Posted on 11/23/2025 3:29:19 PM PST by ebb tide
Pope Leo XIV has issued a new Apostolic Letter titled In unitate fidei (“In the Unity of Faith”), calling Christians to renewed "dialogue" and "unity".
Released on Sunday to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, the document contains the usual word salad about "shared foundations" of the Christian faith. Next Friday, Leo XIV and the controversial Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew will visit Nicaea, near today’s Iznik in Turkey.
Credo in pluralitatem Ecclesiarum
In the new letter, Leo XIV writes that Christian unity is not about “returning” to the past, but about “an ecumenism that looks to the future, that seeks reconciliation through dialogue.”
He even speaks - contrary to the Faith in the ONE Church founded by Christ - of a “current status quo of the diversity of Churches and ecclesial communities.”
Leo XIV continues: “We must therefore leave behind theological controversies that have lost their raison d’être in order to develop a common understanding and, even more, a common prayer to the Holy Spirit, so that he may gather us all together in one faith and one love.”
The Silent Disappearance of the Filioque
The Apostolic Letter presents the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as prayed by the schismatic Orthodox, omitting the Filioque: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.”
The manipulative Footnote 10 says that “the statement ‘and proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque)’ is not found in the text of Constantinople; it was inserted into the Latin Creed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014 and is a subject of Orthodox–Catholic dialogue.”
Necessary History Left out by the Footnote
Three synods of Toledo (400, 447, 589) approved the Creed stating that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” It was ordered to be sung in the liturgy, becoming standard in the Mozarabic rite. From there it spread into Gallican liturgy. In 809, Charlemagne convened a synod in Aachen, Germany where theologians—especially Theodulf of Orléans—defended the Filioque as an integral part of the Christian faith.
Rome had the same doctrine but did not pray the Creed during Mass at all. In 1014, Emperor Henry II came to Rome to be crowned and was surprised that no Creed was sung at Mass there. Therefore, Pope Benedict VIII introduced the Nicene Creed with the Filioque into the Roman liturgy.
The theology behind the Filioque
The Filioque remains the necessary and fitting expression of the inner relationship of the Holy Trinity: the Son receives the entire divine essence from the Father, including the Father’s eternal spiration of the Holy Spirit.
Christ indicated this in John 16, stating that the Spirit “will take from what is Mine.”
Ping
If they can remove the filioque they can remove basically any teaching.
It’s been this way with the Orthodox since the 1960s. This is not a big deal.
There is ignorance on both sides here. In the West, there is ignorance among the common laity about the fact that filioque was added to the text of the Creed in the West. While in the East there is ignorance about what it means, and the fact that there were Greek bishops in the early Middle Ages who believed in the filioque. An Orthodox Freeper even challenged me on that last point until I posted the proof.
Eastern Catholics do not include the filioque in the Creed, and neither do the Orthodox.
From a bilingual Ukrainian/English missalette (with the Ukrainian text in the Latin alphabet):
I v Dukha sviataho, Hospoda, zhyvotvoriaschaho, izhe ot Ottsa i Syna iskhodiaschado
"and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son"
The last word should read iskhodiaschaho.
I am Orthodox and sometimes attend a Byzantine Catholic Church and they don’t include the filioque. From that I thought this was the general practice among Eastern Catholics.
So does this mean that the filioque is going to be removed from Western rite liturgies?
Who knows?
Anything goes in Bergoglio’s “Sin-Nodal church”.
No, I don’t recall seeing that but similar things have been going on for decades. Eastern Catholics should stick to the creed they always knew.
“So does this mean that the filioque is going to be removed from Western rite liturgies?”
Unlikely.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.