There is also no doubt that some of you who come from the Western Rite have expressed love and admiration for the unchanging tradition and Orthodoxy of the East, and that we from the East should express our reverence to Rome, and its rightful honor.
Vicomte claims that our differences are not theological. I disagree. We can be in communion only when out Catechisms are one and the same; when and if we begin to preach the same faith. Unfortunately, we don't. We are two twins who may look very much alike, but who grew apart half way in their formative years and have two separate minds and habits that define them. No one can deny their similarity and their relationship, but one they are not. Our family name is Catholic, but we are two, not one.
Just like the twins, the Church can become one only if one dies; otherwise they will never profess with the same voice the same faith. The first church that admits to being in error will die as a church, so the best we can do about our "communion" is generous tolerance, and mutual respect and love for each other.
The Church of Rome is a different organism from its twin in Constantinople. The life of the Latin Church was in unity, obedience and universal consensus. That was only possible with one language and one Patriarch. The sooner the Church of Rome returns to universal Latin the sooner it will revitalize itself.
I had a chance to attend Pontifical Liturgy in Tokyo's St. Nicholas's Orthodox Cathedral during Lent. The service was sung in Japanese, the choir sung the hymns in Japanese, but we all knew what the Metropolitan was singing and what the choir and the people were replying. To us, Orthodox, it is not important if I am in a Greek or Russian church -- we all sing one and the same thing. The object of our Liturgy it to worship God, period, as artistically and beautifully as humanly possible. Thus, obedience, and language do not unite us, as is the case with Rome. Our Patriarch is primus inter pares literally (by necessity only, being without Rome). Nothing goes without him and he doesn't do anything wihtout the Synod. We are different, organically and theologically.
What makes it different is a multitude of things, Filioque being the most fundamental and historically divisive of united Church. Unless our understanding of Trinity and Divine Economy and the relationships between Divine Persons is the same, we cannot possibly agree or profess the same faith. For that reason, our communion is not possible in a fashion Vicomte suggests.
Orthodoxy will never abandon the decisions of the Seven Councils and admit that perhaps we can "modify" them for the sake of temporal and secular "unity" while perpetuating spiritual divide. So, either Rome will return to the Seven Councils or we will never be united.
What would returning to the Seven Councils entail, exactly?
Abandoning the words "and from the Son" in the Nicene Creed.
What else?