Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiology: against false unions [my title]

The commotion about union of the churches makes evident the ignorance existing as much among the circles of the simple faithful as among the theologians as to what the Church is.

They understand the catholicity of the Church as a legal cohesion, as an interdependence regulated by some code. For them the Church is an organization with laws and regulations like the organizations of nations. Bishops, like civil servants, are distinguished as superiors and subordinates: patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans, bishops. For them, one diocese is not something complete, but a piece of a larger whole: the autocephalous church or the patriarchate. But the autocephalous church, also, feels the need to belong to a higher head. When external factors of politics, history, or geography prevent this, a vague feeling of weak unity and even separation circulates through the autocephalous churches.

Such a concept of the Church leads directly to the Papacy. If the catholicity of the Church has this kind of meaning, then Orthodoxy is worthy of tears, because up to now she has not been able to discipline herself under a Pope.

But this is not the truth of the matter. The catholic Church which we confess in the Symbol (Creed) of our Faith is not called catholic because it includes all the Christians of the earth, but because within her everyone of the faithful finds all the grace and gift of God. The meaning of catholicity has nothing to do with a universal organization the way the Papists and those who are influenced by the Papist mentality understand it.

Of course, the Church is intended for and extended to the whole world independent of lands, nations, races, and tongues; and it is not an error for one to name her catholic because of this also. But just as humanity becomes an abstract idea, there is a danger of the same thing happening to the Church when we see her as an abstract, universal idea. In order for one to understand humanity well, it is enough for him to know only one man, since the nature of that man is common to all men of the world.

Similarly, in order to understand what the catholic Church of Christ is, it suffices to know well only one local church. And as among men, it is not submission to a hierarchy which unites them but their common nature, so the local churches are not united by the Pope and the Papal hierarchy but by their common nature.

A local Orthodox church regardless of her size or the number of the faithful is by herself alone, independently of all the others, catholic. And this is so because she lacks nothing of the grace and gift of God. All the local churches of the whole world together do not contain anything more in divine grace than that small church with few members.

She has her presbyters and bishop; she has the Holy Mysteries; she has the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Within her any worthy soul can taste of the Holy Spirit's presence. She has all the grace and truth. What is she lacking therefore in order to be catholic? She is the one flock, and the bishop is her shepherd, the image of Christ, the one Shepherd. She is the prefiguring on earth of the one flock with the one Shepherd, of the new Jerusalem. Within her, even in this life, pure hearts taste of the Kingdom of God, the betrothal of the Holy Spirit. Within her they find peace which "passeth all understanding," the peace which has no relation with the peace of men: "My peace I give unto you."

"Paul, called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ ... to the Church of God which is at Corinth ...." Yes, it really was the Church of God, even if it was at Corinth, at one concrete and limited place.

This is the catholic Church, something concrete in space, time, and persons. This concrete entity can occur repeatedly in space and in time without ceasing to remain essentially the same.

Her relations with the other local churches are not relations of legal and jurisdictional interdependence, but relations of love and grace. One local church is united with all the other local Orthodox churches of the world by the bond of identity. Just as one is the Church of God, the other is the Church of God also, as well as all the others. They are not divided by boundaries of nations nor the political goals of the countries in which they live. They are not even divided by the fact that one might be ignorant of the other's existence. It is the same Body of Christ which is partaken of by the Greeks, the Negroes of Uganda, the Eskimos of Alaska, and the Russians of Siberia. The same Blood of Christ circulates in their veins. The Holy Spirit enlightens their minds and leads them to the knowledge of the same truth.

There exist, of course, relations of interdependence between the local churches, and there are canons which govern them. This interdependence, though, is not a relation of legal necessity, but a bond of respect and love in complete freedom, the freedom of grace. And the canons are not laws of a code, but wise guides of centuries of experience.

The Church has no need of external bonds in order to be one. It is not a pope, or a patriarch, or an archbishop which unites the Church. The local church is something complete; it is not a piece of a larger whole.

Besides, the relations of the churches are relations of churches, and not relations which belong exclusively to their bishops. A bishop cannot be conceived of without a flock or independent of his flock. The Church is the bride of Christ. The Church is the body of Christ, not the bishop alone.

A bishop is called a patriarch when the church of which he is the shepherd is a patriarchate, and an archbishop when the church is an archdiocese. In other words, the respect and honor belongs to the local church, and by extension it is rendered to its bishop. The Church of Athens is the largest and, today, most important local church of Greece. For this reason the greatest respect belongs to her, and she deserves more honor than any other church of Greece. Her opinion has a great bearing, and her role in the solution of common problems is the most significant. That is why she is justly called an archdiocese. Consequently, the bishop of that church, because he represents such an important church is a person equally important and justly called an archbishop. He himself is nothing more than an ordinary bishop. In the orders of priesthood—the deacon, the presbyter, and the bishop—there is no degree higher than the office of the bishop. The titles metropolitan, archbishop, patriarch, or pope do not indicate a greater degree of ecclesiastical charism, because there is no greater sacramental grace than that which is given to the bishop. They only indicate a difference in prominence of the churches of which they are shepherds.

This prominence of one church in relation to the others is not something permanent. It depends upon internal and external circumstances. In studying the history of the Church, we see the primacy of prominence and respect passing from church to church in a natural succession. In Apostolic times, the Church of Jerusalem, without any dispute, had the primacy of authority and importance. She had known Christ; she had heard His words; she saw Him being crucified and arising; and upon her did the Holy Spirit first descend. All who were in a communion of faith and life with her were certain that they walked the road of Christ. This is why Paul, when charged that the Gospel which he taught was not the Gospel of Christ, hastened to explain it before the Church of Jerusalem, so that the agreement of that church might silence his enemies (Gal. 2:1-2).

Later, that primacy was taken by Rome, little by little. It was the capital of the Roman Empire. A multitude of tried Christians comprised that church. Two leading Apostles had lived and preached within its bounds. A multitude of Martyrs had dyed its soil with their blood. That is why her word was venerable, and her authority in the solution of common problems was prodigious. But it was the authority of the church and not of her bishop. When she was asked for her view in the solution of common problems, the bishop replied not in his own name as a Pope of today would do, but in the name of his church. In his epistle to the Corinthians, St. Clement of Rome begins this way: "The Church of God which is in Rome, to the Church of God which is in Corinth." He writes in an amicable and supplicatory manner in order to convey the witness and opinion of his church concerning whatever happened in the Church of Corinth. In his letter to the Church of Rome, St. Ignatius the God-bearer does not mention her bishop anywhere, although he writes as though he were addressing himself to the church which truly has primacy in the hierarchy of the churches of his time.

When St. Constantine transferred the capital of the Roman state to Byzantium, Rome began gradually to lose her old splendor. It became a provincial city. A new local church began to impose itself upon the consciousness of the Christian world: the Church of Constantinople. Rome tried jealously to preserve the splendor of the past, but because things were not conducive to it, it developed little by little its well-known Papal ecclesiology in order to secure theoretically that which circumstances would not offer. Thus it advanced from madness to madness, to the point where it declared that the Pope is infallible whenever he speaks on doctrine, even if because of sinfulness he does not have the enlightenment of sanctity the Fathers of the Church had.

The Church of Constantinople played the most significant role throughout the long period of great heresies and of the Ecumenical Councils, and in her turn she gave her share of blood with the martyrdom of thousands of her children during the period of the Iconoclasts.

Besides these churches which at different times had the primacy of authority, there were others which held the second or third place. They were the various patriarchates, old or new, and other important churches or metropolises. There exists, therefore, a hierarchy, but a hierarchy of churches and not of bishops. St. Irenaeus does not advise Christians to address themselves to important bishops in order to find the solution to their problem, but to the churches which have the oldest roots in the Apostles (Adv. Haer. III, 4, 1).

There are not, therefore, organizational, administrative, or legal bonds among the churches, but bonds of love and grace, the same bonds of love and grace which exist among the faithful of every church, clergy or lay. The relationship between presbyter and bishop is not a relationship of employee and employer, but a charismatic and sacramental relationship. The bishop is the one who gives the presbyter the grace of the priesthood. And the presbyter gives the layman the grace of the Holy Mysteries. The only thing which separates the bishop from the presbyter is the charism of ordination. The bishop excels in nothing else, even if he be the bishop of an important church and bears the title of patriarch or pope. "There is not much separating them [the presbyters] and the bishops. For they too are elevated for the teaching and protection of the Church .... They [the bishops] surpass them only in the power of ordination, and in this alone they exceed the presbyters" (Chrysostom, Hom. XI on I Tim.).

Bishops have no right to behave like rulers, not only towards the other churches but also towards the presbyters or laymen of the church of which they are bishop. They have a responsibility to Oversee in a paternal way, to counsel, to guide, to battle against falsehood, to adjure transgressors with love and strictness, to preside in love. But these responsibilities they share with the presbyters. And the presbyters in turn look upon the bishops as their fathers in the priesthood and render them the same love.

All things in the Church are governed by love. Any distinctions are charismatic distinctions. They are not distinctions of a legal nature but of a spiritual authority. And among the laymen there are charisms and charisms.

The unity of the Church, therefore, is not a matter of obedience to a higher authority. It is not a matter of submission of subordinates to superiors. External relations do not make unity, neither do the common decisions of councils, even of Ecumenical Councils. The unity of the Church is given by the communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, the communion with the Holy Trinity. It is a liturgical unity, a mystical unity.

The common decisions of an Ecumenical Council are not the foundation but the result of unity. Besides, the decisions of either an ecumenical or local council are valid only when they are accepted by the consciousness of the Church and are in accord with the Tradition.

The Papacy is the distortion par excellence of Church unity. It made that bond of love and freedom a bond of constraint and tyranny. The Papacy is unbelief in the power of God and confidence in the power of human systems.

But let no one think that the Papacy is something which exists only in the West. In recent times it has started to appear among the Orthodox too. A few novel titles are characteristic of this spirit, for example, "Archbishop of all Greece," "Archbishop of North and South America." Many times we hear people say of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the "leader of Orthodoxy," or we hear the Russians speaking of Moscow as the third Rome and its patriarch as holding the reins of the whole of Orthodoxy. In fact, many sharp rivalries have begun. All these are manifestations of the same worldly spirit, the same thirst for worldly power, and belong to the same tendencies which characterize the world today.

People cannot feel unity in multiplicity. Yet this is a deep mystery. Our weakness or inability to feel it originates from the condition of severance into which the, human race has fallen. People have changed from persons into separated and hostile individuals, and it is impossible for them now to understand the deep unity of their nature. Man, however, is one and many; one in his nature, many in persons. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and the mystery of the Church.

It is imperative that Christians realize that the Church has sacramental and not administrative foundations; then they will not suffer that which has happened to the Westerners who followed the Pope in his errors because they thought that if they did not follow him, they would automatically be outside the Church.

Today the various patriarchates and archdioceses undergo great pressures from political powers which seek to direct the Orthodox according to their own interests. It is known that the Patriarchate of Moscow accepts the influence of Soviet politics. But the Patriarchate of Constantinople also accepts the influence of American politics. It was under this influence that the contact of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the similarly American-influenced, Protestant, World Council of Churches was brought about, and its servile disposition toward the Pope started to take on dangerous dimensions and even to exert over-bearing pressure upon the other Orthodox churches.

America thinks that it will strengthen the Western faction against communism if, with these artificial conciliations, it unifies its spiritual forces. But in this way the Church becomes a toy of the political powers of the world, with unforeseeable consequences for Orthodoxy.

Are the Orthodox people obliged to follow such a servile patriarchate forever? The fact that this patriarchate for centuries held the primacy of importance and honor in the Christian world cannot justify those who will follow it to a unifying capitulation with heresy. Rome also once had the primacy of importance and honor in the Christian world, but that did not oblige Christians to follow it on the road of heresy. The communion with and respect for one church on the part of the other churches remains and continues only as long as that church remains in the Church, that is, as long as it lives and proceeds in spirit and truth. When a patriarchate ceases to be a church, admitting communion with heretics, then its recognition on the part of the other churches ceases also.

The Orthodox people must become conscious of the fact that they owe no obedience to a bishop, no matter how high a title he holds, when that bishop ceases being Orthodox and openly follows heretics with pretenses of union "on equal terms." On the contrary, they are obliged to depart from him and confess their Faith, because a bishop, even if he be patriarch or pope, ceases from being a bishop the moment he ceases being Orthodox. The bishop is a consecrated person, and even if he is openly sinful, respect and honor is due him until synodically censured. But if he becomes openly heretical or is in communion with heretics, then the Christians should not await any synodical decision, but should draw away from him immediately.

Here is what the canons of the Church say on this: "... So that if any presbyter or bishop or metropolitan dares to secede from communion with his own patriarch and does not mention his name as is ordered and appointed in the divine mystagogy, but before a synodical arraignment and his [the patriarch's] full condemnation, he creates a schism, the Holy Synod has decreed that this person be alienated from every priestly function, if only he be proven to have transgressed in this. These rules, therefore, have been sealed and ordered concerning those who on the pretext of some accusations against their own presidents stand apart, creating a schism and severing the unity of the Church. But as for those who on account of some heresy condemned by Holy Synods or Fathers sever themselves from communion with their president, that is, because he publicly preaches heresy and with bared head teaches it in the Church, such persons as these not only are not subject to canonical penalty for walling themselves off from communion with the so-called bishop before synodical clarification, but they shall be deemed worthy of due honor among the Orthodox. For not bishops, but false bishops and false teachers have they condemned, and they have not fragmented the Church's unity with schism, but from schisms and divisions have they earnestly sought to deliver the Church" (Canon XV of the so-called First and Second Council).

Kudos to you for recognizing the sanctity of St. Mark of Ephesus. Had his teaching not been 100% Orthodox, he would never have been glorified as a saint. It is on account of his courageous defense of Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence and his forthright condemnation of the Pope of Rome and all his followers(you included), as heretics that he has been glorified and is venerated by all orthodox Christians.

Councils do not meet to decide doctrine. As to doctrine, it is what the Church received once (Jude3). There is nothing to add to it, nothing to subtract. When a doctrinal issue comes up, i.e. a heresy, councils meet to affirm Orthodoxy and condemn the heresy. As the Latin heresies do not threaten the Church (they being not a part of it anymore anyway), there is no need for a council to confront them. To the extent they ever did threaten the Church centuries ago, they have already been condemned by the appropriate regional and/or ecumenical councils. The Orthodox teaching as to the procession of the Holy Spirit, for example, was affirmed for all time by the First Council of Constantinople in A.D. 380.

In short Petrosius, there is nothing to discuss. There is no reason to meet with you Latins, other than to welcome you back into the Church by receiving your repentances.

"Why would that be prejudice when it comes to us, but not when it comes to Roman Catholics?"

If we are all honest about this we must recognise that we all come to these questions with our own prejudices - Catholics included. This is why all these grand ecumenical projects are doomed to failure before they even start. None of us can dissociate ourselves from our respective phronemas, much though the ecumenists on either side would like us to do so.

I admire gbcdoj for his(her?) intellectual skills and seemingly endless capacity to bring forth reems of quotations from the Fathers to support the Catholic Faith, however, I know that they will count for nothing with you simply because you are not Catholic. The converse also applies with us of course.

When you speak of the Catholic Church needing to return to the Church of the first millenium, or the Church of the 7 Councils, it counts for nothing with us because we already know that we are that same Church. Original sin, the Immaculate Conception, the Pope as successor of Peter with universal jurisdiction - all these are doctrines which the Church has always held and we have our Scriptures and Tradition and the teachings of the Fathers and the saints as proof of this.

Similarly our ecclesiology with the priority of the universal Church over the local Church is also attested in both Scripture and Tradition and we simply see the Orthodox deviations from these doctrines as being novelties that were incorporated after the schism. We have had long enough experience with the Protestants (and many of our own people!) to detect the anti-Roman "frisson" when it appears, and understand how this can become a powerful driving force in the development of doctrine in communities that have become separated from Rome.

However, I am sure Jesus the Rock knew all this would come to pass when He named Peter as His chip off the old block, as it were. Just as He was the stone who would become a stumbling stone, Peter and his successors were always destined to replicate this on a minor scale - typology works forwards from the Cross as well as forwards to the Cross.

The bottom line is that while I consider "ecumenism" to be well-intentioned, in that it seeks to bring about the unity for which our Lord prayed, it is destined never to succeed because it is a lazy way of evangelizing. No matter how many ecumenical talks are held, or how many agreements are signed, none of them can bring a single person into the unity of our Lord's Church, because only the grace of conversion can do that. And, generally speaking, conversion does not happen for the right reasons when it takes place en masse, but happens one soul at a time as the Holy Spirit moves them.

For these reasons and others, I fully agree with you that unity between Catholic and Orthodox is most unlikely to happen and one has to wonder what re-establishment of the theological dialogues will actually achieve?

Should we consider those that held an opinion contrary to the Orthodox today as heretics and strike them from the list of Fathers and outside the Church?

There was more than a difference of opinion. The Franks were accusing Greeks of having "omitted" [!] Filioque, and the Pope, backed by the same uneducated semi-iconoclast Franks, was pushing for unprescedented jurisdiction.

I am not asking you to accept the filioque or any other of the matter in dispute but rather to withhold judgment

Which part of the Creed don't you understand, dear friend? Let say simply: there is no Filioque in it! Not in the way we say it, not in the way St Photius, St Chyrsostom, St Maximos the Confessor said it, not in the way the Orthodox, east or west, ever said it; not even in the way it is inscribed on the silver plates in the Vatican, or the way it is recited in Greek in Rome to this day.

So what is there to debate? On what authority did the Church of the West insert it, clearly disobeying their own Patriarch's, Pope Leo III's, direct order to the contrary?

The division was caused by the actions of the Greeks, not the Latins

I see that the Franks are alive and well. What did the Greeks do to cause "division?" First, the Latins dropped Greek as the language of the Church of the first 300 years of Christianity, and went as far as to make Latin the "universal" language of the Church [!?!] Second, in the 5th century, Pope Leo I discovered Petrine supremacy.

Third, in the 6th century, the Church of the West inserted Filioque into the Creed, and the popes allowed but not publicly. Fourth, the Frankish sponsors of Rome were teaching errors in the East (Bulgaria), and were never censured by Rome.

They taught that married clergy is wrong, that the Greeks omitted Filioque, and so on. Then there were other innovations -- like denying the cup to the laity, unleavened bread instead of real bread, using fasting as punishment (penance), as evidenced in the local synod of Elvira as early as the 4th century, and so on.

What have the Greeks done to cause the "division" except that they refused papal intrusions into their jurisdiction? The Greeks dealt with their own heresies, and sought refuge with Orthodox Popes in Old Rome (i.e. +Maximos the Confessor), or condemned and excommunicated their own heretics.

Is it the fact that the Fourth Ecumenical Council ignored Pope Leo I's "annulment" of canon xxviii and subsequent Popes accepted it?

What is it that the Greeks did to cause division? They used the language of the Gospels, which the Latins exchanged for their own and then made their own "universal" at the first opportunity. It took them a thousand years to recognize what the Greeks knew all along, that the language of the Church need not be Greek or Latin.

Even when the Pope approved Slavonic liturgy in Greater Moravia, the Frankish storm trooper bishops there couldn't rest. They harassed and imprisoned St. Cyrill for his magnum opus and evangelizing of Eastern Slavs, because it wasn't in Latin!

The "division" the Greeks caused in your eyes is their refusal to submit to the whims of the Pope and all the innovations and additions he allowed. They did so, knowing that no man is infallible and that the faith of St. Peter was no more protected from error than that of any other Apsotle, because all were inspired. They successors are not. They are ordinary men.

They knew that Pope Honorius was proven to be a heretic and that if such a man possessed "ex-cathedra" powers the Church might as well be Monothelite today. So, they treated the Pope as the elder, but not as the ruler. Yet at Chalcedon, the papal legate called the Bishop of Rome the "ruler of the Church."

The Catholic Church is as much the Church of the Seven Councils as the Orthodox

You wouldn't recognize the Church of the West if you could travel back in time.

I had hope to proceed in this discussion on the question of authority and the possibility of rash judgment on the part or the Orthodox toward Catholics and not get into the actual theological debate over filioque but since you insist on your mistaken idea that the question of the filioque is cut and dry, the Orthodox position being self-evedently true, I direct your attention to the statement of St. Maximus the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople in the 7th cent.:

Those of the Queen of cities (Constantinople) have attacked the synodic letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology (of the Trinity) and, according to them, says: 'The Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis (ekporeuesthai) from the Son'. The other deals with the divine incarnation. With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause (aitian) of the Spirit - they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by ekporeusis (procession) - but that they have manifested the procession through him (to dia autou proienai) and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence... They (the Romans) have therefore been accused of precisely those things which it would be wrong to accuse them, whereas the former (the Byzantines) have been accused of those things of which it has been quite correct to accuse them (Monothelitism). They have up till now produced no defence, although they have not yet rejected the things that they have themselves so wrongly introduced. In accordance with your request, I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them [the 'also from the son'] in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending [the synodic letter] has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to do this. It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot. In any case, having been accused, they will certainly take some care about this.

"unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria"

Even without the defense of St. Maximus it is clear that the teaching of the early Church was not unanimous and unambiguous. If we were to take the same hard line that you do, could we not claim that it is the Greeks who have departed from the teaching of the Church?

I also recommend the statement by Metropolitan John of Pergamen. Although he has not completely accept the Vatican clarification of the issue it is clear that he recognizes that a major cause of the dispute is the difference between the Latin and Greek languages. If we admit that we do not completely understand each other because of language problems, is it not then rash judgment to jump to the claim of heresy?

You speak wisely Father Deacon. The problem is that every time there is an offer for reconciliation or, worse, re-union, it brings up our divisions rather than promotes unity. The Roman Catholics see them as an offer to the Orthodox to return to the union with Rome as the Eastern Catholics have done, and the Orthodox cringe and, instead, offer the Roman Catholics to return to Orthodoxy, which has the same effect.

It's a stalemate. However, we are under commandment to be united and brotherly. Perhaps we do not understand what that means. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to be "married." Brothers often compete and even antagonize each other, even though their parents plead for them to be "as brothers." They are inevitably connected to their parents and can never disown each other but it doesn't mean they have to act as one or live together.

But borthers don't have to fight. Christian thing to do would be for the brothers to support and help each other, and stand united against common adversaries, and mutually respect each other's households rather than trying to make each other a clone of the other. That would unite us in Christ without ecclesiological re-union and bureaucratic and legalistic niceties.

And one more thing: keep in mind that the frustration you feel with the Orthodox is because the Orthodox are not asking for reconciliation or re-union. We are not making the overtures. We leave it up to God. On the other hand, when someone makes overtures to us, we take it that they desire to join us.

Which part of the Creed don't you understand, dear friend? Let say simply: there is no Filioque in it!

What are we arguing about here, the doctrine behind filioque or its uncanonical insertion in the Creed. If the former I refer you to my post to Graves above. If the latter I will grant that this was uncanonical but that is a far cry from heretical.

What did the Greeks do to cause "division?"

The action I was referring to was the act of anathematizing the entire West. We could both make a litany of complaints one against the other. I will freely admit that there were injustices committed by our side but do not presume to think that the Greeks were without fault. Whatever the crimes committed a thousand years ago (and let us not get started with battle of who was at greater fault) does not our Lord call on us to "forgive those who have trespassed against us?" If we cannot practice this among ourselves how can we presume to preach it to the world?

First, the Latins dropped Greek as the language of the Church of the first 300 years of Christianity, and went as far as to make Latin the "universal" language of the Church

Of course we dropped Greek, we could not speak it any longer! In a similar way the liturgy in Moscow is not celebrated in Greek but in Russian. As for it being a "universal" language, this is I admit a western concept. You must understand that despite the various local vernaculars in the West, Latin was still the language of university instruction until as late as the 18th cent. Latin is still used ceremonially in Oxford University, hardly a friend the Church of Rome.

The "division" the Greeks caused in your eyes is their refusal to submit to the whims of the Pope and all the innovations and additions he allowed.

No, the division was, and is, caused by the Greeks refusing to seek redress within the Church and presuming that they alone were the guardians of orthodoxy.

Petrosius, you are making the same mistake many learned Roman Catholics brothers and sisters make on this Forum: they quote various Fathers, whose opinions support the point they try to make. That is great scholasticism, but it misses the point.

The final authority on what the Church teaches are Ecumenical Councils. The EC composed and finalized the Christian Symbol of Faith (the Creed) and prohibited anyone from adding or substracting from it (unless another EC needs to clarify it -- as was the case with the Holy Ghost of the Nicene Creed).

The bottom line is this: the Creed was approved in its finalized form (without the Filioque) in all subsequent councils. If the Latin Church found it necessary to describe the "mechanics" of Trinitarian economy for whatever reason, it had no authority to unilaterally insert the Filioque into the Creed, which was done in the 11th century before the Great Schism as a concession to the semi-heretical (semi-iconoclastic) Frankish kings, who were also the guardians of the Pope.

St. Maximos the Confessor, just as St. Chrysostom, was one of those eastern Bishops very close to Rome and very fond of the Pope. After all, it was a Pope, in whom St. Maximos sought refuge, who saved the Church from iconoclastic heresy in the East, but it was also a Pope who embraced Monothelism which St. Maximos denied, and was proven wrong by the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and subsequent Popes.

The so-called Photian synod, which re-instated St. Photius and agreed with him, was ratified by a Pope and this settled the Filioque controversy, although it was not an ecumnical synod (which would have been the 8th). It also annuled the so-called 8th Ecumenical Synod 10 years prior, which the Roman Catholic Church counts as the "8th" although it was condemned by the Photian Synod, the condemnation having been approved by Pope himself.

The bottom line is this: individual fathers make opinions; Ecumenical Councils decide what is orthodoxy and what is heresy. The ECs are infallible because they represent the entire Church; individual fathers are not.

If any Ftaher says anything that is contrary to the proclamations of Ecumenical Synods, the Ftaher is wrong. Plain and simple.

Petrosius, you are making the same mistake many learned Roman Catholics brothers and sisters make on this Forum: they quote various Fathers, whose opinions support the point they try to make.

But you misunderstood my reasoning for quoting St. Maximus. I was not trying to prove that the Catholics were correct but only that in the early Church there was disagreement as to whether the Filioque was considered contrary to the teaching of the Councils.

If the Latin Church found it necessary to describe the "mechanics" of Trinitarian economy for whatever reason, it had no authority to unilaterally insert the Filioque into the Creed

I have already conceded that this action was uncanonical but, again, that is not the same as heretical and does not justify the anathemas proclaimed by the Orthodox.

The bottom line is this: individual fathers make opinions; Ecumenical Councils decide what is orthodoxy and what is heresy.

Agreed (did I actually say that word?) ;-) But as of yet no ecumenical council has that the Latin theology of Filioque is heretical and contrary to the councils of the past. Why is it so hard to leave the question at that?

What are we arguing about here, the doctrine behind filioque or its uncanonical insertion in the Creed

I have no desire to argue. We all worship in imperfect knowledge and with imperfect ability to describe the Divine. That's why the wise orthodox Fathers of the Unidivided Church left the Mystery of God to remain a Mystery, but at the same time to proclaim a universal truth: that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father, the manner and the "mechanisms" of this being unknown to us.

The Filioque was inserted to combat Arianism, but also because some Fathers specualted as to "how" the Trinity "operates". That in itsef is not heresy but speculation. We can still speculate on it and are nowehere nearer to knowing it, and Arianism is no longer an issue, so why bother? It's the indsertion of it into the Creed in the 11th century, contrary to everything the Unidivided Church established as Orthodox prior to that that, that remains the unrepenetent offense.

The Church spoke in one voice and said: this is the Creed, this is what we believe; nothing can be added or subtracted to it unless it is done by another Ecumenical Council. Amen. Your Church decided otherwise and now we are supposed to "debate" this? If you steal something, it is wrong even if your motives were noble. Just do what Graves said: Repent and you will be forgiven.

Of course we dropped Greek, we could not speak it any longer!

And how many Germans understood Latin in Luther's time? But the Roman Church insisted, as it does to this day that Latin is the universal language of the Church and should be favored. There is a whole group of "trads" who insist on it. How many Roman Catholics speak or even understand Latin today? You don't see double standards here? Apparently not.

Latin was still the language of university instruction until as late as the 18th cent

Little good did that do to the multitutes who sat in RC churches and listed to something they didn't understand. And it took the Vatican 200 years (middle of the 20th century) since the 18th c. to admit that a language other than Latin is okay? The East knew that for 2,000 years. The only reason Greek was the language of the Church is because it was the only liturgical language of the Gentiles, sufficiently developed to express litrurgical complexities, but the East never poposed that Greek was the "universal" languge of the Church, as your Church did for Latin.

No, the division was, and is, caused by the Greeks refusing to seek redress within the Church and presuming that they alone were the guardians of orthodoxy

Redress? Please specfy what did the Greeks add and or subtract form the Faith. What are our innovations and additions that need to be redressed?

We are not the only guardians of Orthodoxy. We never claimed that. There are multitudes of Greek Fathers who glorified the Pope and western Fathers. The Greeks honor many Popes, in fact and the Church of the West was condiered fully Orthodox in liturgy and everything esle. Iconoclasm was defeated thanks to the Orthodoxy of Rome at that time. How can you say that the Greeks find fault but no merit in the West? That is completely false! If you want the list of issues cited by the Greeks that needed a redress, read the Patriarchal Encyclical of the Eastern Fathers of 1895 (in fact Agrarian posted in today along with the series of previous ones).

I am afraid that the details of the controversy too great to go into here. I will just give a part of the problem by quoting from the statement of Metropolitan John of Pergamon that I mentioned before:

Another important point in the Vatican document is the emphasis it lays on the distinction between ekporeusis and processio. It is historically true that in the Greek tradition a clear distinction was always made between ekporeuesthai and proeinai, the first of these two terms denoting exclusively the Spirit's derivation from the Father alone, whereas proienai was used to denote the Holy Spirit's dependence on the Son owing to the common substance or ousia which the Spirit in deriving from the Father alone as Person or hypostasis receives from the Son, too, as ousiwdws that is, with regard to the one ousia common to all three persons (Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor et al). On the basis of this distinction one might argue that there is a kind of Filioque on the level of ousia, but not of hypostasis.
However, as the document points out, the distinction between ekporeuesthai and proeinai was not made in Latin theology, which used the same term, procedere, to denote both realities. Is this enough to explain the insistence of the Latin tradition on the Filioque? Saint Maximus the Confessor seems to think so. For him the Filioque was not heretical because its intention was to denote not the ekporeuesthai but the proeinai of the Spirit.
This remains a valid point, although the subsequent history seems to have ignored it. The Vatican statement underlines this by referring to the fact that in the Roman Catholic Church today the Filioque is omitted whenever the Creed is used in its Greek original which contains the word ekporeuesthai.

(Sorry, I do not know how to include the Greek characters.)

This is only one point which the Metropolitan addresses. As you can see it is anything but cut and dry. I encourage to read the whole document. But for now I will ask again: If because of language difficulties we do not know exactly what the other is saying, is it not rash judgment to accuse one another of heresy?

Redress? Please specify what did the Greeks add and or subtract form the Faith. What are our innovations and additions that need to be redressed?

I have never accused the Greeks adding or subtracting from the faith, rather I deny the charge that the Latins have. Nor have I said that any innovations of the Greeks need redress. My point was that if the Greeks thought that the alleged innovations or abuses of the Latins needed redress this should have been done as it was in the past, through an ecumenical council of all the Church's bishops and not by the unilateral anathema of Patriarch Michael.

We are not the only guardians of Orthodoxy. We never claimed that.

In 1054 you did. And today you disallow the possibility of the Latin bishops joining with the Greek to resolve the issue.

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