For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Ghost was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
How does this same creed reduce the Holy Ghost to a "junior partner"?
"We confess the three persons or hypostases of the Holy Trinity, the only God. Since their divine essence or nature is one, the three hypostases, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit possess all in common, except their personal or hypostatic properties:
- the property that distinguishes the Father is that He is unbegotten;
- the property that distinguishes the Son is that He is begotten of the Father;
- the property that distinguishes the Spirit is that He proceeds from the Father.
As St. Gregory the Theologian says: What is common to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit is the divinity or uncreated nature. (What is common to the Son and to the Holy Spirit is to have their origin form the Father.) The attribute proper to the Father is to be unbegotten, generation is proper to the Son and procession is proper to the Holy Spirit.
Likewise St. John Damascene says: The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all things, except for being unbegotten, for being begotten and for proceeding. The three hypostases differ from one another merely in these personal properties, but not in their essence."
So when the West unilaterally decided that the Holy Spirit can "proceed" from both the Father and the Son, it changed the essential personal characteristics of the Trinity.
Yes, the filioque very much reduces the status of the Holy Spirit. And it's wrong. And it was done without a council. And a council was how the Creed was formulated in the first place.