Origin The addition spread through Spain and Gaul before Rome adopted it, and it was defended at the Councils of Lyons and of Florence as a clarification rather than a change.
Filioque is the Latin for and the Son. Added in the West to the clause of the Nicene Creed on the procession of the Holy Spirit, it states that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from a single principle. The addition spread through Spain and Gaul before Rome adopted it, and it was defended at the Councils of Lyons and of Florence as a clarification rather than a change. The Eastern churches object both to the doctrine and to the unilateral alteration of a creed a council had settled. The Eastern Catholic churches, though in communion with Rome, generally recite the Creed without the clause.
Facts
Disputed
Point in DisputeThe Eastern churches object both to the doctrine and to the unilateral alteration of a creed a council had settled, and the two objections are separable. 3 Filioque, Latin for and the Son, was added in the Western church to the Nicene Creed's clause on the procession of the Holy Spirit, so that the Creed states the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle; the addition spread through Spain and Gaul before Rome itself adopted it, and was defended at the Councils of Lyons and Florence as a clarification of the original meaning rather than a change to it. John Meyendorff's survey of Orthodox theology records that the Eastern churches object on two separable grounds: to the doctrine itself, on the theological ground that it compromises the Father's unique role as sole source within the Trinity, and independently to the unilateral manner of the addition, altering a creed a universal council had already settled without convening a comparable council to approve the change. The Eastern Catholic churches, though in full communion with Rome, generally recite the Creed without the clause, which is itself evidence that the dispute has not been theologically closed even within the Catholic communion. It remains open because it combines a substantive trinitarian question with a procedural one about ecumenical authority, and resolving one does not resolve the other. Origins
Origin PeriodThe addition spread through Spain and Gaul before Rome adopted it, and it was defended at the Councils of Lyons and of Florence as a clarification rather than a change. 2 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteThe Eastern Catholic churches, though in communion with Rome, generally recite the Creed without the clause. 4 Belief
SubjectSourced to the subject's own accountThe nature of the divine 1 Status
Status Within the TraditionDefined and binding within this tradition 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism Status Within the TraditionRejected, or not held, within this tradition 3Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy Position Profile
Key TextSourced to the subject's own accountThe clause of the Nicene Creed on the procession of the Holy Spirit, to which the Latin word for and the Son was added in the West. 1 Learn More
Photius, Florence, and a Word Still Under Discussion
The filioque names one Latin word, meaning and the Son, added to the Nicene Creed's line on the Holy Spirit's procession from the Father. Rome added it locally between the sixth and eleventh centuries to defend the Son's full divinity against Arian holdouts in Visigothic Spain, then let it spread until it was sung in Rome itself by the eleventh century. The word was never approved by an ecumenical council, and the East heard the addition as both theologically wrong and procedurally illegitimate, a unilateral change to a text the whole church had agreed together.
Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, made the fullest ninth century case against it, arguing the Latin wording collapsed the Father's unique role as the Spirit's sole origin and left the Trinity's persons badly distinguished. The dispute hardened across the centuries that followed and stood beside jurisdiction as one of the two issues named at the 1054 break between Rome and Constantinople.
The Council of Florence in 1439 tried to close it by union. Greek and Latin delegates agreed a formula treating filioque as compatible with the Greek fathers if read a certain way, and the union was proclaimed. It did not hold. Returning Greek bishops repudiated it under public pressure, and Florence is remembered in the East less as a reconciliation than as a coerced signature reversed at home.
Modern dialogue has moved further than either side moved before. In 1995 the Vatican's own study document conceded that Rome need not require the word from Orthodox Christians and that the original creed without it remains the fuller common text, a position several Anglican and Old Catholic bodies had already reached by dropping the word outright.
The Line the Two Formulas Draw
The dispute is not simply about adding a word, it is about what the addition claims. The original Greek creed said the Spirit proceeds from the Father, using a single verb, ekporeuomenon, that both traditions agree names the Spirit's ultimate origin. The Latin addition has the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son as from one single principle, treating Father and Son together as one shared source. Photius, writing his Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit in the ninth century, argued this collapses the Father's unique role as sole origin of the other two persons and leaves the three persons of the Trinity poorly distinguished from one another, since two of them would now share the very same causal role. Rome and much of the West have preferred instead to say the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, a formula many Eastern theologians accept as compatible with their own, since it keeps the Father alone as source while still giving the Son a real part in the Spirit's eternal procession. A 2003 agreed statement from the North American Orthodox Catholic Theological Consultation concluded the two formulas can be read as complementary rather than contradictory, provided filioque is understood in that through the Son sense and never as naming a second source standing beside the Father.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Affirmation Of
Double procession affirmed, the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.
Belongs to Tradition
Sources
1. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
First Council of Constantinople, 381the holders' own accountView the Source 2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source 3. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
4. The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey
Early Christian Creeds, 3rd edition
J. N. D. Kelly, Longman, 1972on the addition of the Filioque to the Creed in the Western churchView the Source Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition
Holy See, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997paragraphs 246 to 248, on the Filioque and the procession of the Holy Spiritthe holders' own accountView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.