misfortune is that, whereas they can, and do, absolutely refuse to acknowledge our claims, they cannot help acknowledging such changes as these new national Churches, which really are opposed to the organization left by their seven councils. The Roman Patriarch, then, if he repented, would have a sort of primacy of honour, as well as real jurisdiction over his own Western lands. As it is at present, he has nothing. He is the head of a heretical Church, no more to be taken into account than the Armenian, Coptic, or Jacobite Patriarchs.[1] It is only if he turns Orthodox that he may again be counted in the Pentarchy, and then, indeed, there would be joy among the angels, for the lost star would be restored to the Orthodox firmament.
3. The Filioque.
The Filioque is still the great shibboleth. This is the most noxious of Latin heresies; one shudders to think what rivers of ink have flowed because of this question since Photius's happy thought of making this grievance against us. Nevertheless we must now say something about it. The accusation against us is twofold, first, that we believe and teach heresy on this point; secondly, that we have tampered with the Creed by inserting the word, and have thereby incurred the anathema pronounced by the Council of Ephesus. When looking back on this long and bitter controversy one realizes most of all that the question, one way or the other, has never yet affected the piety or the practical faith of any human being. We all adore one God in three Persons, we all worship the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Lifegiver, who with the Father and Son is adored and glorified. Has any one ever, when praying to the great Spirit of God, stopped to consider and to be influenced by so high and dark a
- ↑ At least, that would be the consistent theory. But it is always hopeless to look for consistency in Orthodox theology. They have never attempted to let up a rival Orthodox Roman Patriarch (the position of such a person with regard to Constantinople is a fascinating speculation), as they have rival Patriarchs in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine, and generally they practically acknowledge the Pope as head of the Western Church and legitimate first Patriarch, and they really only complain of his universal claim.
