The filioque is not part of the Eastern (Catholic or Orthodox) creed.End the filioque!
But the TEACHING of filioque - that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father AND THE SON - is indeed part of the FAITH of every Orthodox Church (both Oriental and Eastern).The filioque is not part of the Eastern (Catholic or Orthodox) creed.
mardukm,But the TEACHING of filioque - that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father AND THE SON - is indeed part of the FAITH of every Orthodox Church (both Oriental and Eastern).
Blessings,
Marduk
Yes, I understand what you are saying. The idea of the consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Father and the Son is a corollary of the teaching that on subsistence.mardukm,
The Orthodox Church rejects the filioque and yet believes the unity of three persons, one essence. The Son receives his subsistence from the Father through being begotten, while the Holy Spirit receives his subsistence from the Father through procession.
What you mention is a perceived corollary although not the teaching itself.
I just realized something. When you stated this, perhaps you meant that the teaching in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the line “Proceeds from the Father” is that the Spirit has His Origin from the Father alone, and that the teaching on consubstantiality was a corollary that was not the original intent of the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople. Perhaps you are implying that the issue of consubstantiality, though indeed Orthodox, was only later added by the Latins.What you mention is a perceived corollary although not the teaching itself.
Amen, my brother, As well as of the Latin Rite. But the issue addressed in my post in response to LBL’s post to ‘End the filioque’ which is completely different than the consubstantiality of all of the persons of The Most Holy Trinity.Ignatius;7720359:
The filioque is not part of the Eastern (Catholic or Orthodox) creed.Little Boy Lost:
End the filioque!
But the TEACHING of filioque - that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father AND THE SON - is indeed part of the FAITH of every Orthodox Church (both Oriental and Eastern).
As the Creed stands, the full divinity of the Holy Spirit is affirmed by the names Lord and Giver of Life, and by stating that He is worshiped with the Father and the Son. This is the approach, as I recall, of St. Basil in On the Holy Spirit, who emphasizes uses in Scripture (e.g. calling the HS Lord) that indicate His divinity and consubstantiality with the Father and the Son.Dear brother Madaglan,
I just realized something. When you stated this, perhaps you meant that the teaching in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the line “Proceeds from the Father” is that the Spirit has His Origin from the Father alone, and that the teaching on consubstantiality was a corollary that was not the original intent of the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople. Perhaps you are implying that the issue of consubstantiality, though indeed Orthodox, was only later added by the Latins.
I actually wholeheartdly disagree, and I have mentioned this in the past.
The purpose of the Fathers at Constantinople was to address the Pneumatomachi. These were heretics who believed that the Holy Spirit indeed has His subsistence from the Father, but they did not believe that the Holy Spirit was God. The Fathers were fresh from a debate with the Arians who had a similar heresy with respect to the Son.
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It was only later that Easterns began to understand that “proceeds from the Father” primarily refers to the subsistence, instead of the consubstantiality, the latter being the ORIGINAL intent of the Fathers at Constantinople. And that is where we are at now.
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Blessings,
Marduk
Worship did not settle the issue. Both Arians and Pneumatomachi had no problem worshipping the Son and Holy Spirit, respectively, despite their belief that they were “less than” the Father. To use your example, St. Basil’s argument was not that the Pneumatomachi were denying that the Holy Spirit is called “Lord.” In his work “On the Holy Spirit,” Basil specifically admits that the the Pneumatomachi and the Orthodox Catholic Church shared “common conceptions concerning the Holy Spirit gathered by us from the Scriptures.” St. Basil’s apologetic against the Pneumatomachi was basically a series of argumenta ad absurdum - i.e., if you believe this much, then it is inconsistent for you to deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit.As the Creed stands, the full divinity of the Holy Spirit is affirmed by the names Lord and Giver of Life, and by stating that He is worshiped with the Father and the Son. This is the approach, as I recall, of St. Basil in On the Holy Spirit, who emphasizes uses in Scripture (e.g. calling the HS Lord) that indicate His divinity and consubstantiality with the Father and the Son.
Forgive me if I was unclear. I never claimed, nor intended to claim, that the East “suddenly changed” its understanding. If you will notice, I mitigated my statements with the adverb “primarily.” I am not claiming that ekporeusis does not inherently connote the idea of origination. What I am claiming is that ekporeusis inherently ALSO connotes the idea of consubstantiality, and it was this latter meaning that the Fathers of Constantinople PRIMARILY intended when adding “proceeds from the Father” to the Nicene Creed to combat the Pneumatomachi. I am not claiming that the Easterns changed the meaning of the term ekporeusai, but simply that there was a change in emphasis on the connotations inherent in the term ekporeusai.As to your claim of the changing Greek interpretation of the procession, when did the East suddenly change and understand ekporousis differently?
Well said! The Eastern Orthodox rightly reject anything that would make the Son - with the Father - a cause of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit.mardukm,
The Orthodox Church rejects the filioque and yet believes the unity of three persons, one essence. The Son receives his subsistence from the Father through being begotten, while the Holy Spirit receives his subsistence from the Father through procession.
What you mention is a perceived corollary although not the teaching itself.
You are a member of the Ruthenian church which happens to be in communion with the Roman Church.Umm, excuse me, but last I checked, I was in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, not a branch of it…
As to your claim of the changing Greek interpretation of the procession, when did the East suddenly change and understand ekporousis
I would disagree. It may seem obvious to us now since it is ingrained in our psyche, but in the early Church, a belief that the Son was “eternally begotten,” did not automatically connote consubstantiality. That was why there was such a big debate about the addition of the word homoousios to the Creed. The same with the Holy Spirit. Asserting the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father was not equivalent to asserting their consubstantiality. If what you claim is true, how can you explain the exigencies of the Pneumatomachian heresy?If the meaning of ekporousis were not the origin of subsistence but rather consubstantiality, then there would be little issue in adding the Greek equivalent of “and the Son” to the Creed. Yet, it is the case that both Orthodox and Catholics agree that to add “and to the Son” to the Greek version of the Creed would render a heterodox statement, and so even Rome omits the filioque from the Greek version of the Creed. Certainly, the Orthodox use of “proceeds from the Father”, understood in relation with other Orthodox beliefs, affirms the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit, but by virtue of the belief that what eternally proceeds and is eternally begotten of God the Father is fully divine, consubstantial with the Father.
The latter, and that is only because by the second millenium, the Easterns had fully developed an understanding that the line “proceeds from the Father” refers primarily to the origin of the Holy Spirit, different from (but not opposed to) the original intent of the Fathers of Constantinople that the line instead refers to the consubstantiality.Do you take the stance that Rome does not insert “and the Son” to the Greek version of the Creed because of political considerations and not due to any theological concern of asserting double procession?
I addressed this previously, but it may be useful to repeat my statements. The term ekporeusis connotes both the concept of origination and the concept of consubstantiality. But the Fathers of Constantinople intended to use the term according to its connotation of consubstantiality (as affirmed by the quotes I gave from subsequent Ecumenical Councils in my previous posts) in order to combat the Pneumatomachi.The defense here of the Latin *filioque, *as I’ve seen it, has been based on the claim that the verb procedit has different denotations than the Greek, and does not denote origination, as does the Greek. What I’ve seen you write suggests something different–that ekporousis does not denote origination.
I think you’re imposing an unmerited presupposition here. The debate in which St. Maximos was involved was a very localized debate between some Greek monks and some Latin monks. It did not go beyond that. There is no justification to assume that the interpretation given by the Greek monks (that the line “proceeds from the Father” was understood to refer to the origination and not the consubstantiality) was the general disposition of “the East.” My statement is proven not only by the fact that St. Maximos did not insist that the Latins stop reciting filioque, but also by the quotes I gave from the Ecumenical Councils. Pay particular attention to the quote from the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which occurred after the localized debate in which St. Maximos was involved.St. Maximus the Confessor, when he wrote of the Latin filioque of his time, stated that the Latins do not believe the Son to be origin of the Holy Spirit–his statement indicating that not after the schism, but long before, the East understood ekporousis to mean origination of the Holy Spirit.
And there would not have been a difference, at that time. But I think we can all admit that the West underwent a development in thinking at the turn of the millenium, that we normally call “scholasticism.” Following Aristotle, the West could conceive of levels of “cause.” Though Florence indeed uses the term “cause” in reference to the Son, it explicitly affirmed and distinguished that only the Father is the Source of the Trinity. This distinction may have been lost on some of the Greeks at Florence, particularly Mark of Ephesus.Looking back at St. Maximus, he writes that the Latins do not believe the Son to be cause of the Holy Spirit. I used the word origin.
- “and the Son” not “and to the Son” in my last post.
Dear brother Madaglan,
Madaglan;7749240:
from consubstantiality to origination, it must have been after the Seventh Ecumenical Council.Whenever it was that the Easterns changed the emphasis of ekporeusis
Here is an excerpt from Session 4 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which concerns the Profession of Faith:
We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visibile and invisible…
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in the Holy Ghost, the Lord the Giver of Life, CONSUBSTANTIAL AND COETERNAL WITH THE SAME FATHER AND WITH THE SON…
It can’t get any clearer than that, brother. To repeat, the Fathers of Constantinople added the phrase “proceeds from the Father” to the Nicene Creed with the ORIGINAL intention of utilizing the connotation of consubstantiality (instead of origination), since the connotation of origination would have done nothing to refute the heresy of the Pneumatomachi.
I will address your other points as time permits.
Blessings,
Marduk
Your understanding of the meaning of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed is contrary to the Byzantine doctrinal tradition. The creed primarily concerns the persons of the Trinity, which is clear from the tri-fold structure of the creed itself,. Now in the case of the Son and the Spirit it also concerns their origin from the Father as the sole cause, principle, and source of divinity. Secondarily, and dependently upon the affirmed origin of the Son and Spirit from the Father alone, the creed also asserts explicitly in the case of the Son, and implicitly in the case of the Holy Spirit, that those two persons are consubstantial (homoousios) with the Father, who is the sole font of divinity.
Communion between the Roman Church and the Orthodox East will never be restored as long as Western Catholics, and some misguided Eastern Catholics, continue to promote the filioque within the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed.
On the points at issue, I - as a Melkite Catholic - completely agree with Madaglan, and I reject Mardukm’s views as erroneous.