[brucechap]

First, I agree that nothing could be a greater step forward for the universal church of Christ than a reconciliation between east and west. I do not challenge your desire for unity.

What I believe must be challenged and faced head-on before any dialog on unity can bear fruit are two prevailing western notions regarding the FILIOQUE:
1) That the Roman Catholic Church had/has the authority to add a phrase to the Nicene Creed in the first place;
2) That the issue is largely one of semantics, and no great theological issue is involved.

The first goes to the heart of the the Catholic Church's assumption of papal authority and Orthodoxy's rejection of it. No bishop or patriarch, east or west, has the right to amend the Ecumenical Creed. Even if there were no dispute over the theology of such a change, the Nicene Creed is the product of the great Church Councils at Nicea, Chalcedon and Constantinople, and only a truly Ecumenical Council (viz., one that included the whole church, east and west) could change it.

The second notion above is generally assumed in the west. Nothing could be further from the truth among the Orthodox. The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son is considered fundamental theological error.

St. Photius is not considered an unreasonable old man in the east, and his treatise, "The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit," is a philosophical and theological masterpiece. He not only warns against the non-biblical, neo-Platonic philosophical basis for the FILIOQUE, he also makes some predictions about where it will ultimately lead. And, if you look at the history of the Church in the west over the past millennium or so, it's hard to argue his point!

Unfortunately, far more than cultural drift, varying rites, and even matters of Church government underlie the Great Schism.

Could Catholic and Orthodox believers participate in the Eucharist in each others' churches? That may not be a bridge too far. But the east will simply never accept organic unity on the west's terms.

[Vicomte13]

Nor would I ask the East to accept organic unity on "the West's terms". Nor should the East ask the West to accept organic unity on the East's terms.

What ultimately matters?
We are eternal spirits. We live for a time on this Earth and then we die and go to God. While we are on this Earth, we can draw close to God through his sacraments. THOSE are the things in the Church that are Holy, and necessary. If a Church burns down and there is nothing but a blackened field and a tent, it is nevertheless possible for the souls of men to draw close to go by invoking God's power in the sacraments there in that tent. Armies on the march have done it for a millennium and a half. But if the church stays up and there are no sacraments inside of it, no matter how lofty the prose, men do not refresh themselves by the direct contact with God there. Men did not institute the sacraments to touch God. God instituted them to give men a sure and efficacious way to always reach him.

And men instituted the structures and governments of the Church in order to efficiently deliver the sacraments. Some men disagree...and some very, very strongly disagree...about the methods and authorities of organizations to deliver the sacraments. These disagreements are not illegitimate. But they are not theological. And they are not sacramental. We can always find a pretext not to share the sacraments in them.

But we should not do so.
This is not dealing with each other in grace and charity.
Those sacraments are the same sacraments, coming from the same God to save men. They don't "belong" to the Catholic Church and they don't "belong" to the Orthodox Church. They belong to God, who at His sole pleasure sees fit to distribute his grace sacramentally through BOTH Churches. Now, if GOD does not see enough of a difference to withhold His salvific grace from either wing of ancient Christianity, who are WE to gainsay this?

I agree, filioque is a theological issue. Is it fundamental enough, though, for God to turn away the grace of His sacraments from either Church? No. And that should tell us that however important WE think it is, it is not important enough to cause God to abandon the wrong party in the debate. Surely one is more wrong than the other on the facts of the case, and surely we will discover whom (if we really still care about things like that) after our deaths. But we BOTH are wrong in insisting that these things are of sufficient importance that we should not be able to share the sacraments with each other. GOD obviously disagrees, since he distributes the sacraments lovingly on both squabbling halves of the Church. And we should remember that Jesus prayed for our unity.

I do not believe that filioque needs to be challenged and faced head-on before dialogue. In fact, I think it needs to be ignored. The West will say it, the East will not. A Latin Rite Catholic sitting in a Greek Church when they recite the Credo will notice the difference, and a Greek Rite Catholic sitting in a Latin Church when they recite the Credo will not speak that word, or those two or three or four words, depending on the rite. Does this difference, and this allowance for mutual disagreement, prevent GOD from efficaciously granting the sacraments to either Church? No. And we both know it. So we need to lift our eyes from the circles of this world and the ancient disputes, and not persist in denying each other the sacraments over this. God does not deny either of us the sacraments because of this unresolved issue. And if He doesn't think it is important enough to do so, we exceed our authority and are oppressive when WE pretend to have the authority to do what God does not do.

"Full communion" need not mean full administrative integration. It means that we can share the Lord's Table with each other.