www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Question Concerning Fillioque's Dogmatic Status

QUESTION: Do Eastern Catholics accept the Filioque as defined by Florence or not?

I was reading comments on the Touchstone [merecomments.typepad.com] blog and when I asked EC Stuart Koehl whether or not he accepted it he said: "Not at all. Neither does Pope Benedict, for that matter, so I am in good company."

I'll quote some of his arguments in support of this contention:

"Finally, I am constantly amazed that so few Eastern Christians, including Eastern Catholics, have bothered to read the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's "Clarification on the Procession of the Holy Spirit", published in 1990, to say nothing of Pope Paul VI's 1974 statement revoking the anathemas applied at the Second Council of Lyons upon those "who deny that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" (this was the same address in which he reduced Lyons II to a "general council of the Church in the West"). There is also the remarkable October 2003 joint statement of the American Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue, "The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?"

"... the Filioque has been suppressed in all papal Encyclicals. It was omitted from Dominius Iesus, which was widely believed to have been written by Cardinal Ratzinger. The omission was noted by the Vatican state printer, who reinserted it in the galleys, and who was quite miffed when it came back crossed out. The Filioque is no longer part of Catholic teaching, and in fact has not been so at least from 1974.

The situation that pertains in the Latin Church, therefore, is precisely the opposite of what my Orthodox brethren assume: it is not that the clause is omitted from the Creed only for liturgical purposes, but rather that it is only retained in liturgical usage out of inertia and pastoral sensitivity. Since (a) double procession is NOT taught doctrinally; and (b) is not affirmed in the official version of the Creed (only the uninterpolated Greek text is binding as an ecumenical Symbol of Faith), then one cannot say that Rome is suppressing the Flioque liturgically while affirming it doctrinally. The truth is, Rome is suppressing the Filioque doctrinally, while retaining it (temporarily) in liturgical use in SOME (read ONE) particular Church. And that will shortly change. What will the Orthodox do then?"

[Please check out the above link for the full context of this excerpts.]

My guess is that Stuart Koehl's statement would be news to Pope Benedict....Mary

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

I have to back up Mary here. The Catechism of the Catholic Church most certainly includes the belief in the filioque, as she has pointed out. That Dominus Iesus did not include the filioque has more to do with the document's universal character, rather than the filioque being dropped as a teaching.

I'll have to pick apart the blog posts a bit more, but on the face this is quite simply erroneous. He'll need to do a LOT of substantiation of this idea to counter the weight of such documents as the Catechism

Peace and God bless!

Dear Friends,

It is certainly a fact that the Latin Catholic Church could indeed remove the Filioque tomorrow from the Creed shared by all during the first millennium of the Church.

The Latin Church will always have her own tradition of the Filioque and it is entitled to it as part of her Particular theological heritage.

But the documents cited by Stuart K. above are quite compelling, even though I would disagree that the Filioque is not an official teaching etc.

As Fr. John Meyendorff said about Florence that unity could have been achieved if the Latin Church removed the Filioque from its version of the Nicene Creed and both sides could have agreed on the "Through the Son."

There can be no doubt that Rome is moving in the direction of formally removing the Filioque down the road sometime, that this will happen in our lifetime and the implications for East-West rapprochement on this score will be enormous.

Happily, the UGCC in Canada and other jurisdictions have now begun to formally drop the Filioque from the Creed in accordance with our Eastern heritage.

Alex

As an Eastern Catholic I also reject the "filioque," because it is a philosophical construct that has no place in the Triadology of the East.

The filioque in the papal Church is clearly considered to be a theological truth.

It is not considered to be a "philosophical" construct.

The papal Church does not require the eastern Churches to use the filioque in the Creed.

The papal Church has not yet even hinted that it will remove the filioque from the Creed in the Latin rite, rather the papal Church continues to try to make clear the truth of this theology, and its complimentarity with theologies developed in the East.

Many Orthodox Christians and eastern Catholics have come to understand the actual Catholic teaching of the filioque sufficiently so as to stop referring to it as either heterodox or heretical.

Mary

Mary,

Thank you for your response. We will have to agree to disagree on the "filioque."

I do not believe in the "filioque" at all.

God bless,
Todd

Dear Todd,

You are certainly free to make that kind of choice.

I would say that the papal Church does not encourage this kind of flat out rejection. In essence you and Stuart and others, who take similar positions, are saying that you all know much better than the Church knows, what it is that the Church does, and does not teach.

It seems to me that there is, however, room for that kind of dissent as long as it is not done in such a way as to undermine the credibility of Church teaching, or to replace it with a heterodox teaching.

It doesn't seem to me that either you or Stuart are outside of tolerable bounds, even though you are well outside preferable bounds, with respect to religious assent.

Mary

Dear Mary,

You've raised what I would call the "core issue" of this matter and although I want to share some thoughts, I have no definite conclusions.

On the score of the liturgical use of the Filioque, the UGCC is definitely moving to removing it, but there is definitely opposition to this, such as in my eparchy. And there is historical precedent that explains that opposition.

After 1596, the new EC's in Eastern Europe tended to oppose what was an enforced imposition of the Filioque into the Creed as a way to ensure their Eastern traditions and identity.

Over time, however, when the spectre of Russification came around, EC's in that same area tended to see the Filioque as a way to safeguard their specific Eastern Catholic identity in opposition to Russification. Wherever Russian imperialism wished to assimilate the EC's, the Russian Orthodox Church begana program of "De-Latinization" which began, of course, with the removal of the Filioque. The Creed without the Filioque became the herald not of "Easternization," but of the beginning of enforced assimilation to Russian Orthodoxy and Russophilism.

This attitude is also strong today in Eastern Europe where people, who have recently been part of the restoration of ECism, express a real anger toward their former oppressors by insisting not only on the Filioque in the Creed, but also on a whole series of practices that would probably shock even the most Latinized ECer in North America!

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration is quite popular and one EC priest told me that his entire village takes turns for an hour at a time in Church, including small children. When I shook his hand, I noticed he wore a Rosary ring!

The Filioque, in that case, is not about theological perspectives - indeed the people who hang onto it would not be interested in theological argumentation in the least - they hang onto it as a tangible "emblem" of their Eastern Catholic identity, period. And that must be respected - in any case, they wouldn't care if we decried them for keeping the Filioque in the Creed.

The UGCC as a whole is not ready for an "across the board" removal of the Filioque, no matter how much preparation would go into that move.

The people in the pews would simply reject that.

My own views that I've expressed here on the Filioque are located within the context of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue and I believe that ultimately it would be a good thing if both sides to that dialogue can arrive at a common Creed and that is what is probably in the works in the long run.

However, there is no way I would argue with our people "in the pews" about this. Nor would I argue about people who spend twelve hours in Church at a time for Eucharistc Adoration, night-time Adoration, Holy Hours, Stations of the Cross and public Rosaries.

I've seen the expression of this tremendous piety and although the devotions aren't "Eastern," when I see these people at prayer, who am I to tell them they are wrong?

I am no one and I am pleased to join them in their devotions in thanking God for the return of the EC churches after years of oppression.

My two cents.

Alex

Mary,

Your comments are predicated upon the false assumption that the doctrine of the Church is identical with the views of -- what you have called -- the "Papal Church." I do not accept the Western "filioque" theory because it ultimately involves a confusion of the Holy Spirit's hypostatic procession (ekporeusis) of origin from the Father alone, with His shining forth as energy, but not as person, through the Son.

Clearly, as I said in my previous post, we will have to agree to disagree.

God bless,
Todd

Dear Todd,

In actual fact, my comments are predicated on years of formal study in Church history, theology and doctrine that lead me, in good conscience, to follow the teaching of my Church concerning the filioque, and I do not call her teaching false.

Also you need to demonstrate more clearly the Orthodox teaching that the person of the Holy Spirit shines forth as energies.

There is a clear teaching in Orthodoxy, that one can find rather easily, that indicates that the energies are the essence and the essence is the nature and the divine nature is singular. So that, in brief, one does not equate the energies with one trinitarian person or the other. There are no Father Energies, Son Energies or Holy Spirit energies, which is what your statement comes very close to indicating as you've presented it here.

Mary

Mary,

Thank you again for responding.

Clearly, we do not agree on this issue.

God bless,
Todd

Mary,

Read St. Gregory Palamas' "Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite," because he addresses the point you bring up, i.e., the special sense in which the common energy of the Trinity can be called the Holy Spirit.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Duncan Reid also addresses this point in his book "Energies of the Spirit [amazon.com]."

Alex,

Your "Two Cents" here is worth considerably more! Thanks for the historical perspective.

Gabriel

Dear Todd,

I will get around to finding passages to post eventually, but I am sure you are aware, just as not all that St. Thomas says is incorporated into Catholic doctrine, and not all Agustine says is taken as undisputed Catholic theology, so too there are quite responsible and learned and prayerful Orthodox theologians who do not accept all of the teachings of all of the Fathers, respectively, as absolute and true and orthodox.

So it will not surprise us to know that not all modern and contemporary Orthodox theologians agree that the energies can be spoken of in an equivalency with the Person of the Holy Spirit.

And of course to read Palamas back into the Cappadocians, without any other substantiating evidence, is bad form in simple scholarly terms.

Mary