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#5204
Anonymous
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[quote:pjhcivln]From what I know the pope is not over ecumenical councils. That’s my understanding.[/quote:pjhcivln]

It’s not what I’ve heard from some other RCs, but you may be right. I have been told before that the Pope is above Ecumenical Councils and that no council can be Ecumenical unless the Pope says so. I, clearly, would disagree.

If your understanding is correct, however, how do you account for the fact that the Pope added the flioque to the Creed unilaterally in opposition to the Second Ecumenical Council’s general ban on additions and the specific ban on the filioque addition made by a council accepted as Ecumenical by one of his predecessors? Surely his actions claim, practically, an authority over the Ecumenical Councils (and his predecessors in the Papacy) even if he had no rightful claim to such authority (as we would contend)?

For us to accept the filioque two things would have to happen. First the RCC would need to reunify with us (which would at least require a rejection of papal supremacy and the filioque) and then another Ecumenical Council would have to be called at which the Creed was altered to incorporate (or at least allow) the filioque. I can’t see this happening, myself, but there will certainly be no reunion while the RCC insists that the filioque insertion is legitimate and justified in the [i:pjhcivln]current [/i:pjhcivln]Creed.

By the way (and this is to anyone here), why is it that when RCs recite the Creed in Greek they do so without the filioque? It’s always seemed to me that if you are genuine in your wish for reconciliation it would be a simple matter for you to drop the insistance on the filioque. If you don’t always use it, you don’t seem (to me) to care too much about it, whereas for us it’s a major issue.

James