Is the Filioque accepted by the Catholic Church?

[theCardinalbird]

Is the Filioque accepted by the Church? What is it about?

 

[Spyridon]

Yes.

It’s a Latin phrase meaning “and the Son” in the Nicene Creed which the Roman Church has used since about the 5th century.

 

[Vico]

Is the Filioque accepted by the Church? What is it about?

Catechism

246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)”. 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."75

247 The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447,76 even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.

248 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.77 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). It says this, “legitimately and with good reason”,78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as “the principle without principle”,79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.

 

[CRM_Brother]

Hello Joe,

This has been a hot button issue between the Catholics and the Orthodoxs ever since the the Great Schism. This concerns what we know as the Nicene Creed. During the Councils which formulated the Creed, there was a lot of discussion on the subject of the Holy Spirit. The Council Fathers agreed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. They also agreed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, but in a different way. This way had to do with Christ’s sending of the Holy Spirit into the world as opposed to the emanation of the Holy Spirit solely from the Father within the Holy Trinity. When the Creed was formulated the only text which was approved stated “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father…” It had no mention of proceeding from the Son. The Council declared that this was the final Creed of the Church and to make a new one or add to it was to incur excommunication. Now the Western (Catholic) Church at the time added the word ‘Filioque’ (and the Son) to the Latin Creed to denote the discussion of the Holy Spirit also proceeding from the Son in a different way within the Council and to highlight Christ’s role in sending the Holy Spirit into the world. The Eastern (Orthodox) Church objected to this addition and eventually became one of the justifications for the mutual excommunications during the Great Schism.

St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis have offered to remove Filioque from the Creed if it allowed communion to be reestablished between the East and the West, but the Orthodox theologians didn’t seem to truly care about it anymore. Primarily the modern objections are simply about the Papacy.

God bless,
Br. Ben, CRM

 

[Dan_Defender]

Quite interesting. And who is the leader of the Eastern Orthodox? do they recognize a single leader? I am under the impression that each country’s Church is more or less ‘independent’ in terms of leadership.

 

[CRM_Brother]

They do not recognize a leader like we have in the Pope, however they officially recognize that both the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople have the highest places of honor within the Church. Rome due to the the episcopal lineage of Peter and Paul in addition to being the original seat of the Roman Empire and the Patriarch of Constantinople because that was the capital of the Roman Empire at the time of the Eccumenical Council when this declaration was made.

When JPII and Francis made these offerings to remove Filioque, they were made to certain Patriarchs who were the heads of their respective synods, one of whom was the Patriarch of Constantinople.

 

[dochawk]

nd the Patriarch of Constantinople because that was the capital of the Roman Empire at the time of the Eccumenical Council when this declaration was made.

Anyway, any casual discussion of the filioque is doomed. A proper discussion involves talking past one another for days on end, grudgingly admitting that both sides believe the same thing but are saying it differently, and then finding another issue to call one another heretics over . . .

Not quite–that didn’t get them to #2, just into the “Pentarchy.”

The next time around, they stressed their Apostolic founding by Andrew, which got them to #2 and “equal of Rome”

I’ll leave the oddity of getting ahead of the Petrine sees of Jerusalem and Antioch by descent from Andrew as an exercise to the reader
hawk

 

[Vico]

…
This has been a hot button issue between the Catholics and the Orthodoxs ever since the the Great Schism. …

Filioque was an issue with Patriarch Paul of Constantinople (pat. 641–653 A.D.) that professed Monothelitism. That was before the Sixth Ecumenical Council of 680 - 681 condemned Monothelitism.