History of the filioque controversy

[6] Anthony E. Siecienski asserts that it is important to recognize that "the New Testament does not explicitly address the procession of the Holy Spirit as later theology would understand the doctrine."

"[8] The Orthodox believe that the absence of an explicit mention of the double procession of the Holy Spirit is a strong indication that the filioque is a theologically erroneous doctrine.

[15][16] That the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from the Father and the Son in the sense of the Latin word procedere and the Greek προϊέναι (as opposed to the Greek ἐκπορεύεσθαι) was taught by the early fifth century by Saint Cyril of Alexandria in the East,[6][17] the Athanasian Creed (probably of the middle of the fifth century),[18] and a dogmatic epistle of Pope Leo I,[19][b] who declared in 446 that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son.

[20] Although the Eastern Fathers were aware that in the West the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son was taught, they did not generally regard it as heretical:[21] "a whole series of Western writers, including popes who are venerated as saints by the Eastern church, confess the procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son; and it is even more striking that there is virtually no disagreement with this theory.

"[22] The phrase Filioque first appears as an anti-Arian[23][24] interpolation in the Creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589), at which Visigothic Spain renounced Arianism, accepting Catholic Christianity.

They include Hilary of Poitiers (c. 300 – c. 368),[c] Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306 – 373),[d][e] Epiphanius of Salamis(c. 310–320 – 403),[f][37] Ambrose (337–340 – 397),[g] Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430),[h] Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444),[i][37] and Pope Leo I (c.

[l] The Roman Catholic Church accepts both phrases, and considers that they do not affect the reality of the same faith and instead express the same truth in slightly different ways.

"[56] Ambrose of Milan, though "firmly rooted in Eastern tradition", was nonetheless "one of the earliest witnesses to the explicit affirmation of the Spirit's procession from the Father and the Son".

However, because Jerome's writing contains scant references to the doctrine and even those are "far from ambiguous affirmations of a double procession", Orthodox theologians such as John Meyendorff have argued that he "could hardly be regarded a proponent of the filioque".

In 638, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, with the support of or at the instigation of Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, published the Ecthesis, which defined as the official imperial form of Christianity Monothelitism, the doctrine that, while Christ possessed two natures, he had only a single will.

His successor Pope John IV also rejected the doctrine completely, leading to a major schism between the eastern and western halves of the Chalcedonian Church.

[64] Meanwhile, in Africa, an Eastern monk named Maximus the Confessor carried on a furious campaign against Monothelitism, and in 646 he convinced the African councils to draw up a manifesto against the doctrine.

This they forwarded to the new pope Theodore I, who in turn wrote to Patriarch Paul II of Constantinople, outlining the heretical nature of the doctrine.

Theodore in turn excommunicated the Patriarch in 649, declaring him a heretic,[65] after Paul, in 647 or 648, had issued in the name of Emperor Constans II an edict known as the Typos, which banned any mention of either one or two activities or wills in Christ.

[71][72] The use of Filioque was defended by Saint Paulinus II, the Patriarch of Aquileia, at the Synod of Friuli, Italy in 796, and it was endorsed in 809 at the local Council of Aachen.

This practice was adopted in Emperor Charlemagne's court in 798 and spread through his empire, but which, although it was in use in parts of Italy by the eighth century, was not accepted in Rome until 1014.

Emperor Charlemagne accused the Patriarch of Constantinople (Saint Tarasios of Constantinople) of infidelity to the faith of the First Council of Nicaea, because he had not professed the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father "and the Son", but only "through the Son", an accusation strongly rejected by Rome, but repeated in Charlemagne's commissioned work the Libri Carolini, books also rejected by the Pope.

He is recognized as a Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church and his line of criticism has often been echoed later, making reconciliation between East and West difficult.

[98] It was only in 1014, at the request of the German King Henry II who had come to Rome to be crowned Emperor and was surprised at the different custom in force there, that Pope Benedict VIII, who owed to Henry his restoration to the papal throne after usurpation by Antipope Gregory VI, had the Creed, with the addition of Filioque, sung at Mass in Rome for the first time.

[24] Since then the Filioque phrase has been included in the Creed throughout all the Latin liturgical rites except where Greek is used in the liturgy,[99][100] although it was agreed to not be used by those Eastern Catholic Churches that were united with Rome by the Union of Brest.

The Second Council of Lyon (1274) accepted the profession of faith of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in the Holy Spirit, "proceeding from the Father and the Son".

"[14][103][104] Another attempt at reunion was made at the fifteenth-century Council of Florence, to which Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, and other bishops from the East had gone in the hope of getting Western military aid against the looming Ottoman Empire.

The Greeks held that any addition whatever, even if doctrinally correct, to the Creed had been forbidden by the Council of Ephesus, while the Latins claimed that this prohibition concerned meaning, not words.

A statement on the Filioque question was included in the Laetentur Caeli decree of union, which was signed on 5 July 1439 and promulgated the next day, with Mark of Ephesus being the only bishop to refuse his signature.

[107][108] This thesis was supported by Eastern Orthodox theologians Sergei Bulgakov, Paul Evdokimov and I. Voronov, but was rejected by Vladimir Lossky.

[107] Several Eastern Orthodox theologians have considered the Filioque anew, with a view to reconciliation of East and West.Theodore Stylianopoulos provided in 1986 an extensive, scholarly overview of the contemporary discussion.

[99] Eastern Orthodox theologian and Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, says: "For Saint Maximus the Filioque was not heretical because its intention was to denote not the ἐκπορεύεσθαι (ekporeuesthai) but the προϊέναι (proienai) of the Spirit.

"[115] Zizioulas added (bold removed):[115] In this regard, the study of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity upholds the monarchy of the Father as the "sole Trinitarian Cause [aitia] or principle [principium] of the Son and the Holy Spirit" While the Council of Florence proposed the equivalency of the two terms "cause" and "principle" and therefore implied that the Son is a cause (aitia) of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, the letter of the Pontifical Council distinguishes Roman Catholic theologian Avery Dulles, writing of the Eastern fathers who, while aware of the currency of the Filioque in the West, did not generally regard it as heretical, said: "Some, such as Maximus the Confessor, a seventh-century Byzantine monk, defended it as a legitimate variation of the Eastern formula that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.

Is this role to be expressed with the help of the preposition δία (through) the Son (εκ Πατρός δι'Υιού), as Saint Maximus and other Patristic sources seem to suggest?"

Zizioulas continues with saying that this "constitutes an encouraging attempt to clarify the basic aspects of the 'Filioque' problem and show that a rapprochement between West and East on this matter is eventually possible".