Replies

Well, the Catholic Church has never imposed the Eastern Catholic Church to include the filioque in the creed

That is not true. It is only recently (check Internet sites) that Eastern Catholics and Melkites have dropped the filioque.

The truth is that the Orthodox party wanted to have an excuse to separate from Rome

That's pathetic. You have no proof of such a claim, because there isn't one. I really don't think you know the detailed history of the Church in the first millennium.

and accused Rome of a meaningless theological accusation

You also do not understand the issue of filioque. But as I said, that's another thread.

These are few citations from the Latin and Greek fathers of the Church that say the same thing and support the filioque

Not as regards His {the Holy Spirit's] existence.

You also do not understand the difference between the His Origin and his precedence as manifested in Divine Economy of our salvation.

The Fathers were speaking of the latter. You are mixing apples and oranges because you don't understand what filioque means. The Fathers understood it. That's obvious from their writing. They did not talk about His eternal coming into existence, which is from the Father alone.

The Popes have done what they could to help the Orthodox from the Turks and the communist.

By establishing the Latin Empire in Constantinople, or by encouraging and supporting Maria Theresa of Austria to create what you now insist on calling "Eastern Catholic" churches, or by beatifying cardinal Stepinac of Croatia?

Thanks would be appropriate if what the Popes offered was truly help. Thanks were expressed for returning the relics of two saints by JPII.

Unlike you and some other members of your Church, who may be actually on the periphery of it, most of the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are content with putting the past behind us and seeking fraternal recognition of one and the same Church in each other, but without confusion or absorption.

You may find it quite joyful to do the same. I hope you do. I will now end my dialog with you on this positive note, in hopes that we can meet next time as brothers and not as adversaries.

Kosta50, this is what Orthodox Bishops are saying right now on the filioque issue.

*****
Today many Eastern Orthodox bishops are putting aside old prejudices and again acknowledging that there need be no separation between the two communions on this issue. Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware (formerly Timothy Ware), who once adamantly opposed the filioque doctrine, states: "The filioque controversy which has separated us for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote [my book] The Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study, that the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases than in any basic doctrinal differences" (Diakonia, quoted from Elias Zoghby’s A Voice from the Byzantine East, 43).
******

As you see, it is necessary humble study to understand the things. But, of course you think to understand this issue even better than those Orthodox bishops who are sincerly trying to understand it!!!

About again the correct interpretation of filioque is quite evident that the Catholic Church has never intended that the the Holy Spirit's "existence" derives from the Son as if the Son is a second "Archai" in the Trinity.

Nothing could be clearer than that the theologians of the West never had any idea of teaching a double source of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Divine Monarchy was always intended to be preserved, and while in the heat of the controversy sometimes expressions highly dangerous, or at least clearly inaccurate, may have been used, yet the intention must be judged from the prevailing teaching of the approved theologians. And what this was is evident from the definition of the Council of Florence, which, while indeed it was not received by the Eastern Church, and therefore cannot be accepted as an authoritative exposition of its views, yet certainly must be regarded as a true and full expression of the teaching of the West. "The Greeks asserted that when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, they do not use it because they wish to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them, as they say, that the Latins assert the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son, as from two principles and by two spirations, and therefore they abstain from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But the Latins affirm that they have no intention when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to deprive the Father of his prerogative of being the fountain and principle of the entire Godhead, viz. of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; nor do they deny that the very procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, the Son derives from the Father; nor do they teach two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is one only principle, one only spiration, as they have always asserted up to this time."

This further prove the importance of humble study and carefully listening.

The question of Filioque is nothing that a misconception