13.

 What understanding of the filioque do you derive from this chapter?

            First, the filioque interpolation should have never been inserted into the Creed as it revises the words of Christ in John 15:26, yet the words of Christ and Scripture cannot be revised. Moreover, as noted above, the Ecumenical Councils specifically forbade that any changes should ever be made in the Creed, and if it ever seemed that an addition should be necessary, then the only competent institution empowered with such authority was another Ecumenical Council. The Greed is the common treasure of the entire Church, and no individual part of the Church has the right to modify an ecumenical document by its own judgment in such a way as Rome did. The Roman Church, in its arbitrary alteration of the Creed without the consent of the East, committed what one writer described as moral fratricide — that is, Rome is guilty of a sin against the unity of the Church. (For this reason and others, some do not think that it is insignificant that the word amor [love] spelled backwards is Roma). As the scholarly Blessed Theophylact of Ochrid noted in the twelfth century, no doctrine could ever be viewed as correct just because it had been declared true by the pope, not even if the Latins “shake the keys of the kingdom in our faces.” The textual corruption of the Creed approved by the papal throne was unlawful. Theological objections aside, the addition lacked both biblical and ecumenical authority.

            Secondly, from the theological standpoint, the filioque addition is untrue. Christ's words clearly indicate that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26). On this basis, it is incorrect to state that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son. Rome's addition of a word is not an abstruse theological issue, but one with far-reaching consequences in other areas since the filioque addition destroys the balance between the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. It also leads to an erroneous understanding of the Holy Spirit's function in the world, thus promoting a false doctrine of the Church.

            (The matter of the filioque addition to the Creed and how it profoundly affected Western theology for the worse will be fully developed in chapter 8, answers 6-7 and 9-14).