[quote:1raclirn]Sounds like one of those famously skewed Catholic Encyclopedia articles to me. (Surely, everyone’s aware that it has a rather pro-RC bias?) [/quote:1raclirn]

You find an unbias source and I’ll give you a dollar. James it is beginning to irk me that we are getting responses like it’s bias, he’s not authoritative (Kalistos), your not understanding (Orthodox Official website), that isn’t a proper source, etc. I asked Augustine early on to give us links to proper sources so we can understand.

[quote:1raclirn]I don’t think that any honest Church historian, east or west, would agree that this quote is even vaguely true. The filioque was invented in the west, inserted into the Creed in the west (at Toledo), and was condemned in the east (and west) at our Eighth Ecumenical Council. It was also opposed vehemently by various Popes between the time of its first insertion into the Creed and it’s final acceptance in Rome – for several hundred years! [/quote:1raclirn]

You must have skipped over the eastern fathers I quoted. Do you not recognize these fathers? BTW, I could have easily quoted the new wave of Protestant scholars that clearly see Peter as the Rock. Would this have weighed heavy on you James? You probably wouldn’t have cared because proper sources can only be found in the Orthodox Church, right? Seriously James, why am I having such difficulty in finding a unified stance on things with you guys? I am not denying that you can’t find it in the OC, I’m simply saying that it’s difficult to find. Even among the 3 of you guys when things like abortion and contraceptives comes up it tends to get fuzzy and I went to men like Kalistos and the Russian Orthodox Church to view the stance on those things. It seems like it’s still in the development phase.

[quote:1raclirn]No Eastern Father that I’m aware of ever taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Son. [/quote:1raclirn]

Did you ever get an opportunity to look into the fathers I quoted?

[quote:1raclirn]To do so would be to directly contradict Scripture. The aspect of the problem that always seems to go over the heads of the RCs is that in the Creed, the ‘proceed’ is referring to eternal origins, not temporal mission. Eastern Fathers have, indeed, taught that the Holy Spirit was sent into the world, in time, by the Son. This is sometimes expressed by the phrase ‘through the Son’. This however, cannot ever be accepted as an addition to the Creed, because it talks of temporal rather than eternal processionl. Now, I can’t tell if your Chuch still teaches a double eternal procession of the Holy Spirit as I get contradictory answers whenever I ask people about this, but it certainly did once. Reading an older catechism, I found it explicitly stated that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and Son as of one principle. It is that doctrine that we oppose as heretical and that no Eastern Father has ever come close to supporting and it is that doctrine that was presupposed (and is the only way to read it) when the filioque was inserted into the Creed. If the RCC no longer teaches this then someone needs to come out publicly and say so, because an awful lot of RCs say this is still current teaching, and if you don’t believe in dual procession any more then there is really no reason to have the filioque in the Creed at all. This is why I say that it appears the RCC doesn’t really care about the filioque any more and, if you were serious about reunification with the Orthodox you ought to be willing to return to the original wording of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.[/quote:1raclirn]

Can you give me an example of how our understanding of the Trinity has distorted our theology? I am still baffled at to why you guys make this a dividing issue.

~Victor