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I have often thought that there were two pre-requisites for re-union: unity in Holy Tradition, liturgical and ascetical (fasting)and the reconcilliation of Thomas Aquinas with Orthodox theology. On the latter point, I ran across the article below via a link on the Blog Ad Orientem.
It provides some good insights that might serve as a basis for discussion.

http://www.balkanstudies.org/1998/barber.htm

Dear Mark of Ephesus,

Certainly, there were a number of Orthodox theologians and leaders who had a great admiration for St Thomas Aquinas (whom they often called "Blessed Thomas" like "Blessed Augustine" or "Blessed Theodoret").

John Meyendorff quoted a private prayer of one such Orthodox Christian and I quote it from memory, "O Blessed Thomas . . . if you have been born in the East, you would not have defended the Western distortion of the Creed!"

In fact, Saint Gennadios Scholarios, although a successor in the same cause as Saint Markos Eugenikos, was the theologian and academician that St Markos never was.

It is a tribute to the genius and insight of Saint Gennadios that he was fiercely faithful to Orthodoxy, yet he could appreciate the depth of intellectual spirit of Thomas Aquinas (especially his moral theology as Orthodoxy at that time borrowed heavily from Thomas on that score).

And St Thomas' keen ability to understand and "Baptized" Greek philosophy made him a sympathetic figure among the Byzantine theologians who likewise wished to put down a Christian bridge to these great sources of learning and enlightenment.

Alex

St. Thomas Acquinas died on his way to the Council to meet with the Orthoodox.

BTW: The Dominicans established two houses of study in the Eastern Orthodox lands. One in Constantinople and the other in Georgia. Both priories apparently became Orthodox and a tradition of Orthodox monks wearning white robes arose. This might be why St. Seraphim of Sarov preferred to wear white.

Dear Elizabeth,

I wonder if the "Dominican-Orthodox" connection would explain how one of the Dominican reformer Savonarola's disciples went to Russia where he became an Old Rite Orthodox monastic, St Maximos the Greek?

After witnessing the Florence rabble murder his beloved teacher and desecrate his church, Maximos was filled with disgust for the West and spent a lot of his later time as an Orthodox monastic writing about this.

The view of Aquinas that the Church can be reunited on the already mutually accepted "From the Father Through the Son" formula for the Procession of the Holy Spirit would certainly have been something the Orthodox could agree to, as Fr. John Meyendorff also affirms.

Rome would then have only had to remove the Filioque from the creed . . .

Ah, to have history to relive all over again . . .

Alex