Christy74: I’m not sure where you’re getting this account of the filioque, but it’s highly inaccurate.
First of all, the filioque was taught by St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Leo the Great and many others before the “Constinopolitan” portion of the Creed was even officially added to the Nicaean Creed (it was recognized at Chalcedon, not before, as the Council of Constantinople was not declared an Ecumenical Council until that time, when the “updated” Creed was finally accepted by the whole Church; remember that the Council of Ephesus, led by St. Cyril, mentioned only Nicaea as a previous Ecumenical Council).
Secondly, there is no record of any opposition to the filioque at the time of the Council of Toledo, which occurred a century or so after Chalcedon. No Popes condemned it at the time, and in fact we know that Rome was using the filioque (though perhaps not in the Nicene Creed) during the lifetime of St. Maximos the Confessor (who defended the Roman teaching against those who objected to it in the East), one hundred years before Charlemagne was even born.
Third, the Pope who crowned Charlemagne, Pope Leo III, was the same Pope who had the Nicene Creed, minus filioque, carved into the Silver Plates. Also, he did this in 809,
after crowning Charlemagne. He was opposing the Franks for adding the filioque to the Creed (Charlemagne was still king at the time), but there’s no evidence that he opposed the teaching of the filioque, which was utterly embedded in the West since at least the time of St. Ambrose, if not earlier.
There is some speculation that it was added in 1014 at the insistence of King Henry II of the “Holy Roman Empire”, but I’ve never seen any documentation of this. Interestingly, this occurred over a century after Photius condemned Rome for its support of the filioque teaching, which would seem to indicate that the belief was upheld long before it was officially added in.
Fourth, it wasn’t Roman missionaries who bumped heads with St. Cyril and Methodius, it was missionaries from Germany, where there was dispute over who’s “jurisdiction” they were operating in. Whether or not the filioque was an issue between the two groups I honestly don’t know, but I do know that in order to resolve the issue the brothers went to Rome (during the “Photian Schism”, no less), where they received the blessing of the Pope to continue their work, where St. Cyril passed on and buried in the Basilica of Saint Clement (and where St. Methodius was ordained a Bishop by the Pope, to boot).
Finally, no Pope has ever condemned the teaching of the filioque, so there’s not issue over infallibility (if you know otherwise, I’m interested in seeing it, since that would be a major issue indeed). One Pope condemned its insertion into the Nicene Creed, but not the teaching itself, nor its use in other professions of Faith such as the “Athanasian Creed”. This is no different from the various condemnations of the use of vernacular for the Latin Mass, which was overturned on a wide level in the past century.
Allyson: I’ve never heard that St. Augustine refuted the filioque in his Retractations, and I would think that would be a significant thing to be brought up in discussions on the filioque.
I would certainly think that the infamous T.R. Valentine would say as much in his “refutation” of the filioque, but instead he [says this](
http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/work(name removed by moderator)rog_filioque.html):
In his Retractions, Augustine admits to working On the Trinity for seventeen years and informs us that it would not have been released except for pressure from his friends. Nevertheless, the Retractions contains no substantive amendments to the work. Perhaps, given more time and/or less pressure, Augustine might have avoided the many errors which plague On the Trinity.
