The Historic Conflict between Catholics
And Orthodox on the Holy Spirit -

N.B.: Generally, the following book-review article would have been posted in the "Book Reviews" Index on this website; however, considering the doctrinal/theological import and weight of Doctor Likoudis' comments and critique, the Webmaster decided that it was best to place this review in the Ecumenism Index.

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The volume "The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy" by A.Edward Siecienski (Oxford University Press, 2010; 355 pp,) is said to be "the first complete English-language history of the 'Filioque' written in over a century", now surpassing in extent H. B. Swete's excellent "On the History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Apostolic Age to the Death of Charlemagne" (1876).

The centuries-old dogmatic controversy over the 'Filioque' between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, he writes, is:

"one of the most interesting stories in all Christendom"... and ultimately "a tragic tale insomuch as the 'Filioque' [the word meaning 'and from the Son' added by the Western Church to the original Nicene-Constantinople Creed of 381 A.D.] became the source and focus of a schism between East and West that has endured for well over a Millennium"
(p. v)

As the author observes, "Catholics profess the Spirit's procession from the Son because they believe it to be true." The bloc of 16 or so Eastern Orthodox Churches, however, "cannot accept that profession of faith because they believe the Western doctrine to be in error", in fact, heretical and blasphemous.

The Catholic doctrine embodied in the formula of the 'Filioque' (despite a few modern Eastern Orthodox theologians' expressed willingness to accept it as a legitimate 'theologoumenon' [theological opinion]) "remains an obstacle to ecclesial unity between Catholics and Orthodox". Though, as our author notes:

"the power and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome has long supplanted the 'filioque' as the issue separating the Orthodox from their Catholic brethren"...
(pp. vi-vii)

many Orthodox continue to regard the doctrine embodied in the "Filioque" as "heretical" and its recitation in the Creed of the Roman Church, unacceptable. This position continues to be generally maintained despite the explanations contained in the important 1985 document "The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit" issued by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.

This Study clarifying the linguistic expressions used by Western and Eastern theologians for the Procession, attempted to articulate delicately but firmly Catholic teaching on the 'Filioque' "in light of historic Orthodox concerns". It was received with some sympathy by a number of Orthodox theologians, but its conclusions fundamentally rejected by others who demand the 'Filioque' must be expunged from any liturgical inclusion in the Creed, if Reunion is to take place.

Dr. Siecienski is himself Orthodox (married to a Catholic) and his irenic volume has also received favorable comments from other Orthodox writers for its objectivity in setting forth the history of the doctrinal debates between medieval Latins and Byzantine Greeks over the 'Filioque' from its beginnings in the 7th century to the present day (which finds Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox theologians continuing to wrestle with biblical and patristic supports for or against the doctrine).

As the author correctly observes in his broad survey of the writings of ancient Fathers of the Church (both Greek and Latin) as well as the foremost medieval and modern theologians, there is the matter of truth concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit. It is not merely an "academic question" or a vain dispute of words, but one which affects the truth of the Trinity Itself and the spiritual life of Christian believers. Moreover:

"Ultimately, what was at stake was not only God's trinitarian nature, but also the nature of the Church, its teaching authority, and the distribution of power among its leaders."
(p. 5)

Does the Holy Spirit proceed eternally from the Father and the Son, or, equivalently, through the Son, as Catholics believe? Or is it as Orthodox believe, the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally "from the Father alone" following in the wake of the 9th century patriarch of Constantinople, Photius, who denounced the "blasphemous" Filioque recited in the Creed by Western missionaries in Bulgaria. His writings against the doctrine of the 'Filioque' and the "innovation" of its interpolation in the Creed fueled the already growing political, cultural, and theological estrangement between Rome and Constantinople and led in the 13th c. to an actual formal schism between the See of Peter (long acknowledged in the East as "head of all the Churches of God" including the Churches of the Byzantine Imperium) and the Eastern Patriarchate.

Interestingly, our author notes that with the failure of the Reunion Council of Lyons (1274), rejection of the 'Filioque' would lead to another theological position modifying that of Photius and one which has found recent favor among some modern Eastern Orthodox theologians, namely, that the:

"Holy Spirit obtained his hypostatic [personal] existence immediately from the Father alone, but it eternally shines forth and is manifested through the Son like the light of the sun through a ray."

This was the thesis of the 13th c. anti-unionist patriarch of Constantinople Gregory II of Cyprus, which was to influence another leading anti-unionist, the 14th c. Archbishop of Thessalonica, Gregory Palamas. Our author clearly favors it as a welcome solution to the impasse between Catholics and Orthodox. It was an attempt to uphold traditional teaching concerning the monarchy of the Father (as the sole source and cause of the divinity) yet give an acceptable Orthodox meaning to the formula "through the Son" cherished by the Greek Fathers.

However, it is important to emphasize here that Latin theologians and their Byzantine Greek unionist supporters steadfastly denied that the Gregory II of Cyprus / Palamas thesis was substantially equivalent to the Catholic understanding of the eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit "through the Son".

Our author focuses on the 3 schools of Trinitarian theology that took shape after the Byzantines rejected the Reunion of the Council of Lyons (1274) and which still remain the object of important theological discussion today:

1. That of the Catholics (Latins and Byzantine unionists) who held that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeded from the Father and the Son ('Filioque') or equivalently from the Father through the Son. For them, this was a revealed truth of the Christian faith. The teaching of the Latin Fathers sanctioning the 'Filioque' ("and from the Son") complemented and was substantially identical to the teaching of the Greek Fathers that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father "through the Son". Thus, the Holy Spirit was considered to have His existence and His subsistent Being from the Father and Son together.
2. That of the Byzantine Greek dissidents and anti-unionists who defended the teaching of the 9th c. Patriarch Photius that the Holy Spirit "proceeded from the Father alone" with the Son having no active participation in the Spirit's eternal procession. To them the teaching embodied in the 'Filioque' was heretical and its use in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed of 381 A.D. uncanonical and blasphemous. Our author distances himself from outrightly supporting Photianism.
3. That of other Byzantine dissidents and anti-unionists who allowed for an orthodox interpretation of the 'Filioque' as "an expression of the Spirit's eternal [or energetic] 'flowing forth' through the Son while simultaneously denying the Son any causal role in the Spirit's hypostatic (personal) origin." (p. 134) This position our author identifies with the 13th century patriarch of Constantinople Gregory of Cyprus, and the 14th c. Archbishop of Thessalonica, Gregory Palamas.

Dr. Siecienski observes that "At no point since the seventh century have East and West been so close to resolving the dispute, or so determined to 'speak the truth (together) in charity.'" He observes that "a great deal of work needs to be done" and ends his "Introduction" with the hope that the 'Filioque' may no longer be "a stumbling block on the road to unity." His book is weak in assessing Scriptural support for the 'Filioque' (cf. pp. 18-19; 26-27; 29; 31). He does show how modern scholarship in patristics and a better linguistic study of the terminology used by the Fathers of the Church to express the eternal relationship of the Spirit to the Son, together with the desire to overcome the excesses of past polemics – has led to a welcome clarification of the doctrinal issues involved and to the real hope of a future dogmatic agreement between Catholics and Orthodox on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

For all the positive values found in Prof. Siecienski's historical study, this reviewer finds surprising his uncritical acceptance of some questionable statements by biblical and patristic scholars (e.g., "Most biblical scholars today doubt that the New Testament authors even thought in trinitarian terms i.e., with Father, Son, and Spirit each understood as distinct 'Persons' within God") (p. 17). His tendency to engage in an inconclusive treatment of the debate between Orthodox and Catholics leads to such repeated and equivocal comments as: "At present the filioque debate remains unresolved... Yet the filioque remains unresolved" (Epilogue). It is true that it remains unresolved for those who prefer to be agnostic on the question or to continue their anti-Catholic polemics, and it is also true that certain theological points that would throw into clearer light how the 'Filioque' represents or does not represent an orthodox development in Trinitarian theology, remain legitimately "an object of disputation".

However, allowing for a further dogmatic definition amplifying the meaning of the 'Filioque', there can be no question that, for Catholics, the dogmatic definitions of the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439) express non-negotiable truths concerning the Person of the Holy Spirit. Views that are actually contradictory deserve to be clearly identified as erroneous and heretical as clearly rejected by the Catholic Magisterium's dogmatic definitions. Any objective historical and theological study of the complex issues involving the 'Filioque' (however intent on avoiding "the polemics of the past" and a "denominational or confessional bias") should not refrain from specifically marking the grave departures from traditional doctrine by a Photius, Gregory II of Cyprus, Gregory Palamas, and Mark of Ephesus. As an Orthodox, it is understandable that he does not provide theological critiques that would help readers settle conflicting arguments.

Nevertheless, the reader of this handy volume will find Catholic teaching on the Holy Spirit's Procession sufficiently confirmed by the presentation of such historical and theological facts as the following:

1. The Creed of the Council of Constantinople's (381 A.D.) affirmation that the Holy Spirit proceeded (ekporevesthai) from the Father did not exclude the Son's active participation in the eternal procession of the Spirit. It did not teach that the Spirit proceeded from the Son alone.
2. The same Council should not be interpreted as forbidding any further doctrinal clarification of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit as expressed in the 'Filioque'.
3. The formula (dear to the Eastern Fathers of the Church) that the Holy Spirit proceeded "through the Son" had reference to the Spirit's eternal procession from the Son, not His temporal mission. John 15: 26 ("The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father"- a verse usually taken by the Orthodox to prove the Spirit's eternal procession from the Father) refers rather to the Spirit's temporal mission (in time). There is no evident explicit denial of the truth embodied in the 'Filioque' among the Greek Fathers of the Church.
4. The 'Filioque' doctrine understood by the Latin Fathers and Western councils was an explicit affirmation of the Spirit's eternal procession from both the Father and the Son, and this from the 5th century on.
5. The Greek Fathers (despite the linguistic difference of generally restricting the Greek word "ekporevesthai" to the Spirit's origin from the Father) are in essential agreement with the Latin Fathers. Whether Sts. Cyril and Epiphanios wrote that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son or Sts. Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Tarasius affirming the Spirit of Christ proceeded through the Son (using other verbs such as "proienai"), it was an eternal procession from the Son that they all defended. Our author who is an authority on St. Maximus the Confessor's "Letter to Marinus" correctly noted that this 7th c. Greek Father contributed greatly to the discussion of the 'Filioque' by distinguishing clearly "between the Spirit's ekporevesthai (procession) from the Father and his proienai (procession) through the Son... There is an eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, the latter flowing from the Father through the consubstantial Son" (p. 85)

For the Greek theologians, the Father was indeed the one primordial Cause and Ultimate Source of the Son and Spirit but this did not remove all causality from the Son. The Son is not the first Cause (that is reserved to the "monarchy of the Father"), but as consubstantial with the Father, the Son is one with the Father in also being the source or origin of the Holy Spirit. The Greek Fathers like the Latins agreed that it is from the Father alone and not from Himself that the Son in His mediate role possesses the power to spirate the Spirit. The Spirit is from the Father in as much as He is God, and not only in as much as He is Father. Actually, it should be noted (as St. Thomas Aquinas insisted) that "from the Father alone" teaching (the "monopatrism" of Photius) logically implies the 'Filioque' which stresses that though the Father is the first origin ("principle without principle" as the Latins stated, the Son is "principle issued from principle", meaning that the Son has it from the Father that He is at the origin of the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son DO NOT constitute 2 causes or principles, as the Orthodox have persistently claimed, but constitute one unique cause or principle in breathing forth (or spirating) the Holy Spirit. The Spirit proceeds conjointly from both ("ab utroque" or "a Patre Filioque") as the Latins affirmed in conformity with both Western and Eastern traditions, and as the Reunion Council of Florence (1439) dogmatically defined.

It is understandable that the Orthodox author of this volume failed to emphasize that the Eastern Orthodox's continued misunderstanding and negation of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit "from or through the Son" which started over a dispute about words - are NOT the expression of the authentic orthodox Trinitarian teaching of the Church of the first Millennium. Would that our author had noted that the negations of Gregory of Cyprus, and Gregory Palamas (constituting in his opinion a "third school of theology" regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit) cannot be reconciled with Catholic dogma.

There has been confusion and contradictions evident for centuries among Eastern Orthodox prelates and theologians concerning the orthodoxy of the 'Filioque' and disagreement as to whether the standard Photian teaching "from the Father alone" (but with the Son having no participation in the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit) even constitutes dogma for them. That important matter should also have been thrown into sharper relief.

Our author quotes the dogmatic definition of the Council of Florence (1439) concerning the truth of the Holy Spirit's Procession:

"The Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration. We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, just like the Father. We define also that the explanation of those words "and from the Son" was licitly and reasonably added to the Creed for the sake of declaring the truth and from imminent need."
(p. 170)

The same teaching is substantially reproduced in the documents of Vatican II (cf. "Ad Gentes Divinitus", 2) and "The Catechism of the Catholic Church" (#246-256; 2789). In his survey of the discussions taking place concerning the 'Filioque', Dr. Siecienski duly noted that certain Western Christian groups have sided with the Eastern Orthodox's denial of Catholic teaching concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit and/or taken action to totally remove the 'Filioque' from the Creed. Dr. Siecienski also favors this removal. Catholic readers can respond that though Eastern Catholics need not recite the 'Filioque' in the Creed, it was an Ecumenical Council which declared the legitimacy of its recital in the Latin text of the Creed. With regard to the doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit, it seems to this reviewer that the infallible teaching of the Ecumenical Council of Florence remains as of faith and is today even more pertinent as sins against the visible Unity of the Church continue in our day.

The author's scholarly volume has an excellent bibliography of books and articles concerning the history of the 'Filioque' and resulting controversies. Conspicuously absent from it are the works of two of the best Catholic theologians on those subjects, the Italian theologian Aurelio Palmieri ("Filioque" in the Dictionnaire de Theologie Catholique) and the French Assumptionist Martin Jugie with his classic study, "De Processione Spiritus Sancti ex fontibus revelationis et secundum orientales dissidentes". Both theologians helped explain the sometimes vague, inadequate, or ambiguous expressions found in the Fathers which the Orthodox would often take as contradictions of the Catholic doctrine.

Finally, a reading of this welcome volume by an irenic Orthodox scholar should stimulate intense prayer and study by Catholics for the ending of all discord with their Eastern Orthodox brethren and for common celebration of the Eucharist, the sacrament of Unity. It is for the visible unity of Christians that Christ the Lord prayed at the Last Supper. In discussing their real or alleged doctrinal differences with the Catholic Church, our Orthodox brethren might well meditate on Pope Benedict XVI's words concerning the unique role that his Petrine Primacy exercises among his brother Bishops in the visible Church. The Petrine Primacy exists precisely to make the Unity of the Church "something utterly concrete":

"Saint Luke has preserved for us one concrete element of Jesus' prayer for unity. 'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have all of you, that He may sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail; and when thou hast turned again, strengthen thy brethren' (Lk. 22:31). Today we are once more painfully aware that Satan has been permitted to sift the disciples before the whole world. And we know that Jesus prays for the faith of Peter and his successors... It is not irrelevant that this task was entrusted in the Upper Room. The ministry of unity has its visible place in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist... Only by the prayer of the Lord and of the Church can the Pope fulfill his task of strengthening his brethren - of feeding the flock of Christ and of becoming the guarantor of that unity which becomes a visible witness to the mission which Jesus received from the Father... Lord, strengthen us in unity with you and with one another. Grant unity to your Church, so that the world may believe. Amen."
(Homily at the Mass of the Lord's Supper, Holy Thursday, 4/21/11)

 

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