Posted on 11/03/2015 12:52:49 PM PST by Trumpinator
It seems not to have taken, since the coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the filioque, and a great many Saxon nobles fled to Orthodox lands in the wake of the Norman conquest, including Harold’s daughter, who married Prince Vladimir Monomamach.
And spare me the gratutious insults. You might find the reading list for the St. Stephen Course in Orthodox Theology from the mid 1990’s, all of which books I have read, and more besides.
I note you actually have no answer to Russia having been subject to Constantinople in the 11th century, because there is none. Russia broke communion with Rome at the same time as Constantinople because Russia was, ecclesisatically speaking, part of Constantinople at the time. Not so for my own Patriarchate which remained in communion with both Rome and Constantinople until the high-handed behavior of the Crusaders made it clear that you Latins really do confess a different faith.
Disingenuous - I did not imply that the Irish were converted to Christianity via Egyptians but rather that the monastic traditions came from those examples.
How did Theodore interpret this word filioque, and why did he have it included?
Certainly the inclusion in the Hatfield’s Acts of the phrase “One God subsisting in three consubstantial Persons of equal glory and honour†affirms that the filioque was not intended to relegate the Holy Spirit to a lower position than the Father and the Son, something which the Orthodox say the filioque does when understood as eternal procession.
Was Theodore’s influence in linking Britain more firmly with Mediterranean Christianity a novel thing? By no means. The following are some examples which show that there were lively contacts between the two cultures, mainly via Gaul. The monastery of Lerins in southern Gaul sustained lively contacts with Egypt, and it was largely from Gaul that Britain learned its monasticism, and indeed its faith. Although it may be spurious, one tradition associates Saint Patrick with the great Saint John Cassian, who was educated in Bethlehem and trained in monasticism in Syria and Egypt.
The filioque was probably dropped after the English church became more educated about the nature of Christ. It seems these western Churches post Roman empire collapse in the West had a hard time grasping Greek nuances and turns of phrase.
From my link above: the inclusion in the Hatfield's Acts of the phrase "One God subsisting in three consubstantial Persons of equal glory and honour" affirms that the filioque was not intended to relegate the Holy Spirit to a lower position than the Father and the Son.
Anyway it is neither here nor there. King Harold refused to recognize the authority of the Pope. A banner, blessed by the Pope for the invasion of England, was sent to William from the Holy See, and the clergy of the Continent upheld his intended invasion as being in the Cause of God, a Holy War, a Crusade.
Awesome. Now this is a pilgrimage!
After reading this I’d love to go it looks like it would be a beautiful experience. I wonder though, can non-Orthodox people receive any spiritual benefit from the journey? I’m not sure how that would work especially for Catholics like myself. I guess the Catholic Church would say any pilgrims to our uniquely Catholic sites would receive some benefit no matter their religion. I don’t know though especially what the Orthodox Church says.
I am sure the Orthodox say the same.
http://orthodoxengland.org.uk/hp.php
Excellent and informative site; thank-you for the link.
It is, alas, no comfort that Theodore might have used the word as St. Maximos the Confessor did. The Latins now protest that they, too, mean it as St. Maximos did, though their attitude at Lyons and Florence/Ferrar shows otherwise (especially the nonsense about “proceeding from the Father and the Son as from one principle” adopted at Lyons, which makes clear that their dual procession is an ontological doctrine).
Overloading one instance of the word “proceeds” in the Creed to purportedly mean two different things is bad theology (that is, at least when willfully held, heresy), even if proceeding from the Father is ontological and “proceeding” from the Son is economic, rather than ontological, or does not actually refer to procession from but to resting upon or to being manifested through.
What is interesting is I have read that the Monophysite churches like the Copts are now also stating they are not really Monophysite and it was also a mistranslation or misunderstanding between the "orthodox" (small O) chuch and themselves. Again, I attribute that to people being more educated these days to the point that the churches resisting the Orthodox interpretation (big O in Orthodox) find it more difficult to do so. It is my opinion of course - I am well read but far from a scholar.
“It seems not to have taken...”
You were wrong in any case.
“You might find the reading list for the St. Stephen Course in Orthodox Theology from the mid 1990’s, all of which books I have read, and more besides.”
And yet not a single one of them actually taught you the truth about when Filioque was introduced into England BY A GREEK! That’s telling is it not? Eastern Orthodox wishful thinking about history will not supplant actual history. You might want to read Inventing Latin Heretics: Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth Century, by Tia M. Kolbaba.
“I note you actually have no answer to Russia having been subject to Constantinople in the 11th century, because there is none.”
Actually, no. It is an irrelevant point: that’s why I said you should read Soloviev’s book. As he puts it:
This pseudo-Orthodoxy of our theological schools, which has nothing in common with the faith of the Universal Church or the piety of the Russian people, contains no positive element; it consists merely of arbitrary negations produced
and maintained by controversial prejudice:
“God the Son does not contribute in the divine order to the procession of the Holy Spirit.â€
“The filioque was probably dropped after the English church became more educated about the nature of Christ.”
There is no evidence it was ever dropped. The fact that a Creed might have been used without it sometimes does not mean it was dropped from Church teaching. More Eastern Orthodox wishful thinking rather than actual history. After all, if you had ever read anything about the Anglo-Saxon version of the Nicene Creed found the Cambridge mss of Aelfric’s Homilies written in about 1030 which clearly says, “Se geath of tham Faeder and tham Suna.” This is the only A-S version of the creed I can think of - with or without the filioque clause. There may be others, but I can’t think of any of the top of my head.
Dr. Swete, writing almost a century and a half ago wrote about the “tenacity with which the English Church has ever clung to the Filioque…â€. Here’s what he wrote:
After the Synod of Hatfield we have no further trace of the Filioque in England till the end of the next century, when the attention of the English Bishops was very possible recalled to the subject by the Council of Frankfort (794) at which several of them were present (see below, ch. IX). The Cotton collection of MSS. contains a well-known volume (Cleopatra E. 1), which opens with a series of English Episcopal professions ranging from the year 796 to the time of St. Thomas the martyr. Of these documents, a majority of those which are anterior to the end of the 9th century offer statements of the writer’s faith in the Holy Trinity: and five, written between 798 and 857, embody the Filioque. [Swete then enumerates those and gives some details].
He then goes on to say:
“How intelligently as well as firmly the Augustinian view was held by the English Church before the Norman Conquest appears from such a passage as the following taken from the Homilies of Aelfric (ad. Thorpe, vol. I. p. 280): “The Holy Ghost is the quickening God Who proceeds from the Father and the Son. How proceeds He from Him? The Son is the Wisdom of the Father, ever of the Father; and the Holy Ghost is the Will of the them both…Ever was the Holy Ghost, Who is the Will and Love of them Both.†The Cambridge MS. of these Homilies (circ. 1030) contains an A.S. version of the “Mass Creed†with the clause “Se gaeth of tham Faeder and of tham Suna:†(Heurtley, harm. symb. p. 164). In mediaeval England the Filioque was installed with equal care into clergy and people.
Every Bishop at his consecration was asked “Credis etiam Spiritum Sanctum…a Patre Filioque procedentem?†(Maskell, ritualia eccl. Angl. III. p. 249). The dying man was taught that one of the essentials of the Catholic Faith was to believe “Spiritum Sanctum…a Patre et Filio partier procedentemâ€: “si vis ergo salvus esse, frater (it was added), ita de mysterio Trinitatis sentias.†(Maskell, I. p. 75). One cannot open an English medieaval sermon-book and turn to the sermons provided from Whitsuntide, without encountering an attack upon the Greeks, and a defense of the Latin view of the Procession. [Swete goes on to add some details about English Protestants maintaining the Filioque]
On the History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit... by Henry Barclay Swete (footnote on pages 190-191).
You post assertions. I post facts and sources. Looks like you guys have a lot of studying to do.
I can't imagine it that important if it was sometimes used and sometimes not.
As this source states (Anglican): The addition of the filioque by Toledo was not necessarily intended to be a permanent change to the creed....
http://conciliaranglican.com/2011/07/15/ask-an-anglican-the-filioque/
So to me it is clear.
Very grateful for the conversation on the matter.
You keep harping on Greekness as if it mattered. I am not one of that species of Orthodox Christian who has conflated the Faith with Greek nationality, nor am I even subject to Greek hierarchs. The unionists who signed on to Florence/Ferrar were Greek, so?
You are tiresome to have discussions with. When you find an error (real or purported) in the historical report of someone you are discussing matters with you harp on it to no end, asserting even that it disallows criticism of your own historical errors, and when one of those is found in your account, you dismiss it as irrelevant. It is hardly irrelevant to your claim that there was never a formal schism between Rome and Russia that Russia was subject to Constantinople in the 11th century, and thus was not in communion with Rome when autocephally was achieved, precisely by the rejection of Greek unionism in the 15th century. You and Soloviev trying to read that fact out of history is a deliberate distortion, unlike my previous ignorance of the Acta of Hatfield, which I thank you for correcting.
But I’d forgotten, you regard discussions on FR as akin to college national topic debate — a bloodsport scored on footnotes.
Go your way. The filioque is heresy, and we Orthodox have a better claim to the pre-schism saints of the British Isles than you Latins do to those post-schism Russian saints you include in your calendar.
“I can’t imagine it that important if it was sometimes used and sometimes not.”
So you don’t believe what The Reader David posted earlier? After all he posted this:
“It seems not to have taken, since the coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the filioque...”
So which is it? We KNOW the Filioque clause WAS USED. It might very well have NOT BEEN USED at times as well. Thus, what I said makes the most sense - it wasn’t always used, but was used, and used in more ways than the Eastern Orthodox and their faux histories would care to admit. And I have demonstrated this by posted ACTUAL HISTORICAL SOURCES. Your real dispute now seems to be with The Reader David who tried to deny that “It seems not to have taken” - when all the evidence shows it did.
By the way, earlier you also you posted this:
“A banner, blessed by the Pope for the invasion of England, was sent to William from the Holy See, and the clergy of the Continent upheld his intended invasion as being in the Cause of God, a Holy War, a Crusade.”
Since the first crusade was THIRTY YEARS after 1066 what you said there is literally not possible as you’ve written it.
Now, back to The Reader David’s comment:
“It seems not to have taken, since the coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the filioque...”
One question I would ask is, “How do we know that is true?” Is The Reader David relying on himself as a source?:
SbdcnDavid:
-— Quote from: Ebor on May 31, 2009, 11:29:31 AM -—
-— Quote from: SbdcnDavid on May 31, 2009, 01:13:06 AM -—There is a strong case that the Church in the British Isles remained Orthodox until 1066 (and diocese by diocese until the forcible replacement of English or Celtic bishop with Norman bishops). The coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the heretical interpolation. Saxon nobles who fled the Norman conquest mostly went to Kiev or Constantinople. Indeed Harold’s daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomach of Kiev. The English Church was, moreover out of communion with Rome at the time of the mutual anathemas in 1054 over an investiture issue, so that the William had a Papal order to reduce the English Church to papal juridsiction. http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=21518.30;wap2
Compare the names:
The_Reader_David and SbdcnDavid.
Compare the statements:
Posted at FR:
“It seems not to have taken, since the coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the filioque, and a great many Saxon nobles fled to Orthodox lands in the wake of the Norman conquest, including Harold’s daughter, who married Prince Vladimir Monomamach.”
Posted at the other site linked to above:
“The coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the heretical interpolation. Saxon nobles who fled the Norman conquest mostly went to Kiev or Constantinople. Indeed Harold’s daughter married Prince Vladimir Monomach of Kiev.”
So does The Reader David have an actual historical primary source or even a reputable secondary source for this claim: “the coronation rite for Harold Godwinson included the Creed without the filioque”? I mean, it might be true - which would change nothing I’ve said for everything I have said has been absolutely correct about the Filioque in pre-Conquest England, but is The Reader David’s claim even accurate?
“because Vlad questioned why Orthodox would venerate Irish monastics”
That’s completely false. I never once questions why any Orthodox would venerate the early Irish monastics. Go back and look at what I ACTUALLY SAID. I don’t mind if you attack what I say, but at least get right what I said. It isn’t hard.
“You keep harping on Greekness as if it mattered.”
No, I merely highlighted in caps a few times that Theodore of Tarsus WAS A GREEK.
“When you find an error (real or purported) in the historical report of someone you are discussing matters with you harp on it to no end...”
I wonder if the person who makes the mistake ever bothers to say to himself, “If I was objectively wrong about this (as shown by the sources posted), then couldn’t I be wrong on something else?” Such a self-questioning would take circumspection.
“Russia was subject to Constantinople in the 11th century, and thus was not in communion with Rome when autocephally was achieved...You and Soloviev trying to read that fact out of history is a deliberate distortion”
And have you ever read Soloviev?
“unlike my previous ignorance of the Acta of Hatfield, which I thank you for correcting”
You’re very welcome.
“But I’d forgotten, you regard discussions on FR as akin to college national topic debate — a bloodsport scored on footnotes.”
No, I just think people should get their facts straight. Are you saying that isn’t important? About “bloodsport” look at your comment here:
“Go your way. The filioque is heresy, and we Orthodox have a better claim to the pre-schism saints of the British Isles than you Latins do to those post-schism Russian saints you include in your calendar.”
I posted sourced links. Thanks.
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