Filioque. An Option Now For Eastern Catholics?

[Peter_J]

Hi all. I’d been away from this thread for a while, but I’m caught up now.

Oddly enough, this thread is a good illustration of why I recommend that people instead read articles like those below. I think we (Catholics) have very good positions on the filioque, in terms of official documents; but when we try to explain them in internet-discussions, our message tends to get pretty garbled.

The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit
The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? (that one is an agree Catholic-Orthodox statement)

 

[Peter_J]

Originally Posted by Peter J
I don’t think anyone thinks that the Orthodox and “the Heterodox” (by which you presumably mean both Catholic and protestants) share the same beliefs.

Alright, I guess we could say that Orthodox, Catholics, and protestants all share “the same faith”, in a sense.

 

[dvdjs]

Those dioceses who adoped the filioque first were the particular churches (=dioceses) of the Franks and of the Iberians… The descendents of the Franks are the French, and of the Iberians are the Spanish.

Not sure if the original reference was to the Carolingians, or used in reference to the post-schism West more generally. But I am pretty sure that it wasn’t used in reference to the Iberians or post-Arian Visigoths.

 

[dvdjs]

I don’t think its a matter of being disrespectful. Look at this earlier statement on this thread. This is the mindset we are constantly confronted with.

“As soon as Eastern monks heard the Filioque recited by western monks in and around Jerusalem in the late 700s/early 800s, they protested”

One more time

“As soon as Eastern monks heard, they protested” thus…“Different Faith”

No analysis? Just an assumption that different is in fact wrong. Seems to be constant unless I am misunderstanding.

And the history if not right either.
Wiki does a pretty good job of this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Filioque_controversy

 

[Schism_hater]

Continued use, no break of communion, what is mistaken?

OK not to look things up, but just what is this Frankish church? And what kind of decrees does this Frankish church have?

1. Putting up with what is considered a heretical profession, under protest, in the hope the heresy will be discarded is NOT the same as acceptance. This is a mistake RC apologists make constantly. It comes up constantly with the issue of the papacy; simply because the Eastern patriarchs didn’t break off communion when some of the Bishops of Rome asserted a monarchcial authority over the Church, it is asserted that the East accepted those claims. You folks cannot seem to wrap your heads around the idea that the East wasn’t chomping at the bit to break from Rome; with the exception of a few bad actors, which both East and West had, the East desperately wanted to hang on to the unity, imperfect as it was, that was there in the hope that Rome would eventually be restored to Orthodoxy. The final break didn’t come until Rome insisted that the East adopt its heresy, which the East refused to do. Nevertheless, the procession issue WAS a “church-dividing” issue because the East was never going accept the western teachings.
2. You should know that the Frankish church had a considerable amount of independence at that time, and Charlemagane’s court not infrequently met in local counsils and made pronouncements on theological issues. Seriously, this is basic history.

 

[Schism_hater]

if the filioque is not an orthodox belief then why do the EO honor Pope Leo I?

Quite simply, we honor Pope Leo I in spite of some erroneous opinions on his part, just as we do Augustine of Hippo. Just because someone is honored as a saint, does not mean an endorsement of everything they taught. This shouldn’t be hard to understand; the same is true in your church: St. Thomas Aquinas wrote against the Immaculate Conception, and is honored as a saint, in fact, the RC theologian par excellence.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Quite simply, we honor Pope Leo I in spite of some erroneous opinions on his part, just as we do Augustine of Hippo. Just because someone is honored as a saint, does not mean an endorsement of everything they taught. This shouldn’t be hard to understand; the same is true in your church: St. Thomas Aquinas wrote against the Immaculate Conception, and is honored as a saint, in fact, the RC theologian par excellence.

That’s not quite right. The filioque originally had an Orthodox meaning, as evidenced by the letter to Marinus attributed to St. Maximus the Confessor. It is not unthinkable that Pope St. Leo had the same intentions in confessing that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the Romans who were contemporaneous with St. Maximus the Confessor, who did not intend to make the Son a cause of the Spirit. The Filioque was not an immediate reason for disunity because it was not always clear what the Latins meant by “qui ex Patre filioque procedit.” After the schism, however, when reunion talks were more thorough, it did become clear that the Filioque as confessed by post-schism Latins was unacceptable. At Florence for example, Bessarion wished to use the Letter to Marinus as a grounds for a joint understanding of the filioque, but the Latins refused to do so, casting aspersions upon its authenticity (amusingly, when Mark of Ephesus challenged Bessarion’s pro-unionism, Bessarion resorted to disputing the authenticity of this very letter, which he only days earlier had happily accepted), and in the end the Latins declared that the Son is cause of the Spirit. We can accept the filioque in accordance with St. Maximus the Confessor, that the Latins did not originally intend to make the Son cause of the Spirit, but we cannot accept any union which affirms the Filioque according to Florence.

 

[Lester_S]

That’s not quite right. The filioque originally had an Orthodox meaning, as evidenced by the letter to Marinus attributed to St. Maximus the Confessor. It is not unthinkable that Pope St. Leo had the same intentions in confessing that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the Romans who were contemporaneous with St. Maximus the Confessor, who did not intend to make the Son a cause of the Spirit. The Filioque was not an immediate reason for disunity because it was not always clear what the Latins meant by “qui ex Patre filioque procedit.” After the schism, however, when reunion talks were more thorough, it did become clear that the Filioque as confessed by post-schism Latins was unacceptable. At Florence for example, Bessarion wished to use the Letter to Marinus as a grounds for a joint understanding of the filioque, but the Latins refused to do so, casting aspersions upon its authenticity (amusingly, when Mark of Ephesus challenged Bessarion’s pro-unionism, Bessarion resorted to disputing the authenticity of this very letter, which he only days earlier had happily accepted), and in the end the Latins declared that the Son is cause of the Spirit. We can accept the filioque in accordance with St. Maximus the Confessor and the ancient Latin Fathers, but we cannot accept any union which affirms the Filioque according to Florence.

Thanks, for this, especially the closing point(s). I’ve been talking w/ a Melkite, since I met him a couple weeks ago, at our parish. He basically said, as long as the filioque wasn’t in the creed, in English, then there wouldn’t be a big block in agreeing, more or less w/ the way the Creed is structured in the west, provided it’s in Latin only, because both the English, and the Greek will demonstrate the filioque as heretical.

 

[GaryTaylor]

That’s not quite right. The filioque originally had an Orthodox meaning, as evidenced by the letter to Marinus attributed to St. Maximus the Confessor. It is not unthinkable that Pope St. Leo had the same intentions in confessing that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the Romans who were contemporaneous with St. Maximus the Confessor, who did not intend to make the Son a cause of the Spirit. The Filioque was not an immediate reason for disunity because it was not always clear what the Latins meant by “qui ex Patre filioque procedit.” After the schism, however, when reunion talks were more thorough, it did become clear that the Filioque as confessed by post-schism Latins was unacceptable. At Florence for example, Bessarion wished to use the Letter to Marinus as a grounds for a joint understanding of the filioque, but the Latins refused to do so, casting aspersions upon its authenticity (amusingly, when Mark of Ephesus challenged Bessarion’s pro-unionism, Bessarion resorted to disputing the authenticity of this very letter, which he only days earlier had happily accepted), and in the end the Latins declared that the Son is cause of the Spirit. We can accept the filioque in accordance with St. Maximus the Confessor, that the Latins did not originally intend to make the Son cause of the Spirit, but we cannot accept any union which affirms the Filioque according to Florence.

Slightly different spin. I think its safe to say Rome had no intention of wavering on its position. Being honest about the unknown validity of the letter I don’t see as fault. The letter while it shared the common thinking was in fact not know to be authentic. Today we know it is. and its still being researched. That wasn’t true then. This letter and St Johns became the only two left. I doesn’t see honesty about its questionable origin as a fault. St Mark wasn’t looking at this but the content/context which we have to assume is the reason the West even pointed to the letter.

academia.edu/2444038/How_Difficulties_in_Transmitting_the_Texts_of_Basils_Adversus_Eunomium_3.1_and_Maximus_Letter_to_Marinus_Led_to_the_Rise_and_Fall_of_Ferrara-Florence

 

[GaryTaylor]

Thanks, for this, especially the closing point(s). I’ve been talking w/ a Melkite, since I met him a couple weeks ago, at our parish. He basically said, as long as the filioque wasn’t in the creed, in English, then there wouldn’t be a big block in agreeing, more or less w/ the way the Creed is structured in the west, provided it’s in Latin only, because both the English, and the Greek will demonstrate the filioque as heretical.

You sure? Then what do you say about Maximus the Confessor?

 

[GaryTaylor]

Just because someone is honored as a saint, does not mean an endorsement of everything they taught. This shouldn’t be hard to understand

Its not hard at all to understand, and its a “VERY Good point”, this is “why” there is a Primacy.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Alright, I guess we could say that Orthodox, Catholics, and protestants all share “the same faith”, in a sense.

Most imperative with the Trinity. Look at the Islam dialogue for example. I no doubt agree the original is a foregone conclusion is definitely correct. Misunderstanding seems to be prevalent in either version.

 

[dvdjs]

1. Putting up with what is considered a heretical profession, under protest, in the hope the heresy will be discarded is NOT the same as acceptance. This is a mistake RC apologists make constantly. It comes up constantly with the issue of the papacy; simply because the Eastern patriarchs didn’t break off communion when some of the Bishops of Rome asserted a monarchcial authority over the Church, it is asserted that the East accepted those claims. You folks cannot seem to wrap your heads around the idea that the East wasn’t chomping at the bit to break from Rome; with the exception of a few bad actors, which both East and West had, the East desperately wanted to hang on to the unity, imperfect as it was, that was there in the hope that Rome would eventually be restored to Orthodoxy. The final break didn’t come until Rome insisted that the East adopt its heresy, which the East refused to do. Nevertheless, the procession issue WAS a “church-dividing” issue because the East was never going accept the western teachings.
2. You should know that the Frankish church had a considerable amount of independence at that time, and Charlemagane’s court not infrequently met in local counsils and made pronouncements on theological issues. Seriously, this is basic history.

 

[Peter_J]

1. Putting up with what is considered a heretical profession, under protest, in the hope the heresy will be discarded is NOT the same as acceptance. This is a mistake RC apologists make constantly. It comes up constantly with the issue of the papacy; simply because the Eastern patriarchs didn’t break off communion when some of the Bishops of Rome asserted a monarchcial authority over the Church, it is asserted that the East accepted those claims.

That’s fair enough I suppose.

But in a related vein, breaking off communion doesn’t necessarily imply full schism. In particular, I have found that many people (on the Catholic side as well as the Orthodox side) date the schism to 1054 (or 1014), but it only really makes sense to date it to the 15th century.

 

[dzheremi]

The date of any particular schism is rather arbitrary and largely a matter of historical convenience. I mentioned earlier that the Armenians (and the Georgians and Caucasian Albanians with them, but shhh…modern Georgians and Albanians are Chalcedonian, so they don’t like to hear this) took until 506 AD at the Council of Dvin to formally anathematize Chalcedon, whereas the Egyptians and the Syrians with them apparently had more immediate reactions. There were also attempts at reunion, some of which even begat their own schisms (e.g., the Henotikon of Emperor Zeno, 482).

I don’t know…if I recall correctly, Pope Leo I struck St. Dioscoros’ name from the diptych even before Chalcedon (to which St. Disocros responded in kind, yes), so I guess a better or more informative question would be not when you know you’re in schism, but how you are to know that. After all, Chalcedonian Alexandrian Patriarch Timothy III Salophakiolos continued to commemorate St. Disocros in the diptych of the Chalcedonian Church at Alexandria for some time after Chalcedon (which infuriated the Roman Pope…go figure that the rest of the Chalcedonians would disobey his earlier action despite his clear infallibility…har har har).

 

[slaveoftruth]

Hello all,
As far as I understand it it might be an option for Eastern Catholics to not use the filoque in the creed but it is still something which we profess to believe. I believe the dispute originated in the language itself. For instance, I could say something like I am going to New Mexico and California or I could say I am going through New Mexico to California. This would be like saying the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son or like saying from the Father and the Son. The Orthodox (a break off from the Eastern Catholic Church) split from the Church because of this distinction.

 

[Peter_J]

The Orthodox (a break off from the Eastern Catholic Church) …

Read the Balamand Statement (Uniatism, method of union of the past, and the present search for full communion).

 

[Maron_Ignatius]

In my experience, Orthodox people tend to look at these meetings and documents produced at them in a different way than Catholics do, but okay.

Fair enough

I do not believe that it expresses the truth, no. I guess people could argue that it’s a heresy, but I’d just as soon not get involved in that debate, since I don’t affirm it either way.

So you don’t care for it… so why do you post about? Just a question of curiosity.

The thing is one could argue that miaphysitism is the same as the monophysitism heresy - many do - and no matter how much I correct people on it, some will still continue to believe its a heresy. Just because you don’t think something expresses the truth doesn’t mean it doesn’t express the truth. - For anyone who does not know, to the best and shortest explanation I can give “monophysite” refers to “One Single Nature” while miaphysite refers to “One United Nature” Miaphysitism is NOT a heresy!

Yeah, that’s why I qualified my reply: In so far as concerns his banning of it from being recited in the Creed, I agree with him.

But he didn’t ban it.

What? No I’m not.** I’m stating a general principle that things that are wrong are wrong regardless of their antiquity or who affirms them or where they come from**, in response to your argument that the filioque was used by others for centuries before it was formally adopted by Rome, so it would be wrong to deprive the Franks and the Mozarabs or whoever of their right to affirm it. That’s not how it works. Once again, if the filioque is wrong, it’s wrong and nobody has the right to use it just because they’ve been doing so for a long time and taking it away would be robbing them of that heritage or whatever. It’s a heritage of wrongness, in that case. It should not be continued.

Well why would you say something if you know you are wrong? What I mean is your right about if something is wrong its wrong… Only thing is the filioque is not wrong and I never said that it would be wrong to “to deprive the Franks and the Mozarabs or whoever of their right to affirm it” it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that the filioque is supported by the Bible and some of the early Church Fathers, the fact that the filioque has been shown to be an orthodox belief, and the fact that it went unchallenged for +400 years, maybe the filioque isn’t wrong like you think.

And I noticed with the language you use, when you talk about the filioque you mention different heresies, you do this a lot, and you always speak in a comparative form. My question is if you believe the filioque to be wrong then why did you say:“Probably if it was kept in Toledo only, Toledo would be looked at as odd, but we wouldn’t be talking about it as we do now.” if you believe the filioque does not speak the truth or is wrong then it wouldn’t matter where it was said because if something is wrong then its wrong right?

Yes, the filioque is meant to fight Arianism, I know, but it is not appropriate to introduce something contentious for the sake of fighting something else that’s contentious. Eutyches was finally rejected in that sort of context, because in his zeal to fight against the heresies of his day, he introduced something unacceptable and muddled, and so we say that Eutychianism is just as unacceptable as Nestorianism. Hopefully the parallel here is clear.

I was just trying to make a joke of how you mentioned Arianism when the filioque was put in the creed to fight it Again what I said above on the filioque.

Probably for the same reason as it took the Armenians until the Council of Dvin in 506 to formally reject Chalcedon. News traveled very slowly in ancient times, and somehow I doubt the fact that the Latins had added a single word to the Creed was of such high priority until the monks of the East actually begin to have regular contact with Latins (such as in Jerusalem), and hence could be exposed to what they were teaching and doing.

Its true news traveled slowly and could take up to years but in reality news normally took just a few months - this is thanks to the infrastructure built by the Romans - But for the filioque to go +400 years without opposition, because news travels slowly… thats kinda hard to believe, news didn’t travel that slowly. Besides the East did have regular contact with the Latins, through both military and economics. i.e Alexandria was a major trade port that had much contact from people throughout the Empire. I guess it was just political reason that people just started to oppose it. As for the Armenians they new very well about the Council of Chalcedon, they just took a bit to make a formal statement on whether or not they accepted Chalcedon.

 

[Maron_Ignatius]

Yes, but do they mean (again, as defined by your Church in their Council of Florence) that such procession is eternally from both, or is it more like HG Bishop Youssef explained it in the link I shared earlier? And note, by the way, that HG affirmed the temporal procession as outlined in John, yet we do not accept the filioque. The authors of the Creed apparently did not see the need to explain that the procession of the Holy Spirit is through the Son (maybe because the Gospel already explains what this means), and the article on the Holy Spirit was expanded to defend and explain His divinity to those who thought that He was not divine. In that context, do you think it would have been more important to explain His temporal procession in minute detail, or to affirm that He is of the same divine origin as the Son, which is to say, His ultimate source is from the Father alone?

CCC 246: 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.”

In the filioque we speak of the eternal procession. Maybe its because I am a Chalcedonian it makes sense to me. The Council of Florence, to me, explains the consubstantial communion of the Father and Son how the Holy Spirit proceeds. Where we agree that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, where we disagree is the alone part. I think to say the Father alone, is to separate - eternally - the consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son - which I would think would be heresy.

Have you though the reason the filioque was added was because it was needed for the Western Christians?

Also what of this quote by - a Coptic theologian - Didymus the Blind?

“Of mine he shall receive.” (Quoting John 16:15) Just as we have understood discussions, therefore, about the incorporeal natures, so too it is now to be recognized that the Holy Spirit receives from the Son that which He was of His own nature, and not as one substance giving and another receiving, but as signifying one substance. So too the Son is said to receive from the Father the very things given Him by the Father, nor has the Holy Spirit any other substance than that given Him by the Son. And on that account we do affirm those propositions according to which we believe that in the Trinity the nature of the Holy Spirit is the same as that of the Father and the Son.

Because it doesn’t say that.

You say it doesn’t, but could you list for me three ways it does not?

And sorry for not getting back sooner, I was at the hospital yesterday.

 

[MorEphrem]

To the above, I think it’s a fundamental misunderstand if one says its a heresy to believe in single procession. On the most basic levels, that’s saying you believe in an omnipotent God but He’s limited to certain conditions of manifestation. Secondly, to say He would be limited to such a condition because He would lack communion is a miss understanding of the Godhead; look at Mor Ephrem’s explanation of the Holy Persons for instance. In his metaphor, God the Father is the sun from whom the rays of light that proceed from are the Son (since they’re the visible manifestation of the sun) and then the Spirit is the warmth of the sun (invisible, but very real). Their communion is not lacking but based on their common source in the Godhead. Both persons proceed from the Father to make Him known, since He alone is hidden. To say warmth would come from the rays of the sun would be erroneous, as that is not the source of heat.

I hope everything is alright and you feel better, Maron Ignatius .