POPE'S DEATH AND CATHOLICISM'S PROSPECTS IN RUSSIA

Novosti ^ | April 4, 2005 | Pyotr Romanov

[Kolokotronis]

I hope you're right, but I like +Arinze's phronema better. There's just something very Eastern thinking about almost all those African prelates.

[annalex]

The Catholic church does not consider dropping the filioque as heretical, -- it is dropped in some Catholic rites. Maybe someone on this thread views it as heretical or unimportant, but then it is his mistake, not mine and not the Church's.

Christ gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles. That is all that we need to know to justify including the Filioque. In no way does it put the Holy Trinity out of alignment, because we also agree with omitting it. You seek disagreement where there is none, beyond textological procedure.

[MarMema]

It proclaims a strange double procession of the Holy Spirit which destroys the unity of the Trinity both within and without the Godhead. This isn't some arcane theological point which has no meaning in the modern world.

Thank you, and beautifully said.

[MarMema]

Christ gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles. That is all that we need to know to justify including the Filioque.

So what made you wait until the 6th century to add it then?

[Kolokotronis]

"Christ gave the Holy Ghost to the Apostles. That is all that we need to know to justify including the Filioque. In no way does it put the Holy Trinity out of alignment, because we also agree with omitting it"

How in heaven's name does the fact that Christ said he would send the Apostles the Holy Spirit "who proceeds from the Father" justify the filioque? I suppose one could say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "through" the Son, but even that has problems since it clearly places limits on the "actions" of the Holy Spirit quite divorced from any "sending by" or "proceeding from" the Son, in, for example, the process of theosis.

If the Church of Rome accepts the original formulation of the Creed as you say, why persist in manifest error? Ordinarily, as most anyone Roman or Orthodox on these threads will tell you, I'm ready to see where we can nuance some of Romes dogmatic innovations, (purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, even the Vatican I traps) but the nature of the Trinity is just too basic to paper over in the interests of a reunion which, at least right now given the status of orthodox Roman Catholicism, might bring us more trouble than we care to accept.

[annalex]

what made you wait

The Slavs. Always tardy.

[donbosco74]

Are you saying that the Orthodox have always thought that "Filioque" does not suffice, and that something more descriptive is needed than what this one word can provide?

[annalex]

How in heaven's name does the fact that Christ said he would send the Apostles the Holy Spirit "who proceeds from the Father" justify the filioque?

Because Christ breathing the Ghost into the Apostles and saying "Receive the Holy Ghost" described procession from the Son?

You cannot say that anything originating in the Father is not proceeding from the Son, because the Son "was there in the beginning".

[Vicomte13]

Was John Paul II ever married?

I am serious.

I recall very well, at the time of his rise to the papacy, discussions in the media of the fact that he had been married very young, but his wife had died before the war, and that he went on into to priesthood after that.

Now when I search the web, I find absolutely NOTHING referring to this, at all, anywhere. I can't believe that I simply manufactured that belief completely out of wholecloth at the age of 16. So, do YOU remember, or have any source, that can set this straight?

[annalex]

Now we are going to get another Da Vinci page-turner.

Kosciuszko Code?

Seriously, I never heard of it.

[Kolokotronis]

" Because Christ breathing the Ghost into the Apostles and saying "Receive the Holy Ghost" described procession from the Son?

You cannot say that anything originating in the Father is not proceeding from the Son, because the Son "was there in the beginning"."

John 20:22, to which you refer, speaks about Christ breathing on the Apostles with the words:"Receive the Holy Spirit". The Greek word used is "evepheesiesen". In John 15:26 Christ says the Holy Spirit "poceeds from the Father", the Greek word used is "ekporevetai". In the Creed the word used, quite intentionally I assure you, is "ekporevomenon", the same verb. You are confusing "ousia", "energia" and Divine Economies, perhaps even ousia and hypostasia , the usual mistakes the West makes when speaking of the Trinity. The monarchy of the Father maintains the perfect balance of the ousia of the Father with the Trinity as a whole. The ousia exists fully in the Three hypostasia of the Trinity and by His economy, God gives creation His Son and divinizes creation through the Holy Spirit. Simple.

Now, if, on the otherhand, the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son, the foregoing would become internally disordered.

[annalex]

That which Christ breathed into the Apostles is Pneuma Agion, the Holy Ghost (or Spirit), the third person of the Trinity.

We do not dispute that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father. We noticed that we had received it not directly, like Moses received the Ten Commandments, but rather from Christ the Son. It is not incorrect to omit the Filioque, but if said, it refers to John 20:22.

All the difference between the two Greek verbs that you point out does is to suggest that the relevant passage of the Creed should read, "We believe in the Holy Spirit [...] that proceeds from the Father and is given us by the Son". This would be quite verbose but would accord with "ekporevetai" in Jn 15:26 and "lavete" in Jn 20:22. I do not see any substantive objection to this formula.

[kosta50]

You have it backwards. The Latin West decided to add to the Creed established by the infallible Ecumnical Councils (the Church as a whole). They were binding even for the popes who disagreed with them. If one adds to the EC that would mean the the Church is not infallible. The popes refused to acknowledge the Filioque until the Latins, under Frankish misguidance, separated from the Church. The Orthodox did not add or subtract from the Faith one iota.

[kosta50]

All the difference between the two Greek verbs that you point out does is to suggest that the relevant passage of the Creed should read, "We believe in the Holy Spirit [...] that proceeds from the Father and is given us by the Son". This would be quite verbose but would accord with "ekporevetai" in Jn 15:26 and "lavete" in Jn 20:22. I do not see any substantive objection to this formula

The giving of the Holy Ghost by Jesus to the Apostles is a temporal event which is altogether different from the eternal (unchanging) relationship of the Triune God -- the Son is eternally begotten (the Word is eternally generated by the Wisdom) and the Spirit of God eternally proceeds from the Father.

You are using a temporal event in the created world as the eternal manifestation of God. It's apples and oranges.

Your attempt to find a better wording is a violation of the Ecumenical Councils. It would be equivalent to taking a dogma proclaimed by the Pope ex-cathedra and adding one word to it because it 'sound better" or something to this effect. Can a Roman Catholic, frewillingly alter Propes dogma to suit someone's taste? Of course not! The pronouncements of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, the basis for the undivided Church, which are recognized by the Latin Church without exception, are binding even to the Pope because they are pronouncements of the Church (at the time when the Pope was not the king -- and I realize this is difficult for the Romans to accept the fact that the Pope did not always rule the Church). So, nothing can be changed, added or subtracted to any of the infallible pronouncements of the Ecumenical Councils.

This is not a matter of taste or discussion. Addition of filioque was a violation of the EC pronoucnements and as such are heresy.

[kosta50]

and as such are heresy = and as such is heresy.

[Kolokotronis]

Let me try again and then its off to bed. First, a quick observation. Your comment that we do not receive the Holy Spirit directly from God like Moses for example isn't borne out by the Eastern Fathers at all, for example St. Basil the Great, St Symeon the New Theolgian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, etc., but I think I know what you mean.

I think we can agree that God is essentially unknowable, ineffable and completely transcendant. The Trinity is of one ousia which is shared in by three hypostasia. God for the Eastern Fathers was always thought of as "Trinity" and that Trinity sent the Son, Who was "begotten of the Father before all Ages" for the salvation of the world. The Latin Fathers tended to look at God (as opposed to the ousia of the Father being shared with the Word and the Spirit) as a unique essence first and only thereafter of God as Trinity. In Latin theology, the divine hypostasia become really nothing more than expressions of the inner relations of the ousia of the Godhead. Now, if this were so, then the very existence of the Holy Spirit can only be defined and determined by its relations to both the Father and the Son. Logically then, filoque must be true and absolutley necessary because there could be no distinction between the Spirit and the Son unless the Spirit proceeded from the Son, and vice versa I suppose. The Greek Fathers viewed this doctrine as a form of Sabellianism wherein the hypostasia are merely "modes" of a unique "God". The Greek Fathers taught that the Father is the only source of the Deity, the Son having been begotten by Him and the Spirit "proceeding" from Him. Because the Son and the Spirit are "omoosios" with the Father, each has His own existence and function both in the inner reality of God and in the economy of theosis. Filioque, in this theology, which was the theology of the One Church for 800 odd years, reduces at least the Spirit (and perhaps even the Father and the Son too) to a mode of some different God than we worship .

[annalex]

Kosta, I do not attempt to bargain with Kolokotronis over dogma. My suggested wording is merely a wording acceptable to all. Of course if the unity has to be achieved some acceptable to all wording has to be properly adopted as dogma. My point, and the Catholic position as I understand it is that such acceptable to all wording is possible. In fact, Kolokotronis mentioned another mutually acceptable wording, "from the Father through the Son". Indeed any wording mentioning John 20:22 would combine the eternal hypostasies with the temporal event described therein. But so does the rest of the Creed: it explains, for example, the begotten, not made person of the Son, then goes on to refer tot he passion under Pilate.

Kolokotronis,

Please see above. I think you are insisting on real or imagined differences and tend to elevate a nuance to a level of an unsurmountable obstacle. But it is just not so. Here is, for example, quotes from St. Basil the Great:

"Through the Son, who is one, he [the Holy Spirit] is joined to the Father, one who is one, and by himself completes the Blessed Trinity" (The Holy Spirit 18:45 [A.D. 375]).

"[T]he goodness of [the divine] nature, the holiness of [that] nature, and the royal dignity reach from the Father through the only-begotten [Son] to the Holy Spirit. Since we confess the persons in this manner, there is no infringing upon the holy dogma of the monarchy" (ibid., 18:47).

(Source: catholic.com, the emphasis is mine)

I will reflect on it some more as well. Thank you for your elucidating post.

[annalex]

My suggested wording is merely a wording acceptable to all

... acceptable because we share the understanding of the Trinity, which is all that fundamentally matters.

[Agrarian]

Ecumenical prospects were never bright at all, and this article is a bit silly, it seems to me. The Pope had to have known that he was a long ways from real ecumenical progress with the Orthodox world (especially the Slavic Orthodox world), and in light of this, the Vatican's insistence on making such a big public deal about a visit to Russia is difficult to explain.

This was a Pope for whom expressions of friendship and cordiality (which is the logical place to start with relations) seem not to have enough. It was either big public ecumenical pageantry or nothing when it came to the Orthodox.

You can get by with this sort of ecumenical game-playing with the Ecumenical Patriarch, who is a bishop without a diocese -- an answer desperately seeking a question, a man with nothing to do other than go to ecumenical meetings since pretty much all the people in his diocese are Muslims. But you won't get by with it with the MP, who is the real de facto "first among equals" of the Orthodox world because he has the majority of the world's Orthodox Christians under his jurisdiction, and the deep respect of large numbers of Orthodox Christians around the world not under his jurisdiction because of the firmness of his stances.

JPII was a towering figure, and one that we Orthodox can, should, and generally did respect. May the world be blessed with a Catholic Pope who even approaches the firmness of this last Pope's stances on traditional Christian morals.