The filioque is/was opposed by the Orthodox for a few different reasons. I’ll do my best to cover them in brief. I’ll also try to find a link to a recent thread on the subject, which in turn has more links to threads on the subject.
First it should be understood that the Filioque came about in Spain in a drive to fight off the Arian heresy (believe Jesus to be a created being). To be quite honest the only way I can see this adding anything to the argument is if you interprete it in a manner the modern Catholic Church has deemed heretical (I’ll get to that later). The problem with this is that the entire Nicene Creed was formulated in the first place with the idea of fighting off the Arian Heresy in mind. The creed constantly contradicts Arian theology, and was designed specifically for that.
The first big issue with the filioque was that there was an attempt to force it on the East by Rome, this of course shows the disagreement on the issue of the nature of Rome’s Primacy. Simply put we Orthodox believe that only a council accepted as Ecumenical Council can dictate practice to the rest of the Church. While the Catholic Church agrees with this in theory, it says that a council is Ecumenical if the Pope says it is, in other words any council called by the Pope and including only Latin Bishops has, in the view of the Catholic Church, the potential to decree practice for the entire Church.
The next issue brought on by the filioque is that it opens up the idea of the dual-procession (symbolized by an upside down triangle). That is that the Holy Spirit has as its origin both the Father and the Son. This is a view that is heretical, and has been acknowledged as being heretical by the Catholic Church, nonetheless as I said earlier, it is only by interpreting it this way that it could actually fullfill its purpose of fighting Arians. By emphasizing that Christ is co-equal with the Father over the third part of the Trinity (although all are officially co-equal) you create the logical framework that it is impossible that Christ could be a created being (I hope that makes sense).
Next you have to keep in mind that the Council of Constantinople, which brought us the text we all use was Greek. An official Latin version was issued by the council, but Greek was the primary language of the council, and since translation is an inexact science, one should always look at the originating text to figure out what the intentions of the authors were. In this case the Greek text is very clear that the line in question is saying that the Holy Spirit originates with the Father, while the Latin text is less clear, saying the Holy Spirit simply proceeds from the Father, that is it is not made clear that the Father is the point of origin (although Doctrine in both Churches holds he is). Therefore we have to go to the Greek if we want to understand exactly what it is trying to say, the problem is that if you add “και ό υιος” - “and the son” into the Greek text, you have a statement that the Holy Spirit originates with both the Father and the Son - a very gnostic sounding concept. This meaning must then be considered if you want to add the term to the Latin. Figure out what the original writers were trying to say and go from there.
I should point out that the last thread I discussed this subject on the Catholics arguing with me did acknowledge that in Greek the filioque would be heretical, but refused to acknowledge the attempt to force the Eastern Churches to add it to the Greek.
As a final point the Catholic Church once agreed that it was heretical. Pope Leo the Great had two giant tablets erected at the Vatican sans filioque to stand as a testament to the Church’s position on the matter (and I am told they are still there by people who have visited).
Essentially it boils down to at best leading to the possibility of error, and at worst being outright heresy.
This thread might flush out some of these ideas a bit more for you, as well as provide some counter arguments.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=410780
I hope that was clear enough.
There are of course other things. My question is if Rome really thinks there is nothing theological that seperates us, why don’t they rejoin us?
