photius could concede that the Spirit proceeds through the Son in his temporal mission in the created order but not in his actual eternal being" [Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church (Oxford University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-19-926457), p. 154]
89. ^ "Photius and the later Eastern controversialists dropped or rejected the per Filium, as being nearly equivalent to ex Filio or Filioque, or understood it as being applicable only to the mission of the Spirit, and emphasized the exclusiveness of the procession from the Father" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume IV, §108).
90. ^ "In general, and already since Photius, the Greek position consisted in distinguishing theeternal procession of the Son from the Father, and the sending of the Spirit in time through the Son and by the Son" (John Meyendorff, Theology in the Thirteenth Century: Methodological Contrasts).
91. ^ Encyclical letter of Photius to the archiepiscopal sees of the East in R. B. Morgan, Readings in English Social History in Contemporary Literature, Volume Four 1603-1688, p. 316
92. ^ ^{a b} Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289) (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press 1996 ISBN 0-88141-176-0), p. 113
93. ^ ^{a b} Vladimir Lossky, The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Theology, p. 5 of the extract, p. 78 of the original
94. ^ Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Wm. B. Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 0-8028-2112-X), p. 144. In the same book, Bulgakov writes: "The Cappadocians expressed only one idea: the monarchy of the Father and, consequently, the procession of the Holy Spirit precisely from the Father. They never imparted to this idea, however, the exclusiveness that it acquired in the epoch of the Filioque disputes after Photius, in the sense of ek monou tou Patros (from the Father alone)" (p. 48); and what he wrote on page 96 has been summarized as follows: "Bulgakov finds it amazing that with all his erudition Photius did not see that the 'through the Spirit' of Damascene and others constituted a different theology from his own, just as it is almost incomprehensible to find him trying to range the Western Fathers and popes on his Monopatrist side" (Nichols, Wisdom from Above: A Primer in the Theology of Father Sergei Bulgakov (Gracewing 2005 ISBN 0-85244-642-X), p. 157).
95. ^ A. Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, pages 147-148;
96. ^ Andrew Louth, Greek East and Latin West, pg171
97. ^ S. Tougher, The Reign of Leo VI, pg69
98. ^ The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy pg103 By A. Edward Siecienski Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 12, 2010) ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5[6]
99. ^ The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline and History of the Catholic Church Volume 12 page 44 Charles G. Herbermann, Edward A. Pace, Conde B. Pallen, Thomas J. Shahan, John J. Wynne Publisher: Encyclopedia Press, Inc. (1915) ASIN: B0013UCA4K[7]
100. ^ Aidan Nicols, Light from the East (Sheed & Ward 1995 ISBN 9780722050811), Part 4, p. 76
101. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity: The Greek and the Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit and same document on another site
102. ^ ^{a b} Ρωμαϊκό Λειτουργικό (Roman Missal), Συνοδική Επιτροπή για τη θεία Λατρεία 2005, I, p. 347
103. ^ ^{a b} Article 1 of the Treaty of Brest
104. ^ Denzinger, 853 (old numbering 463)Latin text English translation
105. ^ 529
106. ^ Constitution II of the Second Council of Lyons
107. ^ ^{a b} Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Florence, Council of
108. ^ Q & A on the Reformed Chaldean Mass
109. ^ Dominus Iesus
110. ^ programme of the celebration
111. ^ Video recording of joint recitation
112. ^ "Though it is quite true to say that the Spirit proceeds from both the 'Father and the Son', the Eastern Church, encouraged by the Holy See, has asked us to return to the original form of the Creed" (Q & A on the Reformed Chaldean Massl form of the Creed").
113. ^ ^{a b c d} Catechism of the Catholic Church, 248
114. ^ Unitas Association, vol. IV, p. 156
115. ^ Johannes Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, vol. 2, p. 326
116. ^ ^{a b} Catechism of the Catholic Church, 247
117. ^ (Oxford University Press 2010 ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5)
118. ^ "This teaching neither denied the monarchy of the Father (who remained principal cause) nor did it imply two causes, since the Latins affirmed that the Son is, with the Father, a single spirating principle" (p. 163)
119. ^ "Maximus affirmed that the Latin teaching in no way violated the monarchy of the Father, who remained the sole cause (μία αἰτἰα) of both the Son and the Spirit" (p. 81)
120. ^ "In advocating the filioque, Bonaventure was careful to protect the monarchy of the Father, affirming that the 'Father is properly the One without an originator,... the Principle who proceeds from no other, the Father as such'" (p. 127)
121. ^ "While clearly affirming the monarchy of the Father, who remained 'fountain and origin of the whole Trinity (fons et origo totius Trinitatis), so too is the Latin teaching" (p. 105)
122. ^ Similarly Moltmann observes that “the filioque was never directed against the ‘monarchy’ of the Father” and that the principle of the “monarchy” has “never been contested by the theologians of the Western Church.” If these statements can be accepted by the Western theologians today in their full import of doing justice to the principle of the Father’s “monarchy,” which is so important to Eastern triadology, then the theological fears of Easterners about the filioque would seem to be fully relieved. Consequently, Eastern theologians could accept virtually any of the Memorandum’s alternate formulae in the place of the filioque on the basis of the above positive evaluation of the filioque which is in harmony with Maximos the Confessor’s interpretation of it. As Zizioulas incisively concludes: The “golden rule” must be Saint Maximos the Confessor’s explanation concerning Western pneumatology: by professing the filioque our Western brethren do not wish to introduce another αἴτον in God’s being except the Father, and a mediating role of the Son in the origination of the Spirit is not to be limited to the divine Economy, but relates also to the divine οὐσία. The Filioque: Dogma, Theologoumenon or Error?, Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulous[8]
123. ^ Second Council of Lyon
124. ^ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 248
125. ^ Resolutions from 1978: Resolution 35 (see item 3)
126. ^ Resolutions from 1988: Resolution 6 (see item 5)
127. ^ Anglican Consultative Council, ACC-9, Resolution 19, "Filioque Clause."
128. ^ See, for instance, The Nicene Creed - texts
129. ^ General Convention Sets Course For Church September 19, 1985
130. ^ Resolution 1994-A028, "Reaffirm Intention to Remove the Filioque Clause From the Next Prayer Book."
131. ^ Pomazansky, Protopresbyter Michael (1984). Orthodox Dogmatic theology. Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. p. 89. ASIN B004VPF3G6. 
132. ^ [9]
133. ^ "Desiring to defend the Westerners, (he) justified them precisely by saying that by the words “from the Son” they intended to indicate that the Holy Spirit is given to creatures through the Son" (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood press 1994 ISBN 0-938635-69-7) and "defended the Filioque as a legitimate variation of the Eastern formula that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son" (Concordia Theological Quarterly, January-April 1995, p. 32, and cf. p. 40).
134. ^ In the Second Ecumenical Council he was recognized by all as the theologian par excellence. He read the opening speech at the Synod, pronounced the funeral oration to Meletius of Antioch, who was chairman of the Council, gave the speech at the enthronement of St. Gregory the Theologian at Constantinople, and, as is believed, was the one who gave the final form to the Creed and formulated the article about the Holy Spirit: "And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life; Who proceedeth from the Father; Who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets". In particular, it is said that in the iconography of the Second Ecumenical Council St. Gregory is presented as the recording clerk of the Council. Life After Death by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos [10]
135. ^ pg 44-45[11]
136. ^ Religious Bodies: 1906: Separate Denominations: History, Description, and Statistics William Chamberlin Hunt (Author), United States. Bureau Of The Census [12]
137. ^ One God, One Father First of all, it is the Church’s teaching and its deepest experience that there is only one God because there is only one Father. In the Bible the term “God” with very few exceptions is used primarily as a name for the Father. Thus, the Son is the “Son of God,” and the Spirit is the “Spirit of God.” The Son is born from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father—both in the same timeless and eternal action of the Father’s own being. In this view, the Son and the Spirit are both one with God and in no way separated from Him. Thus, the Divine Unity consists of the Father, with His Son and His Spirit distinct from Himself and yet perfectly united together in Him.[13]
138. ^ The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photius pg 75-76 Publisher: Holy Cross Orthodox Press Language: English ISBN 978-0-916586-88-1
139. ^ (In conclusion) 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. And since the Father gave to his only-begotten Son in begetting him everything the Father has, except to be the Father, so the Son has eternally from the Father, by whom he was eternally begotten, this also, namely that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. We define also that the explanation of those words "and from the Son" was licitly and reasonably added to the creed for the sake of declaring the truth and from imminent need. [14]
140. ^ In the Byzantine period the Orthodox side accused the Latin speaking Christians, who supported the Filioque, of introducing two Gods, precisely because they believed that the Filioque implied two causes--not simply two sources or principles--in the Holy Trinity. The Greek Patristic tradition, at least since the Cappadocian fathers identified God with the person of the Father, whereas, St. Augustine seems to identify him with the one divine substance (the deitas or divinitas) [15]
141. ^ pg 48-57 The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, by Vladimir Lossky SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-31-1) James Clarke & Co Ltd, 1991. (ISBN 0-227-67919-9)[16]
142. ^ Photius states in section 32 "And Again, if the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Son likewise is begotten of the Father, then it is in precisely this fact that the Father's personal property is discerned. But if the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceed from the Son (as this delirium of theirs would have it) then the Spirit of the Father is distinguished by more personal properties than the Son of the Father: on the one hand as proceeding from the equality of the Son and the Spirit, the Spirit is further differentiated by the two distinctions brought about by the dual procession, then the Spirit is not only differentiated by more distinctions than the Son of the Father, but the Son is closer to the Father's essence. And this is so precisely because the Spirit is distinguished by two specific properties. Therefore He is inferior to the Son, Who in turn is of the same nature as the Father! Thus the Spirit's equal dignity is blasphemed, once again giving rise to the Macedonian insanity against the Spirit." The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photius pg 75-76 Publisher: Holy Cross Orthodox Press Language: English ISBN 978-0-916586-88-1
143. ^ "However, the chief of the heretics who distorted the apostolic teaching concerning the Holy Spirit was Macedonius, who occupied the cathedra of Constantinople as archbishop in the 4th century and found followers for himself among former Arians and Semi-Arians. He called the Holy Spirit a creation of the Son, and a servant of the Father and the Son. Accusers of his heresy were Fathers of the Church like Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Amphilocius, Diodores of Tarsus, and others, who wrote works against the heretics. The false teaching of Macedonius was refuted first in a series of local councils and finally at the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381. In preserving Orthodoxy, the Second Ecumenical Council completed the Nicaean Symbol of Faith with these words: “And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is equally worshiped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets,” as well as those articles of the Creed which follow this in the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith." Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood press 1994 (ISBN 0-938635-69-7
144. ^ His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches by Laurent Cleenewerck pg 335 ISBN 978-0-615-18361-9 [17]
145. ^ [18]
146. ^ [19]
147. ^ The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine; in Image and Likeness of God by Vladimir Lossky “If the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as the hypostatic cause of the consubstantial hypostases, we find the ‘simple Trinity,’ where the monarchy of the Father conditions the personal diversity of the Three while at the same time expressing their essential unity.” In the Image and Likeness of God, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974, p. 88.[20]
148. ^ The Teachings of Modern Orthodox Christianity on Law, Politics, and Human Nature by John Witte Jr, Frank S. Alexander, Paul Valliere Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN 978-0-231-14265-6 [21]
149. ^ THE FILIOQUE by John S. Romanides "During the ensuing centuries long course of the controversy, the Franks not only forced the Patristic tradition into an Augustinian mold, but they confused Augustine's Trinitarian terminology with that of the Father's of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods. This is nowhere so evident as in the Latin handling of Maximos the Confessor's description, composed in 650, of the West Roman Orthodox Filioque at the Council of Florence (1438-42). The East Romans hesitated to present Maximos' letter to Marinos about this West Roman Orthodox Filioque because the letter did not survive in its complete form. They were pleasantly surprised, however, when Andrew, the Latin bishop of Rhodes, quoted the letter in Greek in order to prove that in the time of Maximos there was no objection to the Filioque being in the Creed. Of course, the Filioque was not yet in the Creed. Then Andrew proceeded to translate Maximos into Latin for the benefit of the pope. However, the official translator intervened and challenged the rendition. Once the correct translation was established, the Franks then questioned the authenticity of the text. They assumed that their own Filioque was the only one in the West, and so they rejected on this ground Maximos' text as a basis of union. When Maximos spoke about the Orthodox Filioque, as supported with passages from Roman Fathers, he did not mean those who came to be known as Latin Fathers, and so included among them Saint Cyril of Alexandria." [22]
150. ^ It is obvious that Anastasios the Librarian did not at first understand the Frankish Filioque, since on this question he reprimands the "Greeks" for their objections and accuses them of not accepting Maximos the Confessor's explanation that there are two usages of the term; the one whereby procession means essential mission, wherein the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son (in which case the Holy Spirit participated in the act of sending, so that this is a common act of the whole Trinity), and the second, whereby precession means casual relation wherein the existence of the Holy Spirit is derived. In this last sense, Maximos assures Marinos (to whom he is writing), that the West Romans accept that the Holy Spirit proceeds casually only from the Father and that the Son is not cause.[23]
151. ^ This interpretation of the Filioque, given by Maximos the Confessor and Anastasios the Librarian is the consistent position of the Roman popes, and clearly so in the case of Leo III. The minutes of the conversation held in 810 between the three apocrisari of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, kept by the Frankish monk Smaragdus, bear out this consistency in papal policy. Leo accepts the teaching of the Fathers, quoted by the Franks, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as taught by Augustine and Ambrose. However, the Filioque must not be added to the Creed as was done by the Franks, who got permission to sing the Creed from Leo but not to add to the Creed.[24]
152. ^ In the Byzantine period the Orthodox side accused the Latin speaking Christians, who supported the Filioque, of introducing two Gods, precisely because they believed that the Filioque implied two causes--not simply two sources or principles--in the Holy Trinity. The Greek Patristic tradition, at least since the Cappadocian fathers identified God with the person of the Father, whereas, St. Augustine seems to identify him with the one divine substance (the deitas or divinitas).[25]
153. ^ Gregory Palamas proposed a similar interpretation of this relationship in a number of his works; in his Confession of 1351, for instance, he asserts that the Holy Spirit “has the Father as foundation, source, and cause,” but “reposes in the Son” and “is sent – that is, manifested – through the Son.” (ibid. 194) In terms of the transcendent divine energy, although not in terms of substance or hypostatic being, “the Spirit pours itself out from the Father through the Son, and, if you like, from the Son over all those worthy of it,” a communication which may even be broadly called “procession” (ekporeusis) (Apodeictic Treatise 1: trans. J. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas [St. Vladimir’s, 1974] 231-232).
154. ^ [26]
155. ^ [27]
156. ^ The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Volume 1 By John Anthony McGuckin pg 312 [28]
157. ^ [29]
158. ^ [30]
159. ^ [31]
160. ^ [32]
161. ^ [33]
162. ^ [34]
163. ^ The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual ... By John Anthony McGuckin pg 170-171 [35]
164. ^ The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual ... By John Anthony McGuckin pg 170-171 [36]
165. ^ The Orthodox Church: its past and its role in the world today By John Meyendorff [37]
166. ^ The Orthodox Church By Kallistos (Bishop of Diokleia) pg 213 [38]
167. ^ Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: historical and theological studies By John Meyendorff [39]
168. ^ David Rohrbacher, The Historians of Late Antiquity, p. 128
169. ^ The HarperCollins encyclopedia of Catholicism By Richard P. McBrien, Harold W. Attridge pg 529
170. ^ ^{a b} Against Anathema IX of Cyril
171. ^ "This idea is clearly expressed by Blessed Theodoret: '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' (Bl. Theodoret, 'On the Third Ecumenical Council')." Orthodox dogmatic theology by Michael Pomazansky [40]
172. ^ "The pronouncements of the years following confirmed the final result; see the epistle of the Council of Constantinople of 382, but above all, the anathemas of Damasus. The doctrine of the homousia of the Spirit from this time onward was as much a part of orthodoxy as the doctrine of the homousia of the Son. But since according to the Greek way of conceiving of the matter, the Father continued to be regarded as the root of the Godhead, the perfect homousia of the Holy Spirit necessarily always seemed to be inferior to the Son and thus to be a grandchild of the Father, or else to possess a double root. Then, besides, the dependence of the Spirit on the Son was obstinately maintained by the Arians and Semi-Arians on the ground that certain passages in the Bible supported this view, and in the interest of their conception of a descending Trinity in three stages. Thus the Greeks had constantly to watch and see that the procession of the Spirit from the Father alone was taught, and after the revised Creed of Jerusalem became an ecumenical Creed, they had a sacred text in support of their doctrine, which came to be as important as the doctrine itself." History of dogma, Volume 4 By Adolf von Harnack pgs 118-119 [41]
173. ^ Thomas Gerard Weinandy, Daniel A. Keating (editors), The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria. (T&T Clark 2005 ISBN 9780567089007), p. 107
174. ^ Weinandy and Keating (editors), The Theology of St Cyril of Alexandria, p. 105
175. ^ John Farrelly, The Trinity: Rediscovering the Central Christian Mystery (Rowman & Littlefield 2005 ISBN 9780742532267), p. 101
176. ^ Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 9780802821126), p. 83
177. ^ Ian S. Markham, The Blackwell Companion to the Theologians (Wiley, John & Sons 2009 ISBN 9781405135078), vol 1, p. 83
178. ^ "If ... the expressions of Theodoret directed against the ninth anathema by Cyril of Alexandria, deny that the Holy Ghost derives His existence from or through the Son, they probably intend to deny only the creation of the Holy Ghost by or through the Son, inculcating at the same time His Procession from both Father and Son" [42]
179. ^ John Farrelly, The Trinity (Rowman & Littlefield 2005 ISBN 9780742532267), p. 119
180. ^ Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Seabury Press 1983), vol. 3, p. 35
181. ^ Theodoret and Chalcedon
182. ^ Paul B. Clayton, The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus (Oxford University Press 2007 ISBN 978-0-19-814398-7), p. 1
183. ^ Metropolitan Bishoy of Damiette, The View of the Coptic Orthodox Church concerning Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius of Constantinople (1998)
184. ^ "The . . . contention of the Latins . . . was reasonably considered by the Orthodox as leading to the confusion of the three hypostatic persons with the common attributes of each person, and to their manifestations and relations with the world." A Theological Introduction to the Mystagogy of Saint Photios pg 39 The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photius Publisher: Holy Cross Orthodox Press Language: English ISBN 978-0-916586-88-1 [43]
185. ^ John Karmiris, A Synopsis of the Dogmatic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church, trans. from the Greek by the Reverend George Dimopoulos (Scranton, Pa.: Christian Orthodox Edition, 1973) pg 18
186. ^ [44]
187. ^ [45]
188. ^ ^{a b c} "John of Damascus, who gave the doctrine of the Greek fathers its scholastic shape, about a.d. 750, one hundred years before the controversy between Photius and Nicolas, maintained that the procession is from the Father alone, but through the Son, as mediator. The same formula, Ex Patre per Filium, was used by Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, who presided over the seventh oecumenical Council (787), approved by Pope Hadrian I., and was made the basis for the compromise at the Council of Ferrara (1439), and at the Old Catholic Conference at Bonn (1875). Photius and the later Eastern controversialists dropped or rejected the per Filium, as being nearly equivalent to ex Filio or Filioque, or understood it as being applicable only to the mission of the Spirit, and emphasized the exclusiveness of the procession from the Father" (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume IV, §108).
189. ^ ^{a b} "In general, and already since Photius, the Greek position consisted in distinguishing the eternal procession of the Son (sic: recte Spirit?) from the Father, and the sending of the Spirit in time through the Son and by the Son" (John Meyendorff, Theology in the Thirteenth Century: Methodological Contrasts).
190. ^ The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photius pg 75-76 Publisher: Holy Cross Orthodox Press Language: English ISBN 978-0-916586-88-1
191. ^ Crisis in Byzantium: the Filioque controversy in the patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289) By Aristeides Papadakis pg 113 [46]
192. ^ The Contentious Triangle: Church, State, and University : A Festschrift in Honor of Professor George Huntston Williams pg 104 ISBN 978-0-943549-58-3 [47]
193. ^ George C. Berthold, "Cyril of Alexandria and the Filioque" in Studia Patristica XIX, Papers presented to the Tenth International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford 1987
194. ^ Paul D. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance, Theologian of the Trinity (Ashgate Publishing Company 2005 ISBN 978-0-7546-5228-1), p. 65
195. ^ ^{a b c d} Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289) Aristeides Papadakis St. Vladimir's Seminary Press ISBN 978-0-88141-176-8 [48]
196. ^ Vladimir Lossky, The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine
197. ^ Gerald Bray, The Filioque Clause in History and Theology
198. ^ "Such are some of the reasons why Orthodox regard the filioque as dangerous and heretical. Filioquism confuses the persons, and destroys the proper balance between unity and diversity in the Godhead. ... Such in outline is the Orthodox attitude to the filioque, although not all would state the case in such an uncompromising form" (Bishop Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church (extracts).
199. ^ Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology (Burns & Oates 1975 ISBN 81-7109-697-2), p. 646
200. ^ Avery Dulles, The Filioque: What Is at Stake? in Concordia Theological Quarterly, January-April 1955, p. 38
201. ^ Nevertheless, the overall Eastern tradition, because it stresses the Scriptural and pre-Nicene teaching of the Monarchy of the Father, prefers St. Irenaeus’ pyramid vision of the Word and Spirit as “the two hands of God”. His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches by Laurent Cleenewerck
202. ^ The authority of the Nicene Creed, and the Greek fathers, especially Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and John of Damascus. The Antiochean school is clearly on the Greek side; but the Alexandrian school leaned to the formula through the Son (dia; tou’ uiJou’, per Filium). The Greeks claim all the Greek fathers, and regard Augustin as the inventor of the Latin dogma of the double procession.
203. ^ A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford University Press 2010 ISBN 978-0-19-537204-5), p. 10
204. ^ Photios’ position that, “the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone,” intends not to deny the intimate relations between the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. It is only to make utterly explicit that the Father alone causes the existence of both the Son and the Spirit. Conferring upon them all his attributes, and powers, except his hypostatic property, i.e., that he is the Father, the unbegotten, the source, origin, and cause of divinity. His Broken Body pg 331 [49]
205. ^ Under the heading of the Roman Catholic teaching of the filioque Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and of the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas approved “A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity. 1998. The Orthodox do not regard the teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father to be one which they can accept. This teaching is opposed to the monarchy of the Father and to the equality of the Spirit to the Father and the Son as a hypostasis or person distinct from both, as expressed by the original Creed. ... That the Holy Spirit eternally comes forth from the Son, so as to depend for his being and his possession of the one divine nature on the Son as well as on the Father, is a teaching which Orthodox uniformly oppose.“A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity,” paragraph 11. This would seem to be an expression of what Kallistos Ware calls the “rigorist” position within the Orthodox Church. (“Christian Theology in the East,” in A History of Christian Doctrine, edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980], p. 209. [50]
206. ^ Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Wm. B. Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 0-8028-2112-X), p. 48
207. ^ Crisis in Byzantium: the Filioque controversy in the patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283 - 1289) By Aristeides Papadakis pg 124 [51]
208. ^ ^{a b} “A Lutheran-Orthodox Common Statement on Faith in the Holy Trinity,” paragraph 11. This would seem to be an expression of what Kallistos Ware calls the “rigorist” position within the Orthodox Church. (“Christian Theology in the East,” in A History of Christian Doctrine, edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980], p. 209.) Ware maintains that a more “liberal” position on this issue is “also held by many Orthodox at the present time.” He writes that “According to the ‘liberal’ view, the Greek and the Latin doctrines on the procession of the Holy Spirit may both alike be regarded as theologically defensible. The Greeks affirm that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, the Latins that He proceeds from the Father and from the Son; but when applied to the relationship between Son and Spirit, these two prepositions ‘through’ and ‘from’ amount to the same thing.”^{[not in citation given]} (Ware, p. 208)
209. ^ ^{a b c d e} Christian Theology: article Filioque, p. 583 (reproduction of the article)
210. ^ A theologoumenon has been defined as a theological opinion in a debate where both sides are rigorously orthodox (Theology Glossary)
211. ^ Similarly the Anglican consideration to remove the filioque from the Creed but at the same time to continue to affirm its theological value as a complementary Western understanding of the Holy Trinity, Donald M. Allchin, "The Filioque Clause: An Anglican Approach," Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, pp. 85-87. Allchin reports the official proposal to the Anglican Church by the Anglican membership of the Anglican-Orthodox Doctrinal Commission. He himself seems critical of the implications of the filioque. See pp. 95-96. while welcome, essentially depends on whether or not the filioque is at least consistent with dogmatic truth as officially promulgated by the ecumenical synods. Neither the filioque formula nor the interpretations in support of it or against it can be regarded as theologoumena, as some would have it, unless they can be clearly shown at least not to be opposed to early Christian doctrine and the Nicene Creed. Theologoumena cannot contradict promulgated dogmatic truth for otherwise, as Dumitru Staniloae pointedly observes, "it would be impossible to tell the difference between a theologoumenon and an error." "The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption," Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, p. 175. From The Filioque: Dogma, Theologoumenon or Error? by Theodore Stylianopoulos The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Volume 31, No. 3-4, 1986. pp. 255-288. [52]
212. ^ Ralph Del Cole, Reflections on the Filioque in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Spring 1997, page 2 of online text
213. ^ The Trinity and the kingdom: the doctrine of God By Jürgen Moltmann pg 180 [53]
214. ^ Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Wm. B. Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 0-8028-2112-X), p. 148
215. ^ Ralph Del Cole, Reflections on the Filioque in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Spring 1997, page 3 of online text
216. ^ Nicolas Lossky, Lancelot Andrewes the Preacher (1555-1626): The Origins of the Mystical. Theology of the Church of England, p. 236, footnote 992
217. ^ "The Filioque controversy which has separated us for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote The Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study, that the problem is more in the area of semantics than in any basic doctrinal differences" (Bishop Kallistos Ware, Diakonia, quoted from Elias Zoghby's A Voice from the Byzantine East, p.43).
218. ^ Aspects of Church History, Volume 4 in the Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Emeritus Professor of Eastern Church History, Harvard University
219. ^ Theodore Stylianopoulos: The Filioque: Dogma, Theologoumenon or Error?
220. ^ The Father as the Source of the Whole Trinity
221. ^ ^{a b} QuotingAleksey Khomyakov pg 87 "The legal formalism and logical rationalism of the Roman Catholic Church have their roots in the Roman State. These features developed in it more strongly than ever when the Western Church without consent of the Eastern introduced into the Nicean Creed the filioque clause. Such arbitrary change of the creed is an expression of pride and lack of love for one's brethren in the faith. "In order not to be regarded as a schism by the Church, Romanism was forced to ascribe to the bishop of Rome absolute infallibility." In this way Catholicism broke away from the Church as a whole and became an organization based upon external authority. Its unity is similar to the unity of the state: it is not super-rational but rationalistic and legally formal. Rationalism has led to the doctrine of the works of superarogation, established a balance of duties and merits between God and man, weighing in the scales sins and prayers, trespasses and deeds of expiation; it adopted the idea of transferring one person's debts or credits to another and legalized the exchange of assumed merits; in short, it introduced into the sanctuary of faith the mechanism of a banking house." History of Russian Philosophy by Nikolai Lossky ISBN 978-0-8236-8074-0 p. 87
222. ^ TheArmenian additions to the Nicene Creed are much more numerous.
223. ^ "The original form of the Nicene Creed says that the Holy Spirit proceeds 'from the Father'. The phrase 'and the Son' was added, in the West, in the following centuries. Though it is quite true to say that the Spirit proceeds from both the 'Father and the Son', the Eastern Church, encouraged by the Holy See, has asked us to return to the original form of the Creed" (Q&A on the Reformed Chaldean Mass). (emphasis added) Citation retrieved 12 May 2010
224. ^ The study says: "The Filioque does not concern the ἐκπόρευσις of the Spirit issued from the Father as source of the Trinity, but manifests his προϊέναι (processio) in the consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son, while excluding any possible subordinationist interpretation of the Father's monarchy".
225. ^ One Single Source
226. ^ [54]
227. ^ Ralph Del Cole, Reflections on the Filioque in Journal of Ecumenical Studies,Spring 1997, page 4 of online text
228. ^ 6. Neither the Roman papacy, nor the East Romans ever interpreted the council of 879 as a condemnation of the west Roman Filioque outside the Creed, since it did not teach that the Son is "cause" or "co-cause" of the existence of the Holy Spirit. This could not be added to the Creed where "procession" means "cause" of existence of the Holy Spirit. Neither Maximus the Confessor (7th century), nor Anastasius the Librarian (9th century) say that the west Roman Filioque "can be understood in an orthodox way," as claimed by the DAS (45, 95). They both simply explain why it is orthodox. Also neither uses the term "EKFANSIS" in their texts (DAS 45). Maximus uses the Greek term "PROΪENAI" and, being a west Roman and Latin speaking, Anastasius uses "Missio". Both point out that the Roman "procedere" has two meanings, "cause" and "mission". When used as "cause", like in the Creed, the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father. When used as "mission", the Holy Spirit, proceeds from the Father and the Son as denoting the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. All East Roman Fathers say the same, but do not use the term "EKPOREYSIS" to do so. This mission of the Holy Spirit is not servile, but free since he has the same essence and its natural will, and by nature, from the father through/and the Son. Anastasius the Librarian, who was for a time pope, played an important role in the papacy's preparations for the council of 879 in New Rome. One would have to either conclude that the Roman papacy from the time of Leo III (795-816) had become schizophrenic, both supporting and condemning the Filioque, or else come up with some such analysis as this writer has been proposing.[55]
229. ^ His own words, quoted above; cf. "Adhering to the Eastern tradition, John (of Damascus) affirmed (as Maximus had a century earlier) that "the Father alone is cause [αἴτιος]" of both the Son and the Spirit, and thus "we do not say that the Son is a cause or a father, but we do say that He is from the Father and is the Son of the Father" ([http://books.google.com/books?id=auT8VbgOe48C&pg=PA81&dq=Maximus+%22father+alone%22&lr=&cd=11#v=onepage&q=filioque%20first%20raised&f=falseA. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, p. 90).)
230. ^ "7. Not one West Roman Father ever said that the Son is either "cause" or "co-cause" of the Holy Spirit. This appears in Latin polemics and was promulgated as dogma at the council of Florence. This Filoque is a heresy, both as a theologoumenon and as a dogma. The Uniates accept this Filioque as a condition of being united to the Latin Papacy." John Romanides[56]
231. ^ When the Eastern Church first noticed a distortion of the dogma of the Holy Spirit in the West and began to reproach the Western theologians for their innovations, St. Maximus the Confessor (in the 7th century), desiring to defend the Westerners, justified them precisely by saying that by the words “from the Son” they intended to indicate that the Holy Spirit is given to creatures through the Son, that He is manifested, that He is sent — but not that the Holy Spirit has His existence from Him. St. Maximus the Confessor himself held strictly to the teaching of the Eastern Church concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and wrote a special treatise about this dogma.Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood press 1994 (ISBN 0-938635-69-7)
232. ^ This confusion is nowhere so clear than during the debates at the Council of Florence where the Franks used the terms "cause" and "caused" as identical with their generation and procession, and supported their claim that the Father and the Son are one cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus, they became completely confused over Maximos who explains that for the West of his time, the Son is not the cause of the existence of the Holy Spirit, so that in this sense the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father. That Anastasios the Librarian repeats this is ample evidence of the confusion of both the Franks and their spiritual and theological descendants.[57]
233. ^ During the ensuing centuries long course of the controversy, the Franks not only forced the Patristic tradition into an Augustinian mold, but they confused Augustine's Trinitarian terminology with that of the Father's of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods. This is nowhere so evident as in the Latin handling of Maximos the Confessor's description, composed in 650, of the West Roman Orthodox Filioque at the Council of Florence (1438-42). The East Romans hesitated to present Maximos' letter to Marinos about this West Roman Orthodox Filioque because the letter did not survive in its complete form. They were pleasantly surprised, however, when Andrew, the Latin bishop of Rhodes, quoted the letter in Greek in order to prove that in the time of Maximos there was no objection to the Filioque being in the Creed. Of course, the Filioque was not yet in the Creed. Then Andrew proceeded to translate Maximos into Latin for the benefit of the pope. However, the official translator intervened and challenged the rendition. Once the correct translation was established, the Franks then questioned the authenticity of the text. They assumed that their own Filioque was the only one in the West, and so they rejected on this ground Maximos' text as a basis of union. (John S. Romanides, The Filioque: Historical Background).
234. ^ Single Source: An Orthodox Response to the Clarification on the Filioque
235. ^ ἐκπορευόμενον
236. ^ S. Romanides, The Filioque in the Dublin Agreed Statement 1984
237. ^ John Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 1981 ISBN 0-913836-81-8), p. 37
238. ^ Dale T. Irvin, Scott Sunquist (editors), History of the World Christian Movement (Orbis Books 2001 ISBN 0-567-08866-9), Volume 1, p. 340
239. ^ Episcopal Church, Enriching Our Worship: Supplemental Liturgical Materials (Church Publishing 1998), p. 75
240. ^ Aristeides Papadakis, John Meyendorff, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071-1453 A.D. (St Vladimir's Seminary Press 1994), p. 228]
241. ^ "Homage to Christ our God and King"; "Christ our God, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise"
242. ^ Gerard Austin, "Restoring Equilibrium after the Struggle with Heresy" in Source and Summit: Commemorating Josef A. Jungmann, S.J. (Liturgical Press, Collegeville 1999 ISBN 0-8146-2461-8), p. 39
243. ^ Sergeĭ Nikolaevich Bulgakov, The Comforter (Eerdmans 2004 ISBN 9780802821126), p. 92

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 the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.
• "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 the Filioque. 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
•  "Filioque". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• 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