(1204), were the real causes of the permanent estrangement. It is undeniable, however, that the Filioque question has always come The “Filioque” controversy. up to bar the way in any subsequent attempts at intercommunion. The theological question involved is a very small one, but it brings out clearly the opposing characteristics of Eastern and Western theology, and so has acquired an importance far beyond its own worth. The question is really one about the relations subsisting between the persons of the Trinity and their hypostatical properties. The Western Church affirms that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from” the Father and from the Son. It believes that the Spirit of the Father must be the Spirit of the Son also. Such a theory seems alone able to satisfy the practical instincts of the West, which did not concern itself with the metaphysical aspect of the Trinity, but with Godhead in its relation to redeemed humanity. The Eastern Church affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, and takes its stand on John XV. 26. The Eastern theologian thinks that the Western double procession degrades the Deity and destroys the perfection of the Trinity. The double procession, in his eyes, means two active principles (αἰτίαι) in the Deity, and it means also that there is a confusion between the hypostatical properties; a property possessed by the Father and distinctive of the First Person is attributed also to the Second. This is the theological, and there is conjoined with it an historical and moral dispute. The Easterns allege that the addition of the words Filioque was made, not only without authority, and therefore unwarrantably, but also for the purpose of forcing a rupture between East and West in the interests of the barbarian empire of the West.
Attempts at reconciliation were made from time to time afterwards, but were always wrecked on the two points of papal supremacy, when it meant the right to impose Western usages upon the East, and of the addition to the creed. First there was the negotiation between Pope Gregory IX. (1227–1241) and Germanus, patriarch of Attempts at reunion. Constantinople. The Roman conditions were practically recognition of papal jurisdiction, the use of unleavened bread and permission to omit Filioque if all books written against the Western doctrine were burnt. The patriarch refused the terms. Then, later in the 13th century, came negotiations under Innocent IV. and Clement IV., in which the popes proposed the same conditions as Gregory IX., with additions. These proposals were rejected by the Easterns, who regarded them as attempts to enforce new creeds on their church.
The negotiations at the council of Lyons (1274) were, strictly speaking, between the pope and the Byzantine emperor, and were more political than ecclesiastical. Michael Palaeologus ruled in Constantinople while Baldwin II., the last of the Latin emperors, was an exile in Europe. Palaeologus wished the pope to acknowledge his title to be emperor of the East, and in return promised submission to the papal supremacy and the union of the two churches on the pope’s own terms. This enforced union lasted only during the lifetime of the emperor. The only other attempt at union which requires to be mentioned is that made at the council of Florence. It was really suggested by the political weakness of the Byzantine empire and the dread of the approach of the Turks. John Palaeologus the emperor, Joseph the patriarch of Constantinople, and several Eastern bishops came to Italy and appeared at the council of Florence—the papal council, the rival of the council of Basel. As on former occasions the representatives of the East were at first deceived by false representations; they were betrayed into recognition of papal supremacy, and tricked into signing what could afterwards be represented as a submission to Western doctrine. The natural consequences followed—a repudiation of what had been done; and the Eastern bishops on their way home took care to make emphatic their ritualistic differences from Rome. Soon after came the fall of Constantinople, and with this event an end to the political reasons for the submission of the Orthodox clergy. Rome’s schemes for a union which meant an unconditional submission on the part of the Orthodox Church did not cease, however, but they were no longer attempted on a grand scale. Jesuit missionaries after the Reformation stirred up schisms in some parts of the Eastern Church, and in Austria, Poland and elsewhere large numbers of Orthodox Christians submitted, either willingly or under compulsion to the see of Rome (see Roman Catholic Church, section Uniat Oriental Churches).
Doctrines and Creeds.—The Eastern Church has no creeds in the modern Western use of the word, no normative summaries of what must be believed. It has preserved the older idea that a creed is an adoring confession of the church engaged in worship; and, when occasion called for more, the belief of the church was expressed more by way of public testimony than in symbolical books. Still the doctrines of the church can be gathered from these confessions of faith. The Eastern creeds may thus be roughly placed in two classes—the oecumenical creeds of the early undivided church, and later testimonies defining the position of the Orthodox Church of the East with regard to the belief of the Roman Catholic and of Protestant Churches. These testimonies were called forth mainly by the protest of Greek theologians against Jesuitism on the one hand, and against the reforming tendencies of the patriarch Cyril Lucaris on the other. The Orthodox Greek Church adopts the doctrinal decisions of the seven oecumenical councils, together with the canons of the Concilium Quinisextum or second Trullan council (692); and they further hold that all these definitions and canons are simply explanations and enforcements of the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan creed and the decrees of the first council of Nicaea. The first four councils settled the orthodox faith on the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation; the fifth supplemented the decisions of the first four. The sixth declared against Monothelitism; the seventh sanctioned the worship (δουλεία, not ἁληθινὴ λατρεία) of images; the council held in the Trullus (a saloon in the palace at Constantinople) supplemented by canons of discipline the doctrinal decrees of the fifth and sixth councils.
The Reformation of the 16th century was not without effect on the Eastern Church. Some of the Reformers, notably Melanchthon, expected to effect a reunion of Christendom by means of the Easterns, cherishing the same hopes as the modern Old Catholic divines and their English sympathizers. Melanchthon himself sent a The Reformation and the Orthodox Church. Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession to Joasaph, patriarch of Constantinople, and some years afterwards Jacob Andreae and Martin Crusius began a correspondence with Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, in which they asked an official expression of his opinions about Lutheran doctrine. The result was that Jeremiah answered in his Censura Orientalis Ecclesiae condemning the distinctive principles of Lutheranism.
The reformatory movement of Cyrillos Lucaris (q.v.), patriarch of Constantinople (1621), brought the Greek Church face to face with Reformation theology. Cyril conceived the plan of reforming the Eastern Church by bringing its doctrines into harmony with those of Calvinism, and by sending able young Greek theologians to Switzerland, Holland and England to study Protestant theology. His scheme of reform was opposed chiefly by the intrigues of the Jesuits, who in the end brought about his death. The church anathematized his doctrines, and in its later testimonies repudiated his confession on the one hand and Jesuit ideas on the other. The most important of these testimonies are (1) the Orthodox confession or catechism of Peter Mogilas, confirmed by the Eastern patriarchs and by the synod of Jerusalem (1643), and (2) the decree of the synod of Jerusalem or the confession of Dositheus (1672). Besides these, the catechisms of the Russian Church should be consulted, especially the catechism of Philaret, which since 1839 has been used in all the churches and schools in Russia. Founding on these doctrinal sources the teaching of the Orthodox Eastern Church is[1]:—
- ↑ This summary has been taken, with corrections, from G. B. Winer, Comparative Darstellung des Lehrbegriffs der verschiedenen Kirchenparteien (Leipzig, 1824, Eng. tr., Edin., 1873). Small capitals denote differences from Roman Catholic, italics differences from Protestant doctrine.
