www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Yet another filioque thread (now with Mspaint)

And also they kept the original wording of "Orthodox Christians" and "the Orthodox Faith" throughout the ceremony.

Palamas himself was a scholastic, so the dichotomy is false.

Our choir at St Nicholas' parish zealously omits the Filioque in the singing of the Creed.

However, one can notice a certain choral emphasis around this point in the Creed, almost as if to want to pretend that something is, in fact, being sung (even though it isn't the Filioque).

The Orthodox Metropolitan Ilarion (Ohienko - +memory eternal!) in his historical manuals of Ukrainian Orthodox church history affirms that the early "Graeco-Uniates" in the 17th century were carefully monitored by the RC's whose gendarmes stood in the back of many EC parishes with batons listening to see if the "Filioque" was, in fact, sung by the people.

To avoid issues with the batons, our people, said the Metropolitan, came up with the added word "istynno" (truly) rather than "i Syna" (or Filioque in Slavonic). Thus, they sang "The Holy Spirit the Lord, Life-Giver Who proceeds from the Father truly . . .".

The Old Believers as well add "istynnago" to the Creed in the same section but for a different reason. Since both the Father and the Son have the word "True God" ascribed to them Both earlier in the Creed, the Old Believers felt that the same word should be inserted to refer to the Holy Spirit to ensure that His equality with the Father and the Son is affirmed. Thus, "Istynnago" is added before "Life-Giving."

My Two Cents worth.

Alex

Christ is in our midst!!

Whenever this argument comes up, I think people think that this is stictly something between the Latins and the Greeks. I found this interesting statement on the website of the Armenian Eastern Diocese that reminds all of us there are others with the same position as the Greeks.

Bob

That's interesting, considering there is considerable diversity in the nuances between the Oriental Orthodox/Catholic Churches, especially the Armenian version:.

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of God the Father, only-begotten, that is of the substance of the Father. God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten and not made; himself of the nature of the Father, by whom all things came into being in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate, became man, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. By whom he took body, soul and mind and everything that is in man, truly and not in semblance.

He suffered and was crucified and was buried

And rose again on the third day

And ascended into heaven with the same body and sat at the right hand of the Father.

He is to come with the same body and with the glory of the Father to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there is no end.

We believe also in the Holy Spirit, the uncreated and the perfect, who spake in the law in and in the prophets and in the gospels. Who came down upon the Jordan, preached to the apostles and dwelt in the saints.

We believe also in the only One Catholic and Apostolic Holy Church.

In one baptism of repentance for the remission and forgiveness of sins.

In the resurrection of the dead,

In the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, in the kingdom of heaven and in the life eternal.

Amen.

Michael_Thoma:

I wonder if the version you have posted is the result of moving from Greek to Armenian to English.

Our English version comes to us from Latin and has been modified in the "consubstantial" to "of one essence" in some Orthodox versions. Something like translating from English to Chinese and having it come back from a native Chinese speaker.

Bob

No, the Armenian Creed is not a variant of the normative Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 381); instead, it is a locally modified version of the original Nicene Creed (AD 325), and as a locally altered creed it has never been endorsed by an ecumenical council. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed has been recognized by the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches as the sole normative ecumenical creed. The following quotation is taken from the Vatican's own so-called Clarification on the Filioque [home.comcast.net]:

"The Catholic Church acknowledges the conciliar, ecumenical, normative, and irrevocable value, as the expression of the one common faith of the Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical Council."

It is also important to remember that the Roman Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed the normative status of the Creed of 381 when it quoted it, without the filioque, in the document Dominus Iesus [vatican.va] back in June of 2000.