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"For many years [he does not say how many] the western Church has been divided in spiritual communion from the other four Patriarchates and has become alien to the Orthodox . . . So no Latin should be given communion unless he first declares that he will abstain from the doctrines and customs that separate him from us, and that he will be subject to the Canons of the Church, in union with the Orthodox."

So there appears to have been significant growth early on in separate directions, and this trend continues to this day. Western isolation bred pride and innovation. Khomiakov was right to stress fellowship as critical for unity.

An excellent article. As long as it is, I found myself wishing for more details from this excellent writer.

One can observe a continuity from the earliest patriarchs of the other four sees toward the dictatorial claims of the first Roman patriarch who claimed any sort of monarchical authority over them. They reacted with a certain amusement and contempt toward the attempted usurpation of power by the first Roman 'pope'. And this has held true ever since. Indeed, one wonders how the Latin popes had the nerve to press such claims.

For many centuries, the self-annointed Roman pope openly wielded and claimed such power only within his own domains, domains where were won and held by the secular power of the Roman state. Only the discretion in pressing the claims of authority over all Christendom by the Roman popes allowed any continuity of communion between East and West. It was only when the schism became open that the Latin pope expanded his dictatorial claims publicly and aggressively.

Of course, I do have a considerable sympathy for the Eastern position on the filioque. For me, it is simply a matter that the Father is the source of all.

I think our Roman friends don't worry much about being correct theologically, in this or in other matters. After all, they only need to get one pope to pronounce upon a matter and it becomes unassailable. They were wrong to magnify their false doctrine of filioque in their (correct) suppression with the Arian heretics of Spain. However, the prouncement of filioque was never previously required to deal with the heresy of Arianism so it was not vital on that occasion either. Instead, a local doctrinal pronouncement became the infallible doctrine of the entire Western church.

Ignorance and political expediency were the authors of the filioque. The East was entirely correct to reject it. The Latin church continues to press unscriptural and unhistoric claims, building upon the cracked foundation of the authority of Rome's 'pope'. Among many other unscriptural claims, we see the rise of Mary as a Co-Redemptrix, another Roman imposition of a barrier to a personal relationship with God. In the Roman tradition, one cannot reach God without the intervention of the pope and his minions. Soon, Mary will also be interposed between the believer and Christ. It's quite a gauntlet that the Roman believer must run before he has contact with Christ. The misfortune here is that the Roman believer is shorn of his birthright, namely, his personal access to our Saviour without the trappings of popes and priests and Mary.