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11
build.py
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@ -64,11 +64,6 @@ def main():
article.append(page_content)
page.article.replace_with(article)
# Rewrite links with markdown extensions
for a in page.css.select("a[href]"):
if a["href"].endswith(".md"):
a["href"] = a["href"][:-3] + ".html"
# Inject path into the nav
for i in range(len(dirpath.parts)):
a = page.new_tag("a")
@ -105,12 +100,6 @@ def main():
p.append(a)
page.header.append(p)
if meta_comment := meta.get("comment"):
for comment in meta_comment:
aside = page.new_tag("aside")
aside.string = comment
page.header.append(aside)
# Write the fully templated page
print("Writing ", dest)
dest.write_text(str(page))

21
src/.template.html
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@ -18,22 +18,6 @@ header .metadata {
font-size: small;
margin-block: 0;
}
header aside {
margin: 1em;
font-size: smaller;
font-style: italic;
}
header aside::before {
content: "/* ";
}
header aside::after {
content: " */"
}
header::after {
content: "";
display: block;
border-top: 1px solid gray;
}
h1 {
line-height: 1em;
}
@ -52,6 +36,11 @@ sup {
:target {
background: palegoldenrod;
}
header::after {
content: "";
display: block;
border-top: 1px solid gray;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

123
src/page/ecumen/cdf-1997-zoghby.md
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@ -1,123 +0,0 @@
---
title: Letter from Rome on Zoghby Proposal
date: 1997-06-11
author: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
source: https://orthocath.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/1997_letter_from_rome_on_zoghby_initiative-11.pdf
---
**Congregation for the Eastern Churches Prot. No. 251/75**
**June 11, 1997**
**His Beatitude Maximos V HAKIM**
**Greek-Melkite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch and of all the East, of Alexandria and of Jerusalem**
Your Beatitude,
Word of the project for a rapprochement between the Greek-Melkite Catholic Patriarchate and
the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch has been widely noted and given rise to much public
discussion.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and
the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity have striven to familiarize themselves and examine
with care those aspects that lie within their respective competence; the heads of these Dicasteries
have further been charged by the Holy Father to share some observations with Your Beatitude.
The Holy See follows with great interest and wishes to encourage initiatives that could ease the
way to a complete reconciliation of the Christian Churches. It recognizes the imperatives behind
the decades-long effort of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Patriarchate aimed at promoting the
realization of this sought-for fullness of communion. The Code of Canon Law for the Eastern
Churches recognizes in this a duty for every Christian (Can. 902), that becomes for the Eastern
Catholic Churches a special munus (Can. 903), to be pursued according to "*normis specialibus*
*iuris particularis moderante eundem motum Sede Apostolica Romana pro universa Ecclesia*"
["by the special norms of particular law, the Apostolic Roman See directing the movement for
the entire Church"] (Can. 904).
This is all the more valid for two communities that see themselves as especially tied to one
another from their common origin and shared ecclesial tradition, as well as through a long
experience of joint initiatives, placing them without a doubt in a privileged state of closeness.
It is the wish of the Church that appropriate ways and means be found to proceed in future along
the path of fraternal agreement, and through the assistance of new forms that would allow the
further realization of progress towards full communion.
Your Patriarchate, in pursuing such goals, is spurred by the sensitivity, the situational
understanding, and the experience that are uniquely its own. The Holy See intends to aid this
process through the formulation of a few observations that it believes could contribute to a future
furthering of the initiative.
The responsible Dicasteries broadly welcome joint pastoral initiatives between Catholics and
Orthodox, undertaken as proposed in the Directory for the Application of the Principles and
Norms on Ecumenism, most particularly in the fields of Christian formation, education, common
charitable endeavours, and shared prayer when this is possible.
Specifically with respect to theological heritage, one must proceed with patience and prudence,
and without precipitation, in order to assist both parties in following a shared path.
A first dimension of this sharing concerns the language and categories used in the dialogue: one
has to apply the greatest care that the common use of a word, or of a concept, not lend itself to
differing points of view or interpretations of a historical or doctrinal nature, nor to any form of
over simplification.
A second dimension necessitates that the sharing of the contents of the dialogue not be limited
solely to the two direct interlocutors, the Greek-Melkite Catholic and Orthodox Antiochian
Patriarchates, but that it should also implicate the wider Confessions with which the two
Patriarchates are in full communion: the Catholic Communion for the former, and the Orthodox
Communion for the latter. The Orthodox ecclesiastical authorities in the Patriarchate of Antioch
have, in any case, highlighted analogous concerns. This more comprehensive participation would
also help ensure that initiatives aimed at promoting full communion at the local level do not give
rise to misunderstandings or suspicions, even with the best of intentions.
Let us now turn to the terms of the profession of faith of his Excellence Mgr. Elias Zoghby,
Greek-Melkite Catholic Archbishop emeritus of Baalbeck, signed in February 1995, and to
which many prelates of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Synod have subscribed.
It is evident that this Patriarchate forms an integral part of the Christian East whose patrimony it
shares. With respect to the declaration on the part of Greek-Melkite Catholics of complete
adherence to the teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy, one must keep in mind the fact that the
Orthodox Churches are today not yet in full communion with the Church of Rome, and that this
adherence is thus not possible so long as there is not from both sides an identity of professed and
practiced faith. Furthermore, a correct formulation of the faith requires reference not only to a
particular Church, but to the whole of the Church of Christ that is limited in neither space nor
time.
With respect to communion with the Bishops of Rome, one must not forget that doctrine relating
to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff has been the subject of some development within the
elaboration of the Church's faith through the ages, and that it must thus be upheld in its entirety
from its origins all the way to the present day. One need only reflect on what the First Vatican
Council affirms and on what has been declared at the Second Vatican Council, particularly in
NN. 22 and 23 of the Dogmatic Constitution *Lumen Gentium* and in N. 2 of the Decree on
Ecumenism *Unitatis Redintegratio*.
As to the ways in which the Petrine ministry could be exercised today, an issue distinct from that
of doctrine, it is true that the Holy Father has recently reminded us all how it is possible to
"seek—together, of course—the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love
recognized by all concerned" (*Ut unum sint*, 95): but while it is also legitimate to approach the
issue at the local level, there is a duty to do so always in communion with a view to the universal
Church. In this regard, it would in any case be appropriate to recall that "the Catholic Church,
both in her *praxis* and in her solemn documents, holds that the communion of the particular
Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome, is—in God's
plan—an essential requisite of full and visible communion" (*Ut unum sint*, 97).
As to the various aspects of *communio in sacris*, an ongoing dialogue will have to be maintained
in order to explore the rationale underlying the respective norms currently in effect, and this in
light of the theological assumptions that underlie them; in this way premature unilateral
initiatives or eventual outcomes that would not have pondered sufficiently might be avoided:
these could lead to significant negative consequences, including with respect to other Eastern
Catholics, most especially to those living within the same region.
All in all, the fraternal dialogue pursued by the Greek-Melkite Patriarchate will contribute all the
more to the path of ecumenism insofar as it strives to include in the development of new
sensibilities the whole Catholic Church to which it belongs. There is a good basis for believing
that Orthodoxy also shares this concern, and this largely also in consideration of the
requirements for communion within its own body.
The Dicasteries concerned are ready to offer their collaboration in furthering this exchange of
reflections and clarifications; they further express their satisfaction with the meetings held so far
on this subject with representatives of the Greek-Melkite Catholic Church, and both hope and
wish to see these exchanges maintained and deepened in future.
Fully recognizing that Your Beatitude will wish to share these reflections, please accept the
expression of our fraternal and cordial regards.
Joseph Card. Ratzinger
Achille Card. Silvestrini
Edward Card. Cassidy

97
src/page/ecumen/cdf-2000-sister.md
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@ -1,97 +0,0 @@
---
title: Note on the expression «Sister Churches»
date: 2000-06-30
author: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
source: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000630_chiese-sorelle_en.html
---
## A. LETTER TO THE PRESIDENTS OF THE CONFERENCES OF BISHOPS
*Your Eminence (Your Excellency):*
In recent years, the attention of this Congregation has been directed to problems arising from the use of the phrase «sister Churches,» an expression which appears in important documents of the Magisterium, but which has also been employed in other writings, and in the discussions connected with the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. It is an expression that has become part of the common vocabulary to indicate the objective bond between the Church of Rome and Orthodox Churches.
Unfortunately, in certain publications and in the writings of some theologians involved in ecumenical dialogue, it has recently become common to use this expression to indicate the Catholic Church on the one hand and the Orthodox Church on the other, leading people to think that in fact the one Church of Christ does not exist, but may be re-established through the reconciliation of the two sister Churches. In addition, the same expression has been applied improperly by some to the relationship between the Catholic Church on the one hand, and the Anglican Communion and non-catholic ecclesial communities on the other. In this sense, a «theology of sister Churches» or an «ecclesiology of sister Churches» is spoken of, characterized by ambiguity and discontinuity with respect to the correct original meaning of the expression as found in the documents of the Magisterium.
In order to overcome these equivocations and ambiguities in the use and application of the expression «sister Churches,» the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has judged it necessary to prepare the enclosed *Note on the Expression «Sister Churches»* which was approved by Pope John Paul II in the Audience of June 9, 2000. The indications contained in this *Note* are, therefore, to be held as authoritative and binding, although the *Note* will not be published in official form in the *Acta Apostolicae Sedis*, given its limited purpose of specifying the correct theological terminology on this subject.
In providing you with a copy of this document, the Congregation asks you to kindly communicate the concerns and specific indications expressed therein to your Conference of Bishops and especially to the Commission or Office entrusted with ecumenical dialogue, so that the publications and other texts of the Episcopal Conference and its various offices will carefully abide by what is established in the *Note*.
With gratitude for your assistance and with prayerful best wishes, I remain
<div style="text-align: center" markdown="1">
Sincerely yours in Christ,
+**Joseph Card. Ratzinger**
*Prefect*
</div>
## B. TEXT OF THE NOTE
1\. The expression *sister Churches* occurs often in ecumenical dialogue, above all, in the dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, and is the object of continuing study by both parties. While there is certainly a legitimate use of this expression, an ambiguous use has become prevalent in contemporary writings on ecumenism. In conformity with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and the post-conciliar Papal Magisterium, it is therefore appropriate to recall the correct and proper use of this expression. It is helpful to begin with a brief historical outline.
### I. The origin and development of the expression
2\. The expression *sister Churches* does not appear as such in the New Testament; however, there are numerous indications of the sisterly relations which existed among the local Churches of Christian antiquity. The New Testament passage which most explicitly reflects this awareness is the final sentence of the Second Letter of John: «The sons of your elect sister send you their greetings» (*2 Jn* 13). These are greetings sent by one ecclesial community to another; the community which sends the greetings calls itself the sister of the other.
3\. In Christian literature, the expression begins to be used in the East when, from the fifth century, the idea of the *Pentarchy* gained ground, according to which there are five Patriarchs at the head of the Church, with the Church of Rome having the first place among these *patriarchal sister Churches*. In this connection, however, it needs to be noted that no Roman Pontiff ever recognized this equalization of the sees or accepted that only a primacy of honour be accorded to the See of Rome. It should be noted too that this patriarchal structure typical of the East never developed in the West.
As is well known, the divergences between Rome and Constantinople led, in later centuries, to mutual excommunications with «consequences which, as far as we can judge, went beyond what was intended and foreseen by their authors, whose censures concerned the persons mentioned and not the Churches, and who did not intend to break the ecclesial communion between the sees of Rome and Constantinople.»[^1]
[^1]: Paul VI and Athenagoras I, Joint Declaration Pénétrés de reconnaissance (7-12-65), 3: AAS 58 (1966), 20. The excommunications were mutually lifted in 1965: «Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I in his Synod...declare by mutual agreement...to regret and to remove from memory and from the midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication» (ibid.,4); cf. also Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Ambulate in dilectione (7-12-65): AAS 58 (1966), 40-41; Athenagoras I, Patriarchal Τόμoς (7-12-65): ΤΟΜΟΣ ΑΓΑΠΗΣVatican-Phanar (1958-1970), 129 (Vatican Polyglot Press: Rome-Istanbul, 1971), 290-294.
4\. The expression appears again in two letters of the Metropolitan Nicetas of Nicodemia (in the year 1136) and the Patriarch John X Camaterus (in office from 1198 to 1206), in which they protested that Rome, by presenting herself as *mother and teacher*, would annul their authority. In their view, Rome is only the first among *sisters* of equal dignity.
5\. In recent times, the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I, was the first to once again use the expression *sister Churches*. In welcoming the fraternal gestures and the call to unity addressed to him by John XXIII, he often expressed in his letters the hope of seeing the unity between the *sister Churches* re-established in the near future.
6\. The Second Vatican Council adopted the expression *sister Churches* to describe the relationship between particular Churches: «in the East there flourish many particular local Churches; among them the Patriarchal Churches hold first place, and of these, many glory in taking their origins from the apostles themselves. Therefore, there prevailed and still prevails among Eastern Christians an eager desire to perpetuate in a communion of faith and charity those family ties which ought to exist between local Churches, as between sisters.»[^2]
[^2]: second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 14.
7\. The first papal document in which the term *sisters* is applied to the Churches is the Apostolic Brief *Anno ineunte* of Paul VI to the Patriarch Athenagoras I. After having indicated his willingness to do everything possible to «re-establish full communion between the Church of the West and that of the East,» the Pope asked: «Since this mystery of divine love is at work in every local Church, is not this the reason for the traditional expression “sister Churches,” which the Churches of various places used for one another? For centuries our Churches lived in this way like sisters, celebrating together the ecumenical councils which defended the deposit of faith against all corruption. Now, after a long period of division and mutual misunderstanding, the Lord, in spite of the obstacles which arose between us in the past, gives us the possibility of rediscovering ourselves as sister Churches.»[^3]
[^3]: paul VI, Apostolic Brief Anno ineunte (25-7-67): AAS 59 (1967), 852, 853.
8\. The expression has been used often by John Paul II in numerous addresses and documents; the principal ones, in chronological order, are the following.
In the Encyclical *Slavorum Apostoli*: «For us they [Cyril and Methodius] are the champions and also the patrons of the ecumenical endeavour of the sister Churches of East and West, for the rediscovery through prayer and dialogue of visible unity in perfect and total communion.»[^4]
[^4]: john Paul II, Encyclical Letter Slavorum Apostoli (2-6-85), 27: AAS 77 (1985), 807.
In a Letter from 1991 to the Bishops of Europe: «Hence, with these Churches [the Orthodox Churches] relations are to be fostered as between sister Churches, to use the expression of Pope Paul VI in his Brief to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras I.»[^5]
[^5]: john Paul II, Letter to the Bishops of Europe on Relations between Catholics and Orthodox in the New Situation in Central and Eastern Europe (31-5-91), 4: AAS 84 (1992), 167.
In the Encyclical *Ut unum sint*, the theme is developed above all in number 56 which begins in this way: «Following the Second Vatican Council and in the light of earlier tradition, it has again become usual to refer to the particular or local Churches gathered around their Bishop as “sister Churches.” In addition, the lifting of the mutual excommunications, by eliminating a painful canonical and psychological obstacle, was a very significant step on the way toward full communion.» This section concludes by expressing the wish that the «traditional designation of “sister Churches” should ever accompany us along this path.» The topic is taken up again in number 60 of the Encyclical: «More recently, the joint international commission took a significant step forward with regard to the very sensitive question of the method to be followed in re-establishing full communion between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, an issue which has frequently embittered relations between Catholics and Orthodox. The commission has laid the doctrinal foundations for a positive solution to this problem on the basis of the doctrine of sister Churches.»[^6]
[^6]: john Paul II, Encyclical Letter Ut unum sint (25-5-95), 56 and 60: AAS 87 (1995), 954, 955, 957.
### II. Directives on the use of the expression
9. The historical references presented in the preceding paragraphs illustrate the significance which the expression *sister Churches* has assumed in the ecumenical dialogue. This makes the correct theological use of the term even more important.
10. In fact, in the proper sense, *sister Churches* are exclusively particular Churches (or groupings of particular Churches; for example, the Patriarchates or Metropolitan provinces) among themselves.[^7] It must always be clear, when the expression *sister Churches* is used in this proper sense, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Universal Church is not sister but *mother* of all the particular Churches.[^8]
[^7]: Cf. the texts of the Decree Unitatis redintegratio, 14, and the Apostolic Brief of Paul VI to Athenagoras I Anno ineunte, cited above in footnotes 2 and 3.
[^8]: Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Communionis notio (28-5-1992), 9: AAS 85 (1993), 843-844.
11. One may also speak of *sister Churches*, in a proper sense, in reference to particular Catholic and non-catholic Churches; thus the particular Church of Rome can also be called the *sister* of all other particular Churches. However, as recalled above, one cannot properly say that the Catholic Church is the *sister* of a particular Church or group of Churches. This is not merely a question of terminology, but above all of respecting a basic truth of the Catholic faith: that of the unicity of the Church of Jesus Christ. In fact, there is but a single Church,[^9] and therefore the plural term *Churches* can refer only to particular Churches.
[^9]: Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 8; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (24-6-73), 1: AAS 65 (1973), 396-398.
Consequently, one should avoid, as a source of misunderstanding and theological confusion, the use of formulations such as «*our two Churches*,» which, if applied to the Catholic Church and the totality of Orthodox Churches (or a single Orthodox Church), imply a plurality not merely on the level of particular Churches, but also on the level of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church confessed in the Creed, whose real existence is thus obscured.
12. Finally, it must also be borne in mind that the expression *sister Churches* in the proper sense, as attested by the common Tradition of East and West, may only be used for those ecclesial communities that have preserved a valid Episcopate and Eucharist.
*Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, June 30, 2000, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.*
<div style="text-align: center" markdown="1">
+**Joseph Card. Ratzinger**
*Prefect*
+**Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B.**
*Archbishop Emeritus of Vercelli*
*Secretary*
</div>

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src/page/ecumen/elpidophoros-2014-without-equals.md
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@ -1,60 +0,0 @@
---
title: First without equals: A response to the text on primacy of the Moscow Patriarchate
date: 2014-02-12
author: Metropolitan Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis) of Bursa
source: https://web.archive.org/web/20181029031019/https://www.patriarchate.org/-/primus-sine-paribus-hapantesis-eis-to-peri-proteiou-keimenon-tou-patriarcheiou-moschas-tou-sebasmiotatou-metropolitou-prouses-k-elpidophorou
---
In a recent synodal decision,[^1] the Church of Russia seems once again[^2] to choose its isolation from both the theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church and the communion of the Orthodox Churches. Two points are worth noting from the outset, which are indicative of the intent of the Church of Russia's Synod:
[^1]: Reading and citing from the English text, "Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church," as published on the official website of the Patriarchate of Moscow: [https://mospat.ru/en/2013/12/26/news96344/](https://mospat.ru/en/2013/12/26/news96344/)
[^2]: Characteristic examples of other instances of such isolation include the absence of the Patriarchate of Moscow from the Conference of European Churches, as well as the now established practice of the representatives of this Church to celebrate the Divine Liturgy separately from the other representatives of Orthodox Churches by enclosing themselves within the local Embassies of the Russian Federation whenever there is an opportunity for a Panorthodox Liturgy in various contexts.
**First**, its desire to undermine the text of Ravenna,[^3] by invoking seemingly theological reasons in order to justify the absence of its delegation from the plenary meeting of the joint commission (an absence dictated, as everyone knows, by other reasons[^4]); and
[^3]: His Eminence Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Messinia has dealt with this matter in a recent article published on December 30, 2013, on the website: [http://www.romfea.gr/diafora-ekklisiastika/21337-2013-12-30-03-52-35](http://www.romfea.gr/diafora-ekklisiastika/21337-2013-12-30-03-52-35).
[^4]: As for what exactly occurred in Ravenna in 2007, and the painful impressions recorded by Roman Catholic observers, see the analysis of Fr. Aidan Nichols in his book Rome and the Eastern Churches, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2nd edition, 2010, pp. 368-9: In October 2006 [sic], the commission resumed its discussions at Ravenna, though the event was marred by a ‘walkout' on the part of the Moscow patriarchate's representative. Bishop Hilarion's protest was caused not for once by the wrongdoings, real or imagined, of the Catholic Church but by the presence of a delegation from the Estonian Orthodox church, whose autocephaly (sic), underwritten by Constantinople, is still denied in Russia. His action demonstrated, of course, the need precisely for a strong universal primacy so as to balance synodality in the Church." And he continues: "[t]he decision of the Moscow patriarchate in October 2007 to withdraw its representatives from the Ravenna meeting… was not only an irritating impediment to that dialogue; it was precisely the sort of happening that makes Catholics think the orthodox need the pope as much as the pope needs them." (p. 369).
**Second**, to challenge in the most open and formal manner (namely, by synodal decree) the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate within the Orthodox world, observing that the text of Ravenna, on which all the Orthodox Churches agreed (with the exception, of course, of the Church of Russia), determines the primacy of the bishop on the three levels of ecclesiological structure in the Church (local, provincial, universal) in a way that supports and ensures the primacy and first-throne Orthodox Church.
The text of the position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the "problem" (as they call it) of Primacy in the universal Church does not deny either the sense or the significance of primacy; and up to this point, it is correct. In addition, however, it endeavors to achieve (indeed, as we shall see, in an indirect way) the introduction of two distinctions related to the concept of primacy.
**1. Separation between ecclesiological and theological primacy**
The first differentiation contrasts primacy as it applies to the life of the Church (ecclesiology) and as understood in theology. Thus the text of the Moscow Patriarchate is forced to adopt the unprecedented distinction between, on the one hand, the 'primary' primacy of the Lord and, on the other hand, the 'secondary' primacies of bishops ("various forms of primacy ... are secondary"), although later in the same document it will be suggested that the bishop is the image of Christ (cf 2:1), which seems to imply that the two primacies are univocal or at least analogous and not merely equivocal. Even the scholastic formulation of such distinctions between 'primary' and 'secondary' primacies demonstrates the stealthy contradiction.
Moreover, the intended separation of ecclesiology from theology (or Christology) would have adverse consequences for both. If the Church is indeed the Body of Christ and the revelation of the Trinitarian life, then we cannot talk about differences and artificial distinctions that shatter the unity of the mystery of the Church, which encapsulates the theological (in the narrow sense of the word) and Christological formulations alike. Otherwise, church life is severed from theology and is reduced to a dry administrative institution, while on the other hand a theology without correspondence in the life and structure of the Church becomes a sterile academic preoccupation. According to Metropolitan John of Pergamon: "The separation of the administrative institutions of the Church from dogma is not simply unfortunate; it is even dangerous."[^5]
[^5]: "The Synodal Institution: Historical, Ecclesiological and Canonical Issues," in Theologia 80 (2009), pp. 5-6. [In Greek]
**2. The separation of the different ecclesiological levels**
The second differentiation which in our opinion is attempted by the text of the Moscow Patriarchate pertains to the three ecclesiological levels in the structure of the Church. It is here, it seems, that the entire weight of that text hangs. The text states that the primacy of the local diocese is understood and institutionalized in one way, while on the regional level of an "autocephalous archdiocese" (autocephalous eparchial synod) it is understood in another, and on the level of the universal church in yet another way (cf. 3: "Due to the fact that the nature of primacy, which exists at various levels of church order [diocesan, local and universal] vary, the functions of the primus on various levels are not identical and cannot be transferred from one level to another").
As the Synodal decision claims, not only do these three primacies differ, but even their sources are different: the primacy of the local bishop stems from the apostolic succession (2:1), the primacy of the head of an autocephalous Church from his election by the synod (2:2), and the primacy of the head of the universal church from the rank attributed to him by the diptychs (3:3). Thus, as the text of the Moscow Patriarchate concludes, these three levels and their corresponding primacies are not commensurate, as the text of Ravenna takes them to be on the basis of the 34th Apostolic canon.
What is clearly apparent here is the agonizing effort in the present Synodal decision to render primacy as something external and therefore foreign to **the person of the primate**. This is what we consider to be the reason why the position of the Moscow Patriarchate insists so greatly on determining the sources of primacy, which always differ from the person of the *primus*, in such a way that the primate becomes the **recipient**, rather than the **source** of his primacy. Does perhaps this dependence also imply the autonomy of primacy? For the Church, an institution is always hypostasized in a person. We can never encounter an impersonal institution, as it would be if primacy were to be conceived independently of a primate. It should be clarified here that the primacy of the *primus* is also hypostasized by the specific place, the local Church, the geographical region over which the primate presides.[^6] It is important at this point to observe the following logical and theological contradictions:
[^6]: Thus, while the Patriarch of Antioch has for a long time resided in Damascus, he remains the Patriarch of Antioch since Damascus lies within the geographical jurisdiction of that church.
i) If the *primus* is a recipient of (his) primacy, then primacy exists without and regardless of him, which is impossible. This appears very clearly in the reasons proffered for the primacy on the regional and ecumenical levels. For the regional level, the source of the primacy is considered to be the eparchial synod; but can there be a synod without a *primus*? The dialectical relationship between the primate and *his* synod, as formulated by the 34th canon of the Apostles (as well as the 9th and 16th canons of Antioch, according to which a synod without a presiding hierarch is considered incomplete), is abrogated for the sake of a unilateral relationship where the many constitute the one, contradicting all reason that recognizes the one presiding hierarch both as the constitutive factor and guarantor of the unity of the many.[^7] A second example of logical contradiction is presented by the appeal to the Diptychs. Here the symptom is taken to be the cause and the signified mistaken for the signifier. The Diptychs are not the source of primacy on the interprovincial level but rather its expression – indeed, only one of its expressions. Of themselves, the Diptychs are an expression of the order and hierarchy of the autocephalous churches, but such a hierarchy requires the presiding *primus* (and then a second, a third, and so on); they cannot in some retrospective way constitute the primacy on which they themselves are based.
[^7]: Metropolitan John of Pergamon, "Recent Discussions on Primacy in Orthodox Theology," in the volume edited by Walter Cardinal Kasper, The Petrine Ministry: Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue, New York: The Newman Press, 2006, pp. 231-248. Also see Metropolitan John of Pergamon, "Eucharistic Ecclesiology in the Orthodox Tradition," Theologia 80 (2009), p. 23. [In Greek]
In order to understand this innovations more clearly, let us look for a moment at what all this would mean if we related and applied them to the life of the Holy Trinity, the true source of all primacy ("Thus says God, the king of Israel, the God of Sabaoth who delivered him; **I am the first**" Is. 44:6).[^8]
[^8]: I have personally dealt with this subject during a lecture at the Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston: "Indeed, in the level of the Holy Trinity the principle of unity is not the divine essence but the Person of the Father (‘Monarchy' of the Father), at the ecclesiological level of the local Church the principle of unity is not the presbyterium or the common worship of the Christians but the person of the Bishop, so to in the Pan-Orthodox level the principle of unity cannot be an idea nor an institution but it needs to be, if we are to be consistent with our theology, a person." ([http://www.ecclesia.gr/englishnews/default.asp?id=3986](http://www.ecclesia.gr/englishnews/default.asp?id=3986))
The Church has always and consistently understood the person of the Father as the first in the communion of persons of the Holy Trinity ("the monarchy of the Father")[^9]. If we were to follow the logic of the text of the Synod of Russia, we would also have to claim that God the Father is not Himself the anarchic cause of the divinity and fatherhood ("For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, after whom all paternity in heaven and on earth is named." Eph. 3.14-15), but becomes a recipient of his own "primacy." Whence? From the other Persons of the Holy Trinity? Yet how can we suppose this without invalidating the order of theology, as St. Gregory the Theologian writes, or, even worse, without overturning – perhaps we should say "confusing" – the relations of the Persons of the Holy Trinity? Is it possible for the Son or the Holy Spirit to "precede" the Father?
[^9]: In his 3rd Theological Oration, St. Gregory the Theologian writes: "As for us, we honor Him as the monarchy" (PG 36, 76). The concept of monarchy corresponds to "the order of theology" (5th Theological Oration, PG 36, 164). The All-Holy Trinity does not comprise a federation of persons; So we should not be scandalized when the Theologian himself of the Fathers speaks of the monarchy and primacy of the divine Father.
ii) When the text of the Synod of Russia refuses to accept a "universal hierarch" under the pretext that the universality of such a hierarch "eliminates the sacramental equality of bishops" (3:3) it is merely formulating a sophism. As to their priesthood, of course, all bishops are equal, but they neither are nor can be equal as bishops of specific cities. The sacred canons (like the 3rdcanon of the Second Ecumenical Council, the 28th of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, and the 36thof the Quinisext Council) **rank** the cities, attributing to some the status of a Metropolitanate and to others the status of a Patriarchate. Among the latter, the further attribute to one primatial responsibility, to another secondary responsibility, and so on. Not all local Churches are equal, whether in order or in rank. Moreover, to the extent that a bishop is never a bishop without specific assignment but rather the presiding bishop of a local Church – that is to say, he is always the bishop of a specific city (which is an inseparable feature and condition of the episcopal ordination) – then bishops too are accordingly **ranked** (that is to say, the dignity of a Metropolis is different from that of a Patriarchate; and again, a different dignity is attributed to the ancient Patriarchates, as being endorsed by the Ecumenical Councils, and another is attributed to the modern Patriarchates). Thus, within such an order of rank, it is inconceivable that there should be no *primus*.[^10] On the contrary, in recent times, we observe the application of a novel "**primacy**", namely a "primacy of **numbers**", which those who today find fault with the canonical universal primacy of the Mother Church dogmatize about a rank that is untestified in the tradition of the Church, but rather based on the principle *ubi russicus ibi ecclesia russicae*, that is to say "wherever there is a Russian, there too the jurisdiction of the Russian Church extends."
[^10]: This argument has been clearly articulated in the article by Fr. John Panteleimon Manoussakis, entitled "Primacy and Ecclesiology: The State of the Question," in the collective work entitled Orthodox Constructions of the West, edited by Aristotle Papanikolaou and George Demacopoulos, New York: Fordham University Press, 2013, p. 233.
In the long history of the Church, the presiding hierarch of the universal Church was the bishop of Rome. After Eucharistic communion with Rome was broken, canonically the presiding hierarch of the Orthodox Church is the archbishop of Constantinople. In the case of the archbishop of Constantinople, we observe the unique concomitance of all three levels of primacy, namely the local (as Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome), the regional (as Patriarch), and the universal or worldwide (as Ecumenical Patriarch). This threefold primacy translates into specific privileges, such as the right of appeal and the right to grant or remove autocephaly (examples of the latter are the Archdioceses-Patriarchates of Ochrid, Pec and Turnavo, etc.), a privilege that the Ecumenical Patriarch exercised even in cases of some modern Patriarchates, not yet validated by decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, the first of which is that of Moscow.
The primacy of the archbishop of Constantinople has nothing to do with the diptychs, which, as we have already said, merely express this hierarchical ranking (which, again in contradictory terms the text of the Moscow Patriarchate concedes implicitly but denies explicitly). If we are going to talk about the source of a primacy, then the source of such primacy is the very person of the Archbishop of Constantinople, who precisely as bishop is one "among equals," but as Archbishop of Constantinople, and thus as Ecumenical Patriarch is the *first without equals* (primus sine paribus).

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---
title: Address of His Holiness Pope Francis to the Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
date: 2021-10-07
author: Pope Francis I
source: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2021/october/documents/20211007-gruppo-ortodossocattolico-santireneo.html
---
*Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!*
I am pleased to welcome you to Rome where, for the first time, you are meeting for your annual session. I am grateful for your theological work in the service of communion between Catholics and Orthodox. I thank Cardinal Koch for his words of introduction. I was struck by what you said about your specific task: to seek together ways in which the different traditions can enrich one another without losing their identity. I also found interesting your statement about interpretation as Gegensätze. I liked that. Thank you. It is good to cultivate a unity enriched by differences that will not yield to the temptation of a bland uniformity, which is never good. In this spirit, your discussions center on appreciating how differing aspects present in our traditions, rather than giving rise to disagreements, can become legitimate opportunities for expressing the shared apostolic faith.
I also like your name: you are not a commission or a committee, but a “working group”: a group that assembles in fraternal and patient dialogue experts from various Churches and different countries, who desire to pray and study unity together. Your patron, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons – whom soon I will willingly declare a Doctor of the Church with the title *Doctor unitatis* – came from the East, exercised his episcopal ministry in the West, and was a great spiritual and theological bridge between Eastern and Western Christians. His name, Irenaeus, contains the word “peace”. We know that the Lord’s peace is not a “negotiated” peace, the fruit of agreements meant to safeguard interests, but a peace that reconciles, that brings together in unity. That is the peace of Jesus. For, as the apostle Paul writes, Christ “is our peace; who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” (*Eph* 2:14). Dear friends, with the help of God, you too are working to break down dividing walls and to build bridges of communion.
I thank you for this and, in particular, for your recently issued study entitled *Serving Communion. Re-thinking the Relationship between Primacy and Synodality*. Through the constructive patience of dialogue, especially with the Orthodox Churches, we have come to understand more fully that in the Church primacy and synodality are not two competing principles to be kept in balance, but two realities that establish and sustain one another in the service of communion. Just as the primacy presupposes the exercise of synodality, so synodality entails the exercise of primacy. From this standpoint, the [International Theological Commission](https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_index.htm) has stated, significantly, that in the Catholic Church, synodality in the broad sense can be seen as the articulation of three dimensions: “all”, “some” and “one”. Indeed, “synodality involves the exercise of the *sensus fidei* of the *universitas fidelium* (all), the ministry of leadership of the college of Bishops, each one with his presbyterium (some), and the ministry of unity of the Bishop of Rome (one)” ([*Synodality in the Life and Mission of the Church*](https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20180302_sinodalita_en.html), 2018, No. 64).
In this vision, the primatial ministry is an intrinsic element of the dynamic of synodality, as are also the communitarian aspect that includes the whole People of God and the collegial dimension that is part of the exercise of episcopal ministry. Consequently, a fruitful approach to the primacy in theological and ecumenical dialogues must necessarily be grounded in a reflection on synodality: there is no other way. I have frequently expressed my conviction that “in a synodal Church, greater light can be shed on the exercise of the Petrine primacy” ([*Address on the 50th Anniversary of the Institution of the Synod of Bishops*](https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2015/october/documents/papa-francesco_20151017_50-anniversario-sinodo.html), 17 October 2015). I am confident that, with the help of God, the synodal process that will begin in coming days in every Catholic diocese will also be an opportunity for deeper reflection on this important aspect, together with other Christians.
Dear brothers and sisters, I thank you for your visit and I offer my good wishes for a fruitful working session here in Rome at the Institute of Ecumenical Studies of the Angelicum. Entrusting my ministry to your prayers, I invoke upon you the Lord’s blessing and the protection of the Holy Mother of God. And now, if you would like, we can pray together the Our Father, each in his or her own language.
[Our Father…]

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title: The Great Schism
---
"The Great Schism" names the the separation between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
"The Great Schism" is a term that describes the separation between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
Though it is often dated to the excommunications of 1054,
the underlying issues began long before, and the full reality of the schism would not be realized for long after.
The last century has seen a significant rapproachment between the two sides,
which I have attempted to document here through primary sources.
the underlying issues began long before and the full reality of the schism would not be realized for long after.
The documents collected here are presented without any attempt to modify (or endorse) their contents.
I have made only such edits as are necessary for the sake of presentation
(i.e. formatting the source text into Markdown or adding hyperlinks).
Any errors are my own.
The collection of documents here is mostly for my own convenience of having things all in one place and hyperlinked.
## 19th century
## 2016
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Munich document](./jictd-1982-munich.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Munich](./naoctc-1983-munich.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Bari document](./jictd-1987-bari.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Bari](./naoctc-1988-bari.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Valamo document](./jictd-1988-valamo.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Valamo](./naoctc-1989-valamo.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Conciliarity and Primacy](./naoctc-1989-primacy.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Balamand document](./jictd-1993-balamand.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Balamand](./naoctc-1994-balamand.html)
* Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith &mdash; [Response to the Zoghby Proposal](./cdf-1997-zoghby.md)
* [Chieti document](./jictd-2016-chieti.html)
## 2000s
## 2023
* Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith &mdash; [Note on the expression "Sister Churches"](./cdf-2000-sister.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?](./naoctc-2003-filioque.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Paderborn Communiqué](./sijocwg-2004-paderborn.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Athens Communiqué](./sijocwg-2005-athens.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Chevetogne Communiqué](./sijocwg-2006-chevetogne.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Ravenna document](./jictd-2007-ravenna.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Belgrade Communiqué](./sijocwg-2007-belgrade.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Vienna Communiqué](./sijocwg-2008-vienna.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Ravenna](./naoctc-2009-ravenna.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Kiev Communiqué](./sijocwg-2009-kiev.html)
## 2010s
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Steps towards a Reunited Church](./naoctc-2010-reunited.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Magdeburg Communiqué](./sijocwg-2010-magdeburg.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [St. Petersburg Communiqué](./sijocwg-2011-petersburg.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Bose Communiqué](./sijocwg-2012-bose.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Thessaloniki Communiqué](./sijocwg-2013-thessaloniki.html)
* Moscow Patriarchate &mdash; [Response to Ravenna Document](./moscow-2013-ravenna.html)
* Met. Elpidophoros &mdash; [Response to Moscow on Ravenna](./elpidophoros-2014-without-equals.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Rabat Communiqué](./sijocwg-2014-rabat.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Chalki Communiqué](./sijocwg-2015-chalki.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Chieti document](./jictd-2016-chieti.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Taizé Communiqué](./sijocwg-2016-taize.html)
* North American Consultation &mdash; [Response to Chieti](./naoctc-2017-chieti.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Caraiman Communiqué](./sijocwg-2017-caraiman.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Graz Communiqué](./sijocwg-2018-graz.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Serving Communion](./sijocwg-2018-serving.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Trebinje Communiqué](./sijocwg-2019-trebinje.html)
## 2020s
* Pope Francis I - [Address to St Irenaeus Working Group](./francis-2021-irenaeus.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Rome Communiqué](./sijocwg-2021-rome.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Cluj-Napoca Communiqué](./sijocwg-2022-clujnapoca.html)
* Joint International Dialogue &mdash; [Alexandria document](./jictd-2023-alexandria.html)
* St Irenaeus Working Group &mdash; [Balamand Communiqué](./sijocwg-2023-balamand.html)
* [Alexandria document](./jictd-2023-alexandria.html)

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---
title: The Mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity
date: 1982-07-06
author: Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
source: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese4.html
---

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---
title: Faith, Sacraments, and the Unity of the Church
date: 1987-06-16
author: Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
source: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese3.html
---

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---
title: The Sacrament of Order in the Sacramental Structure of the Church, with Particular Reference to the Importance of Apostolic Succession for the Sanctification and Unity of the People of God
date: 1988-06-26
author: Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
source: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese2.html
---

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---
title: Uniatism, Method of Union of the Past, and the Present Search for Full Communion
date: 1993-06-23
author: Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
source: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-lingua-inglese.html
---

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---
title: Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church: Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority
date: 2007-10-13
author: Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church
source: http://www.christianunity.va/content/unitacristiani/en/dialoghi/sezione-orientale/chiese-ortodosse-di-tradizione-bizantina/commissione-mista-internazionale-per-il-dialogo-teologico-tra-la/documenti-di-dialogo/testo-in-inglese.html
---

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---
title: Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church
date: 2013-12-26
author: Moscow Patriarchate
source: https://mospat.ru/en/news/51892/
comment: In the original, there are two ordered list items rendered as "1." because HTML auto-numbers ordered lists. Based on the context, and the sections beginning with "3." etc afterwards, I have assumed that these are typographical errors and corrected them to "1." and "2."
---
*The problem of primacy in the Universal Church has been repeatedly raised during the work of the Joint International Commission on Theological Dialogue Between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. On March 27, 2007, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church instructed the Synodal Theological Commission to study this problem and draft an official position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem (Minutes, No. 26). Meanwhile, the Joint Commission at its meeting on October 13, 2007, in Ravenna, working in the absence of a delegation of the Russian Church and without consideration for her opinion, adopted a document on the [Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church](./jictd-2007-ravenna.html). Having studied the Ravenna document, the Russian Orthodox Church disagreed with it in the part that refers to synodality and primacy on the level of the Universal Church. Since the Ravenna document makes a distinction between three levels of church administration, namely, local, regional and universal, the following position taken by the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church deals with this problem on the three levels as well.*
[1\.](#1) In the Holy Church of Christ, primacy belongs to her Head – our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man. According to St. Paul, the Lord Jesus Christ *is* ***the head of the body, the church***: *who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;* ***that in all things he might have the pre-eminence*** (Col. 1:18).
{#1}
According to the apostolic teaching, *the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be* ***the head over all things to the church***,which is his body (Eph. 1:17-23).
The Church, which is on the earth, represents not only a community of those who believe in Christ but also a divine-human organism: *Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular* (1 Cor. 12:27).
Accordingly, various forms of primacy in the Church in her historical journey in this world are secondary versus the eternal primacy of Christ as Head of the Church by whom God the Father *reconciles all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven* (Col. 1:20). Primacy in the Church should be in the first place a ministry of reconciliation with the aim to build harmony, according to the apostle who calls *to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace* (Eph. 4:3).
[2\.](#2) In the life of the Church of Christ, which lives in this age, primacy, along with synodality, is one of the fundamental principles of her order. On various levels of church life, the historically established primacy has a *different nature* and *different sources*. These levels are 1) the diocese (eparchy), 2) the autocephalous Local Church, and 3) Universal Church.
{#2}
[(1)](#2.1) On the level of *diocese*, primacy belongs to the bishop. The bishop’s primacy in his diocese has solid theological and canonical foundations tracing back to the early Christian Church. According to the teaching of St. Paul, *the Holy Ghost hath made [bishops] overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood* (Acts 20:28). **The source of the bishop’s primacy** in his diocese is the apostolic succession handed down through episcopal consecration.[^1]
{#2.1}
[^1]: It includes election, consecration and reception by the Church.
The ministry of the bishop is an essential foundation of the Church: ‘The bishop is in the church and the church is in the bishop and that if somebody is not with the bishop, he is not in the church’ (St. Cyprian of Carthage[^2]). St. Ignatius the God-Bearer compares the bishop’s primacy in his diocese to the supremacy of God: ‘Study to do all things with a divine harmony, while your bishop presides in the place of God, and your presbyters in the place of the assembly of the apostles, along with your deacons, who are most dear to me, and are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed’ (Letter to the Magenesians, 6).
[^2]: Ep. 69.8, PL 4, 406A (Letter 54 in the Russian version)
In his church domain, the bishop has full power, sacramental, administrative and magisterial. St. Ignatius the God-Bearer teaches us: ‘Let no one, apart from the bishop, do any of the things that appertain unto the church. Let that Eucharist alone be considered valid which is celebrated in the presence of the bishop, or of him to whom he shall have entrusted it… It is not lawful either to baptize, or to hold a love-feast without the consent of the bishop; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that also is well pleasing unto God, to the end that whatever is done may be safe and sure’ (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 7).
The bishop’s sacramental power is most fully expressed in the Eucharist. In celebrating it, the bishop represents the image of Christ, presenting the Church of the faithful in the face of God the Father, on one hand, and giving the faithful God’s blessing and nourishing them with the truly spiritual food and drink of the Eucharistic sacrament, on the other. As head of his diocese, the bishop leads the congregation’s divine worship, ordains clergy and assigns them to church parishes, authorizing them to celebrate the Eucharist and other sacraments and religious rites.
The bishop’s administrative power is expressed in that the clergy, monastics and laity of his diocese as well as parishes and monasteries, except for stauropegial ones, and various diocesan institutions (educational, charitable, etc.) obey him. The bishop administers justice in cases of ecclesial offences. The Apostolic Canons state: ‘Let not the presbyters or deacons do anything without the sanction of the bishop; for he it is who is entrusted with the people of the Lord and of whom will be required the account of their souls’ (Canon 39).
[(2)](#2.2) On the level of the *autocephalous Local Church*, primacy belongs to the bishop elected as Primate of the Local Church by a Council of her bishops.[^3] Accordingly, the **source of primacy** on the level of the autocephalous Church is the election of the pre-eminent bishop by a Council (or a Synod) that enjoys the fullness of ecclesiastical power. This primacy is based on solid canonical foundations tracing back to the era of Ecumenical Councils.
{#2.2}
[^3]: As a rule, the pre-eminent bishop heads the main (pre-eminent) chair in the canonical territory of his Church.
The power of the Primate in an autocephalous Local Church is different from that of a bishop in his church domain: it is the power of the first among equal bishops. He fulfils his ministry of primacy in conformity with the church-wide canonical tradition expressed in Apostolic Canon 34: ‘It behoves the Bishops of every nation to know the one among them who is the premier or chief, and to recognise him ***as their head***, and to refrain from doing anything superfluous without his advice and approval: but, instead, each of them should do only whatever is necessitated by his own parish and by his territories under him. But let not even such a one do anything without the advice and consent and approval of all. For thus will there be concord, and God will be glorified through the Lord in Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit’.
The powers of the Primate of an autocephalous Local Church are defined by a Council (Synod) and fixed in a statute. The Primate of an autocephalous Local Church acts as chairman of her Council (or Synod). Thus, the Primate does not have one-man power in an autocephalous Local Church but governs her in council, that is, in cooperation with other bishops.[^4]
[^4]: The autocephalous Local Church can include complex church entities. For instance, in the Russian Orthodox Church, there are autonomous and self-governed Churches, metropolitan regions, exarchates and metropolises. Each of them has its own form of primacy defined by a Local Council and reflected in the church statute.
[(3)](#2.3) On the level of the *Universal Church* as a community of autocephalous Local Churches united in one family by a common confession of faith and living in sacramental communion with one another, primacy is determined in conformity with the tradition of sacred diptychs and represents *primacy in honour*. This tradition can be traced back to the canons of Ecumenical Councils (Canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council, Canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council and Canon 36 of the Sixth Ecumenical Council) and has been reconfirmed throughout church history in the actions of Councils of individual Local Churches and in the practice of liturgical commemoration whereby the Primate of each Autocephalous Church mentions the names of those of other Local Churches in the order prescribed by the sacred diptychs.
{#2.3}
The order in diptychs has been changing in history. In the first millennium of church history, the primacy of honour used to belong to the chair of Rome.[^5] After the Eucharistic community between Rome and Constantinople was broken in the mid-11th century, primacy in the Orthodox Church went to the next chair in the diptych order, namely, to that of Constantinople. Since that time up to the present, the primacy of honour in the Orthodox Church on the universal level has belonged to the Patriarch of Constantinople as the first among equal Primates of Local Orthodox Churches.
[^5]: A reference to the primacy of honour of the chair of Rome and the second place of the chair of Constantinople is made in Canon 3 of the Second Ecumenical Council: ‘The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome’. Canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council clarifies this rule and points to the canonical reason for the primacy of honour of Rome and Constantinople: ‘The Fathers in fact have correctly attributed the prerogatives (which belong) to the see of the most ancient Rome because it was the imperial city. And thus moved by the same reasoning, the one hundred and fifty bishops beloved of God have accorded equal prerogatives to the very holy see of New Rome, justly considering that the city that is honored by the imperial power and the senate and enjoying (within the civil order) the prerogatives equal to those of Rome, the most ancient imperial city, ought to be as elevated as Old Rome in the affairs of the Church, being in the second place after it’.
**The source of primacy in honour** on the level of the Universal Church lies in the canonical tradition of the Church fixed in the sacred diptychs and recognized by all the autocephalous Local Churches. The primacy of honour on the universal level is not informed by canons of Ecumenical or Local Councils. The canons on which the sacred diptychs are based do not vest the primus (such as the bishop of Rome used to be at the time of Ecumenical Councils) with any powers on the church-wide scale.[^6]
[^6]: There are canons used in polemical literature to give a canonical justification to the judicial powers of the first chair of Rome. These are Canons 4 and 5 of the Council of Sardica (343). These canons, however, do not state that the rights of the chair of Rome to accept appeals are extended to the whole Universal Church. It is known from the canonical codex that these rights were not limitless even in the West. Thus, already the 256 Council of Carthage chaired by St. Cyprian responded to the claims of Rome to primacy expressed the following opinion about relations between bishops: ‘neither does any one of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let all of us wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there’ (Sententiae episcoporum, PL 3, 1085C; 1053A-1054A). The same is stated in the Letter of the Council of Africa to Celestine, the pope of Rome (424), which is included in all the authoritative editions of the code of canons, particularly, Book of Canons as a canon of the Council of Carthage. In this letter the Council rejects the right of the pope of Rome to accept appeals against judgements made by the Council of African Bishops: ‘We earnestly conjure you, that for the future you do not readily admit to a hearing persons coming hence, nor choose to receive to your communion those who have been excommunicated by us…’. Canon 118 of the Council of Carthage forbids to make appeals to Churches in overseas countries – which is anyway implied by Rome as well: Clerics who have been condemned, if they take exception to the judgment, shall not appeal beyond seas, but to the neighbouring bishops, and to their own; if they do otherwise let them be excommunicated in Africa’.
The ecclesiological distortions ascribing to the primus on the universal level the functions of *governance* inherent in primates on other levels of church order are named in the polemical literature of the second millennium as “papism”.
[3\.](#3) Due to the fact that the nature of primacy, which exists at various levels of church order (diocesan, local and universal) vary, the functions of the primus on various levels are not identical and cannot be transferred from one level to another.
{#3}
To transfer the functions of the ministry of primacy from the level of an eparchy to the universal level means to recognize a special form of ministry, notably, that of a ‘universal hierarch’ possessing the magisterial and administrative power in the whole Universal Church. By eliminating the sacramental equality of bishops, such recognition leads to the emergence of a jurisdiction of a universal first hierarch never mentioned either in holy canons or patristic tradition and resulting in the derogation or even elimination of the autocephaly of Local Churches.
In its turn, the extension of the primacy inherent in the primate of an autocephalous Local Church (according to Apostolic Canon 34) to the universal level[^7] would give the primus in the Universal Church special powers regardless of whether Local Orthodox Churches agree to it or not. Such a transfer in the understanding of the nature of primacy from local to universal level would also require that the primus election procedure be accordingly moved up to the universal level, which would as much as violate the right of the pre-eminent autocephalous Local Church to elect her Primate on her own.
[^7]: As is known, there is not a single canon that would allow of such practice.
[4\.](#4) The Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ warned his disciples against the love of rulers (cf. Mt. 20:25-28). The Church has always opposed distorted ideas of primacy, which have begun to creep into church life from old times.[^8] In Councils’ decisions and works of holy fathers, such abuses of power were condemned.[^9]
{#4}
[^8]: As far back as the apostolic times, St. John the Theologian in his Epistle condemned Diotrephes ‘who loves to be the first’ (3 Jn. 1:9).
[^9]: Thus, the Third Ecumenical Council, seeking to protect the right of the Church of Cyprus to have her own head, stated in its Canon 8: ‘the Rulers of the holy churches in Cyprus shall enjoy, without dispute or injury, according to the Canons of the blessed Fathers and ancient custom, the right of performing for themselves the ordination of their excellent Bishops. The same rule shall be observed in the other dioceses and provinces everywhere, so that none of the God beloved Bishops shall assume control of any province which has not heretofore, from the very beginning, been under his own hand or that of his predecessors. But if any one has violently taken and subjected [a Province], he shall give it up; lest the Canons of the Fathers be transgressed; or the vanities of worldly honour be brought in under pretext of sacred office; or we lose, without knowing it, little by little, the liberty which Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Deliverer of all men, hath given us by his own Blood’.
The bishops of Rome, who enjoy the primacy of honour in the Universal Church, from the point of view of Eastern Churches, have always been patriarchs of the West, that is, primates of the Western Local Church. However, already in the first millennium of church history, a doctrine on a special divinely-originated magisterial and administrative power of the bishop of Roman as extending to the whole Universal Church began to be formed in the West.
The Orthodox Church rejected the doctrine of the Roman Church on papal primacy and the divine origin of the power of the first bishop in the Universal Church. Orthodox theologians have always insisted that the Church of Rome is one of the autocephalous Local Churches with no right to extend her jurisdiction to the territory of other Local Churches. They also believed that primacy in honour accorded to the bishops of Rome is instituted not by God but men.[^10]
[^10]:
Thus, in the 13th century St. Herman of Constantinople wrote, ‘There are five patriarchates with certain boundaries for each. However, in the recent time a schism has arisen among them, initiated by a daring hand which seeks to dominate and prevail in the Church. The Head of the Church is Christ, and every attempt to obtain domination is contrary to His teaching’ (cit. in Соколов И.И. Лекции по истории Греко-Восточной Церкви. – СПб., 2005. С.129).
In the 14th century, Nilus Cabasilas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, wrote on the primacy of the bishop of Rome, ‘the pope indeed has two privileges: he is the bishop of Rome… and he is the first among the bishops. From Peter he has received the Roman episcopacy; as to the primacy, he received it much later from the blessed Fathers and the pious Emperors, for its was just that ecclesiastical affairs be accomplished in order’ (De primatu papae, PG 149, 701 CD).
His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew states, ‘We all, the Orthodox… are convinced that in the first millennium of the existence of the Church, in the times of the undivided Church, the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the pope, was recognized. However, it was honorary primacy, in love, without being legal dominion over the whole Christian Church. In other words, according to our theology, this primacy is of human order; it was established because of the need for the Church to have a head and a coordinating center’ (from the address to the Bulgarian mass media, November 2007).
Throughout the second millennium up to today, the Orthodox Church has preserved the administrative structure characteristic of the Eastern Church of the first millennium. Within this structure, each autocephalous Local Church, being in dogmatic, canonical and Eucharistic unity with other Local Churches, is independent in governance. In the Orthodox Church, there was no and has never been a single administrative center on the universal level.
In the West, on the contrary, the development of a doctrine on the special power of the bishop of Rome whereby the supreme power in the Universal Church belongs to the bishop of Rome as successor to St. Peter and vicar of Christ on the earth has led to the formation of a completely different administrative model of church order with a single universal center in Rome.[^11]
[^11]: Differences in the church order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church can be seen not only on universal but also local and diocesan levels.
In accordance with the two different models of church order, different ways, in which the conditions for canonicity of a church community were seen, were presented. In the Catholic tradition, the necessary condition for canonicity is the Eucharistic unity of a particular church community with the chair of Rome. In the Orthodox tradition, canonical is a community which is part of an autocephalous Local Church, and through this it is in the Eucharistic unity with other canonical Local Churches.
As is known, attempts to impose the Western model of administrative order upon the Eastern Church were invariably met with resistance in the Orthodox East. This is reflected in church documents[^12] and polemical literature aimed against papism, which comprise a part of the Tradition of the Orthodox Church.
[^12]: In the 1848 Encyclical, the Eastern Patriarchs condemn the fact that bishops of Rome turned the primacy of honour into lordship over the whole Universal Church: “We see very primacy transformed from a brotherly character and hierarchical privilege into a lordly superiority.” (Par. 13). The dignity of the Church of Rome, the Encyclical states, “is not that of a lordship, to which St. Peter himself was never ordained, but is a brotherly privilege in the Catholic Church, and an honor assigned the Popes on account of the greatness and privilege of the City” (Par. 13).
[5\.](#5) Primacy in the Universal Orthodox Church, which is the primacy of honour by its very nature, rather than that of power, is very important for the Orthodox witness in the modern world.
{#5}
The patriarchal chair of Constantinople enjoys the primacy of honour on the basis of the sacred diptychs recognized by all the Local Orthodox Churches. The content of this primacy is defined by a consensus of Local Orthodox Churches expressed in particular at pan-Orthodox conferences for preparation of a Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church[^13].
[^13]: See in particular, the Decision of the Fourth Pan-Orthodox Conference (1968), Par. 6, 7; the Procedure of Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conferences (1986), Par. 2, 13.
In exercising his primacy in this way, the Primate of the Church of Constantinople can offer initiatives of general Christian scale and address the external world on behalf of the Orthodox plenitude provided he has been empowered to do so by all the Local Orthodox Churches.
[6\.](#6) Primacy in the Church of Christ is called to serve the spiritual unity of her members and to keep her life in good order, *for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace* (1 Cor. 14:33). The ministry of the primus in the Church, alien to temporal love of power, has as its goal *the edifying of the body of Christ…that we…by speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things,* ***which is the head, even Christ,*** *from whom the whole body…according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love* (Eph. 4:12-16).
{#6}

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title: Response to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue regarding the 'Munich Document'
date: 1983-05-25
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/committees/ecumenical-interreligious-affairs/response-joint-international-commission-theological
---

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title: Response to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue regarding the 'Bari Document'
date: 1988-06-02
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/bari-response.pdf
---

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title: An Agreed Statement on Conciliarity and Primacy in the Church
date: 1989-10-28
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/conciliarity-and-primacy.pdf
---

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title: Reaction to International Commission's 'Valamo Document'
date: 1989-10-28
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/valamo-response.pdf
---

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title: Response to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue regarding the 'Balamand Document'
date: 2009-10-24
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/balamand-response.pdf
---

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title: The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue?: An Agreed Statement
date: 2003-10-25
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/filioque-a-church-dividing-issue.pdf
source: https://www.assemblyofbishops.org/ministries/ecumenical-and-interfaith-dialogues/orthodox-catholic/filioque-a-church-dividing-issue
---
From 1999 until 2003, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consul­tation has focused its
discussions on an issue that has been identified, for more than twelve centuries, as one of the root
causes of division between our Churches: our divergent ways of conceiving and speaking about
the origin of the Holy Spirit within the inner life of the triune God. Although both of our
traditions profess “the faith of Nicaea” as the normative expression of our understanding of God
and God’s involvement in his creation, and take as the classical statement of that faith the revised
version of the Nicene creed associated with the First Council of Constantinople of 381, most
Catholics and other Western Christians have used, since at least the late sixth century, a Latin
version of that Creed, which adds to its confession that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the
Father” the word *Filioque*: “and from the Son”. For most Western Christians, this term continues
to be a part of the central formulation of their faith, a formulation proclaimed in the liturgy and
used as the basis of catechesis and theological reflection. It is, for Catholics and most Protestants,
simply a part of the ordinary teaching of the Church, and as such, integral to their understanding
of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Yet since at least the late eighth century, the presence of this
term in the Western version of the Creed has been a source of scandal for Eastern Christians,
both because of the Trinitarian theology it expresses, and because it had been adopted by a
growing number of Churches in the West into the canonical formulation of a received ecumenical
council without corres­ponding ecumenical agreement. As the medieval rift between Eastern and
Western Christians grew more serious, the theology associated with the term Filioque, and the
issues of Church structure and authority raised by its adoption, grew into a symbol of difference,
a classic token of what each side of divided Christendom has found lacking or distorted in the
other.
Our common study of this question has involved our Consultation in much shared research,
prayerful reflection and intense discussion. It is our hope that many of the papers produced by
our members during this process will be published together, as the scholarly context for our
common statement. A subject as complicated as this, from both the historical and the theological
point of view, calls for detailed explanation if the real issues are to be clearly seen. Our
discussions and our common statement will not, by themselves, put an end to centuries of
disagree­ment among our Churches. We do hope, however, that they will contri­bute to the growth
of mutual understanding and respect, and that in God’s time our Churches will no longer find a
cause for separation in the way we think and speak about the origin of that Spirit, whose fruit is
love and peace (see Gal 5.22).
## [I. The Holy Spirit in the Scriptures](#1) {#1}
In the Old Testament “the spirit of God” or “the spirit of the Lord” is presented less as a divine
person than as a manifes­tation of God’s creative power – God’s “breath” (*ruach YHWH*) -
forming the world as an ordered and habitable place for his people, and raising up individuals to
lead his people in the way of holiness. In the opening verses of Genesis, the spirit of God “moves
over the face of the waters” to bring order out of chaos (Gen 1.2). In the historical narratives of
Israel, it is the same spirit that “stirs” in the leaders of the people (Jud 13.25: Samson), makes
kings and military chieftains into prophets (I Sam 10.9-12; 19.18-24: Saul and David), and
enables prophets to “bring good news to the afflicted” (Is 61.1; cf. 42.1; II Kg 2.9). The Lord
tells Moses he has “filled” Bezalel the craftsman “with the spirit of God,” to enable him to
fashion all the furnishings of the tabernacle according to God’s design (Ex 31.3). In some
passages, the “holy spirit” (Ps 51.13) or “good spirit” (Ps 143.10) of the Lord seems to signify
his guiding presence within individuals and the whole nation, cleansing their own spirits (Ps.
51.12-14) and helping them to keep his commandments, but “grieved” by their sin (Is 63.10). In
the prophet Ezekiel’s mighty vision of the restoration of Israel from the death of defeat and exile,
the “breath” return­ing to the people’s desiccated corpses becomes an image of the action of
God’s own breath creat­ing the nation anew: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live...”
(Ezek 37.14).
In the New Testament writings, the Holy Spirit of God (*pneuma Theou*) is usually spoken of in a
more personal way, and is inextricably connected with the person and mission of Jesus. Matthew
and Luke make it clear that Mary conceives Jesus in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit,
who “overshadows” her (Mt 1.18, 20; Lk 1.35). All four Gospels testify that John the Baptist –
who himself was “filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb” (Lk 1.15) – witnessed the
descent of the same Spirit on Jesus, in a visible manifestation of God’s power and election, when
Jesus was baptized (Mt 3.16; Mk 1.10; Lk 3.22; Jn 1.33). The Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the
desert to struggle with the devil (Mt 4.1; Lk 4.1), fills him with prophetic power at the start of his
mission (Lk 4.18-21), and manifests himself in Jesus’ exorcisms (Mt 12.28, 32). John the Baptist
identified the mission of Jesus as “baptizing” his disciples “with the Holy Spirit and with fire”
(Mt 3.11; Lk 3.16; cf. Jn 1.33), a prophecy fulfilled in the great events of Pentecost (Acts 1.5),
when the disciples were “clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24.49; Acts 1.8). In the narrative
of Acts, it is the Holy Spirit who continues to unify the community (4.31-32), who enables
Stephen to bear witness to Jesus with his life (8.55), and whose charismatic presence among
believing pagans makes it clear that they, too, are called to baptism in Christ (10.47).
In his farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as one who will
continue his own work in the world, after he has returned to the Father. He is “the Spirit of
truth,” who will act as “another advocate (parakletos)” to teach and guide his disciples
(14.16-17), reminding them of all Jesus himself has taught (14.26). In this section of the Gospel,
Jesus gives us a clearer sense of the relationship between this “advocate,” himself, and his
Father. Jesus promises to send him “from the Father,” as “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from
the Father” (15.26); and the truth that he teaches will be the truth Jesus has revealed in his own
person (see 1,14; 14.6): “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to
you.” (16.14-15)
The Epistle to the Hebrews represents the Spirit simply as speaking in the Scrip­tures, with his
own voice (Heb 3.7; 9.8). In Paul’s letters, the Holy Spirit of God is iden­tified as the one who
has finally “defined” Jesus as “Son of God in power” by acting as the agent of his resurrection
(Rom 1.4; 8.11). It is this same Spirit, communicated now to us, who conforms us to the risen
Lord, giving us hope for resurrection and life (Rom 8.11), making us also children and heirs of
God (Rom 8.14-17), and forming our words and even our inarticulate groaning into a prayer that
expresses hope (Rom 8.23-27). “And hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” (Rom 5.5)
## [II. Historical Considerations](#2) {#2}
Throughout the early centuries of the Church, the Latin and Greek traditions witnessed to the
same apostolic faith, but differed in their ways of describing the relationship among the persons
of the Trinity. The difference generally reflected the various pastoral challenges facing the
Church in the West and in the East. The Nicene Creed (325) bore witness to the faith of the
Church as it was articulated in the face of the Arian heresy, which denied the full divinity of
Christ. In the years following the Council of Nicaea, the Church continued to be challenged by
views questioning both the full divinity and the full humanity of Christ, as well as the divinity of
the Holy Spirit. Against these challenges, the fathers at the Council of Constantinople (381)
affirmed the faith of Nicaea, and produced an expanded Creed, based on the Nicene but also
adding significantly to it.
Of particular note was this Creed’s more extensive affirmation regarding the Holy Spirit, a
passage clearly influenced by Basil of Caesaraea’s classic treatise *On the Holy Spirit*, which had
probably been finished some six years earlier. The Creed of Constantinople affirmed the faith of
the Church in the divinity of the Spirit by saying: “and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of
life, who proceeds (*ekporeuetai*) from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped
and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” Although the text avoided directly calling
the Spirit “God,” or affirming (as Athanasius and Gregory of Nazianzus had done) that the Spirit
is “of the same substance” as the Father and the Son – statements that doubtless would have
sounded extreme to some theologically cautious contemporaries - the Council clearly intended,
by this text, to make a statement of the Church’s faith in the full divinity of the Holy Spirit,
especially in opposition to those who viewed the Spirit as a creature. At the same time, it was not
a concern of the Council to specify the manner of the Spirit’s origin, or to elaborate on the
Spirit’s particular relationships to the Father and the Son.
The acts of the Council of Constantinople were lost, but the text of its Creed was quoted and
formally acknowledged as binding, along with the Creed of Nicaea, in the dogmatic statement of
the Council of Chalcedon (451). Within less than a century, this Creed of 381 had come to play a
normative role in the definition of faith, and by the early sixth century was even proclaimed in
the Eucharist in Antioch, Constantinople, and other regions in the East. In regions of the Western
churches, the Creed was also introduced into the Eucharist, perhaps beginning with the third
Council of Toledo in 589. It was not formally introduced into the Eucharistic liturgy at Rome,
however, until the eleventh century – a point of some importance for the process of official
Western acceptance of the *Filioque*.
No clear record exists of the process by which the word *Filioque* was inserted into the Creed of
381 in the Christian West before the sixth century. The idea that the Spirit came forth “from the
Father through the Son” is asserted by a number of earlier Latin theologians, as part of their
insistence on the ordered unity of all three persons within the single divine Mystery (e.g.,
Tertullian, *Adversus Praxean* 4 and 5). Tertullian, writing at the beginning of the third century,
emphasizes that Father, Son and Holy Spirit all share a single divine substance, quality and
power (*ibid*. 2), which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by
the Son to the Spirit (*ibid*. 8). Hilary of Poitiers, in the mid-fourth century, in the same work
speaks of the Spirit as ‘coming forth from the Father’ and being ‘sent by the Son’ (*De Trinitate*
12.55); as being ‘from the Father through the Son’ (*ibid*. 12.56); and as ‘having the Father and
the Son as his source’ (*ibid*. 2.29); in another passage, Hilary points to John 16.15 (where Jesus
says: “All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I said that [the Spirit] shall take from
what is mine and declare it to you”), and wonders aloud whether “to receive from the Son is the
same thing as to proceed from the Father” (*ibid*. 8.20). Ambrose of Milan, writing in the 380s,
openly asserts that the Spirit “proceeds from (procedit a) the Father and the Son,” without ever
being separated from either (*On the Holy Spirit* 1.11.20). None of these writers, however, makes
the Spirit’s mode of origin the object of special reflection; all are concerned, rather, to emphasize
the equality of status of all three divine persons as God, and all acknowledge that the Father
alone is the source of God’s eternal being. *[Note: This paragraph includes a stylistic revision in*
*the reference to Hilary of Poitiers that the Consultation agreed to at its October 2004 meeting.]*
The earliest use of Filioque *language* in a credal context is in the profession of faith formulated
for the Visigoth King Reccared at the local Council of Toledo in 589. This regional council
anathematized those who did not accept the decrees of the first four Ecumenical Councils (canon
11), as well as those who did not profess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son (canon 3). It appears that the Spanish bishops and King Reccared believed at that time that
the Greek equivalent of *Filioque* was part of the original creed of Constantinople, and apparently
understood that its purpose was to oppose Arianism by affirming the intimate relationship of the
Father and Son. On Reccared’s orders, the Creed began to be recited during the Eucharist, in
imitation of the Eastern practice. From Spain, the use of the Creed with the *Filioque* spread
throughout Gaul.
Nearly a century later, a council of English bishops was held at Hatfield in 680 under the
presidency of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, a Byzantine asked to serve in England by
Pope Vitalian. According to the Venerable Bede (*Hist. Eccl. Gent. Angl.* 4.15 [17]), this Council
explicitly affirmed its faith as conforming to the five Ecumenical Councils, and also declared that
the Holy Spirit proceeds “in an ineffable way (*inenarrabiliter*)” from the Father and the Son.
By the seventh century, three related factors may have contributed to a growing tendency to
include the *Filioque* in the Creed of 381 in the West, and to the belief of some Westerners that it
was, in fact, part of the original creed. First, a strong current in the patristic tradition of the West,
summed up in the works of Augustine (354-430), spoke of the Spirit’s proceeding from the
Father and the Son. (e.g., *On the Trinity* 4.29; 15.10, 12, 29, 37; the significance of this tradition
and its terminology will be discussed below.) Second, throughout the fourth and fifth centuries a
number of credal statements circulated in the Churches, often associated with baptism and
catechesis. The formula of 381 was not considered the only binding expression of apostolic faith.
Within the West, the most widespread of these was the Apostles’ Creed, an early baptismal creed,
which contained a simple affirmation of belief in the Holy Spirit without elaboration. Third,
however, and of particular significance for later Western theology, was the so-called Athanasian
Creed (*Quicunque*). Thought by Westerners to be composed by Athanasius of Alexandria, this
Creed probably originated in Gaul about 500, and is cited by Caesarius of Arles (+542). This text
was unknown in the East, but had great influence in the West until modern times. Relying
heavily on Augustine’s treatment of the Trinity, it clearly affirmed that the Spirit proceeds from
the Father and the Son. A central emphasis of this Creed was its strong anti-Arian Christology:
speaking of the Spirit as proceeding from the Father *and* the Son implied that the Son was not
inferior to the Father in substance, as the Arians held. The influence of this Creed undoubtedly
supported the use of the *Filioque* in the Latin version of the Creed of Constantinople in Western
Europe, at least from the sixth century onwards.
The use of the Creed of 381 with the addition of the *Filioque* became a matter of controversy
towards the end of the eighth century, both in discussions between the Frankish theologians and
the see of Rome and in the growing rivalry between the Carolingian and Byzantine courts, which
both now claimed to be the legitimate successors of the Roman Empire. In the wake of the
iconoclastic struggle in Byzantium, the Carolingians took this opportunity to challenge the
Orthodoxy of Constantinople, and put particular emphasis upon the significance of the term
*Filioque*, which they now began to identify as a touchstone of right Trinitarian faith. An intense
political and cultural rivalry between the Franks and the Byzantines provided the background for
the *Filioque* debates throughout the eighth and ninth centuries.
Charlemagne received a translation of the decisions of the Second Council of Nicaea (787). The
Council had given definitive approval to the ancient practice of venerating icons. The translation
proved to be defective. On the basis of this defective translation, Charlemagne sent a delegation
to Pope Hadrian I (772-795), to present his concerns. Among the points of objection,
Charlemagne’s legates claimed that Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople, at his installation, did
not follow the Nicene faith and profess that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but
confessed rather his procession from the Father *through the Son* (Mansi 13.760). The Pope
strongly rejected Charlemagne’s protest, showing at length that Tarasius and the Council, on this
and other points, maintained the faith of the Fathers (*ibid*. 759-810). Following this exchange of
letters, Charlemagne commissioned the so-called *Libri Carolini* (791-794), a work written to
challenge the positions both of the iconoclast council of 754 and of the Council of Nicaea of 787
on the veneration of icons. Again because of poor translations, the Carolingians misunderstood
the actual decision of the latter Council. Within this text, the Carolingian view of the *Filioque*
also was emphasized again. Arguing that the word *Filioque* was part of the Creed of 381, the
*Libri Carolini* reaffirmed the Latin tradition that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and rejected as inadequate the teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
While the acts of the local synod of Frankfurt in 794 are not extant, other records indicate that it
was called mainly to counter a form of the heresy of “Adoptionism” then thought to be on the
rise in Spain. The emphasis of a number of Spanish theologians on the integral humanity of
Christ seemed, to the court theologian Alcuin and others, to imply that the man Jesus was
“adopted” by the Father at his baptism. In the presence of Charlemagne, this council – which
Charlemagne seems to have promoted as “ecumenical” (see Mansi 13.899-906) - approved the
*Libri Carolini*, affirming, in the context of maintaining the full divinity of the person of Christ,
that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. As in the late sixth century, the Latin
formulation of the Creed, stating that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, was
enlisted to combat a perceived Christological heresy.
Within a few years, another local council, also directed against “Spanish Adoptionism,” was held
in Fréjus (Friuli) (796 or 797). At this meeting, Paulinus of Aquileia (+802), an associate of
Alcuin in Charlemagne’s court, defended the use of the Creed with the *Filioque* as a way of
opposing Adoptionism. Paulinus, in fact, recognized that the *Filioque* was an addition to the
Creed of 381 but defended the interpolation, claiming that it contradicted neither the meaning of
the creed nor the intention of the Fathers. The authority in the West of the Council of Fréjus,
together with that of Frankfurt, ensured that the Creed of 381 with the *Filioque* would be used in
teaching and in the celebration of the Eucharist in churches throughout much of Europe.
The different liturgical traditions with regard to the Creed came into contact with each other in
early-ninth-century Jerusalem. Western monks, using the Latin Creed with the added *Filioque*,
were denounced by their Eastern brethren. Writing to Pope Leo III for guidance, in 808, the
Western monks referred to the practice in Charlemagne’s chapel in Aachen as their model. Pope
Leo responded with a letter to “all the churches of the East” in which he declared his personal
belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. In that response, the
Pope did not distinguish between his personal understanding and the issue of the legitimacy of
the addition to the Creed, although he would later resist the addition in liturgies celebrated at
Rome.
Taking up the issue of the Jerusalem controversy, Charlemagne asked Theodulf of Orleans, the
principal author of the *Libri Carolini*, to write a defense of the use of the word *Filioque*.
Appearing in 809, *De Spiritu Sancto* of Theodulf was essentially a compilation of patristic
citations supporting the theology of the *Filioque*. With this text in hand, Charlemagne convened
a council in Aachen in 809-810 to affirm the doctrine of the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father
and the Son, which had been questioned by Greek theologians. Following this council,
Charlemagne sought Pope Leo’s approval of the use of the creed with the *Filioque* (Mansi
14.23-76). A meeting between the Pope and a delegation from Charlemagne’s council took place
in Rome in 810. While Leo III affirmed the orthodoxy of the term *Filioque*, and approved its use
in catechesis and personal professions of faith, he explicitly disapproved its inclusion in the text
of the Creed of 381, since the Fathers of that Council - who were, he observes, no less inspired
by the Holy Spirit than the bishops who had gathered at Aachen - had chosen not to include it.
Pope Leo stipulated that the use of the Creed in the celebration of the Eucharist was permissible,
but not required, and urged that in the interest of preventing scandal it would be better if the
Carolingian court refrained from including it in the liturgy. Around this time, according to the
*Liber Pontificalis*, the Pope had two heavy silver shields made and displayed in St. Peter’s,
containing the original text of the Creed of 381 in both Greek and Latin. Despite his directives
and this symbolic action, however, the Carolingians continued to use the Creed with the *Filioque*
during the Eucharist in their own dioceses.
The Byzantines had little appreciation of the various developments regarding the *Filioque* in the
West between the sixth and ninth centuries. Communication grew steadily worse, and their own
struggles with monothelitism, iconoclasm, and the rise of Islam left little time to follow closely
theological developments in the West. However, their interest in the Filioque became more
pronounced in the middle of the 9th century, when it came to be combined with jurisdictional
disputes between Rome and Constantinople, as well as with the activities of Frankish
missionaries in Bulgaria. When Byzantine missionaries were expelled from Bulgaria by King
Boris, under Western influence, they returned to Constantinople and reported on Western
practices, including the use of the Creed with the *Filioque*. Patriarch Photios of Constantinople,
in 867, addressed a strongly worded encyclical to the other Eastern patriarchs, commenting on
the political and ecclesiastical crisis in Bulgaria as well as on the tensions between
Constantinople and Rome. In this letter, Photios denounced the Western missionaries in Bulgaria
and criticized Western liturgical practices.
Most significantly, Patriarch Photios called the addition of the *Filioque* in the West a blasphemy,
and presented a substantial theological argument against the view of the Trinity which he
believed it depicted. Photios’s opposition to the *Filioque* was based upon his view that it signifies
two causes in the Trinity, and diminishes the mon­archy of the Father. Thus, the *Filioque* seemed
to him to detract from the distinc­tive character of each person of the Trinity, and to confuse their
relationships, paradoxically bearing in itself the seeds of both pagan polytheism and Sabellian
modalism (*Mystagogy* 9, 11). In his letter of 867, Photios does not, however, demonstrate any
knowledge of the Latin patristic tradition behind the use of the *Filioque* in the West. His
opposition to the *Filioque* would subsequently receive further elaboration in his Letter to the
Patriarch of Aquileia in 883 or 884, as well as in his famous *Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit*,
written about 886.
In concluding his letter of 867, Photios called for an ecumenical council that would resolve the
issue of the interpolation of the *Filioque*, as well as illuminating its theological foundation. A
local council was held in Constantinople in 867, which deposed Pope Nicholas I - an action
which increased tensions between the two sees. In 863, Nicholas himself had refused to
recognize Photios as Patriarch because of his allegedly uncanonical appointment. With changes
in the imperial government, Photios was forced to resign in 867, and was replaced by Patriarch
Ignatius, whom he himself had replaced in 858. A new council was convened in Constantinople
later in 869. With papal representatives present and with imperial support, this Council
excommunicated Photios, and was subsequently recognized in the Medieval West, for reasons
unrelated to the *Filioque* or Photios, as the Eighth Ecumenical Council, although it was never
recognized as such in the East.
The relationship between Rome and Constantinople changed when Photios again became
patriarch in 877, following the death of Ignatius. In Rome, Pope Nicholas had died in 867, and
was succeeded by Pope Hadrian II (867-872), who himself anathematized Photios in 869. His
successor, Pope John VIII (872-882), was willing to recognize Photios as the legitimate Patriarch
in Constantinople under certain conditions, thus clearing the way for a restoration of better
relations. A Council was held in Constan­tinople in 879-880, in the presence of representatives
from Rome and the other Eastern Patriarchates. This Council, considered by some modern
Orthodox theologians to be ecumenical, suppressed the decisions of the earlier Council of
869-870, and recognized the status of Photios as patriarch. It affirmed the ecumenical character
of the Council of 787 and its decisions against iconoclasm. There was no extensive discussion of
the *Filioque*, which was not yet a part of the Creed professed in Rome itself, and no statement
was made by the Council about its theological justification; yet this Council formally reaffirmed
the original text of the Creed of 381, without the *Filioque*, and anathematized anyone who would
compose another confession of faith. The Council also spoke of the Roman see in terms of great
respect, and allowed the Papal legates the traditional prerogatives of presidency, recognizing
their right to begin and to close discussions and to sign documents first. Nevertheless, the
documents give no indication that the bishops present formally recognized any priority of
jurisdiction for the see of Rome, outside of the framework of the Patristic understanding of the
communion of Churches and the sixth-century canonical theory of the Pentarchy. The difficult
question of the competing claims of the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople to jurisdiction
in Bulgaria was left to be decided by the Emperor. After the Council, the *Filioque* continued to
be used in the Creed in parts of Western Europe, despite the intentions of Pope John VIII, who,
like his predecessors, maintained the text sanctioned by the Council of 381.
A new stage in the history of the controversy was reached in the early eleventh century. During
the synod following the coronation of King Henry II as Holy Roman Emperor at Rome in 1014,
the Creed, including the *Filioque*, was sung for the first time at a papal Mass. Because of this
action, the liturgical use of the Creed, with the *Filioque*, now was generally assumed in the Latin
Church to have the sanction of the papacy. Its inclusion in the Eucharist, after two centuries of
papal resistance of the practice, reflected a new dominance of the German Emperors over the
papacy, as well as the papacy’s growing sense of its own authority, under imperial protection,
within the entire Church, both western and eastern.
The *Filioque* figured prominently in the tumultuous events of 1054, when excommunications
were exchanged by representatives of the Eastern and Western Churches meeting in
Constantinople. Within the context of his anathemas against Patriarch Michael I Cerularios of
Constantinople and certain of his advisors, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, the legate of
Pope Leo IX, accused the Byzantines of improperly deleting the *Filioque* from the Creed, and
criticized other Eastern liturgical practices. In responding to these accusations, Patriarch Michael
recognized that the anathemas of Humbert did not originate with Leo IX, and cast his own
anathemas simply upon the papal delegation. Leo, in fact, was already dead and his successor
had not been elected. At the same time, Michael condemned the Western use of the *Filioque* in
the Creed, as well as other Western liturgical practices. This exchange of limited
excommunications did not lead, by itself, to a formal schism between Rome and Constan­tinople,
despite the views of later historians; it did, however, deepen the growing estrangement between
Constantinople and Rome.
The relationship between the Church of Rome and the Churches of Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem were seriously damaged during the period of the crusades, and especially
in the wake of the infamous Fourth Crusade. In 1204, Western Crusaders sacked the city of
Constantinople, long the commercial and political rival of Venice, and Western politicians and
clergy dominated the life of the city until it was reclaimed by Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos
in 1261. The installation of Western bishops in the territories of Constantinople, Antioch and
Jerusalem, who were loyal to Rome and to the political powers of Western Europe, became a
tragically visible new expression of schism. Even after 1261, Rome supported Latin patriarchs in
these three ancient Eastern sees. For most Eastern Christians, this was a clear sign that the
papacy and its political supporters had little regard for the legitimacy of their ancient churches.
Despite this growing estrangement, a number of notable attempts were made to address the issue
of the *Filioque* between the early twelfth and mid-thirteenth century. The German Emperor
Lothair III sent bishop Anselm of Havelberg to Constantinople in 1136, to negotiate a military
alliance with Emperor John II Comnenos. While he was there, Anselm and Metropolitan Nicetas
of Nicomedia held a series of public discussions about subjects dividing the Churches, including
the *Filioque*, and concluded that the differences between the two traditions were not as great as
they had thought (PL 188.1206B – 1210 B). A letter from Orthodox Patriarch Germanos II
(1222-1240) to Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) led to further discussions between Eastern and
Western theologians on the *Filioque* at Nicaea in 1234. Subsequent discussions were held in
1253-54, at the initiative of Emperor John III Vatatzes (1222-1254) and Pope Innocent IV
(1243-1254). In spite of these efforts, the continuing effects of the Fourth Crusade and the threat
of the Turks, along with the jurisdictional claims of the papacy in the East, meant that these
well-intentioned efforts came to no conclusion.
Against this background, a Western council was held in Lyons in 1274 (Lyons II), after the
restoration of Constantinople to Eastern imperial control. Despite the consequences of the
crusades, many Byzantines sought to heal the wounds of division and looked to the West for
support against the growing advances of the Turks, and Pope Gregory X (1271-1276)
enthusiastically hoped for reunion. Among the topics agreed upon for discussion at the council
was the *Filioque*. Yet the two Byzantine bishops who were sent as delegates had no real
opportunity to present the Eastern perspective at the Council. The *Filioque* was formally
approved by the delegates in the final session on July 17, in a brief constitution which also
explicitly con­demned those holding other views on the origin of the Holy Spirit. Already on July
6, in accord with an agreement previously reached between papal delegates and the Emperor in
Constantinople, the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches was proclaimed, but it was
never received by the Eastern clergy and faithful, or vigorously promoted by the Popes in the
West. In this context it should be noted that in his letter commemorating the 700th anniversary of
this council (1974), Pope Paul VI recognised this and added that “the Latins chose texts and
formulae expressing an ecclesiology which had been conceived and developed in the West. It is
understandable […] that a unity achieved in this way could not be accepted completely by the
Eastern Christian mind.” A little further on, the Pope, speaking of the future Catholic-Orthodox
dialogue, observed: “…it will take up again other controverted points which Gregory X and the
Fathers of Lyons thought were resolved.”
At the Eastern Council of Blachernae (Constantinople) in 1285, in fact, the decisions of the
Council of Lyons and the pro-Latin theology of former Patriarch John XI Bekkos (1275-1282)
were soundly rejected, under the leadership of Patriarch Gregory II, also known as Gregory of
Cyprus (1282-1289). At the same time, this council produced a significant statement addressing
the theological issue of the *Filioque*. While firmly rejecting the “double procession” of the Spirit
from the Father and the Son, the statement spoke of an “eternal manifestation” of the Spirit
*through* the Son. Patriarch Gregory’s language opened the way, at least, towards a deeper, more
complex understanding of the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in both the East
and the West. (see below) This approach was developed further by Gregory Palamas
(1296-1359), in the context of his distinction between the essence and the energies of the divine
persons. Unfortunately, these openings had little effect on later medieval discussions of the origin
of the Spirit, in either the Eastern or the Western Church. Despite the concern shown by
Byzantine theologians, from the time of Photios, to oppose both the idea of the *Filioque* and its
addition to the Latin creed, there is no reference to it in the *Synodikon of Orthodoxy*, a collection
containing more than sixty anathemas representing the doctrinal decisions of Eastern councils
through the fourteenth century.
One more attempt was made, however, to deal with the subject authoritatively on an ecumenical
scale. The Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1445) again brought together representatives from
the Church of Rome and the Churches of Constantinople, Alexan­dria, Antioch and Jerusalem, to
discuss a wide range of controversial issues, including papal authority and the *Filioque*. This
Council took place at a time when the Byzantine Empire was gravely threatened by the
Ottomans, and when many in the Greek world regarded military aid from the West as
Constantinople’s only hope. Following extensive discussions by experts from both sides, often
centered on the interpretation of patristic texts, the union of the Churches was declared on July 6,
1439. The Council’s decree of reunion, *Laetentur caeli*, recognized the legitimacy of the Western
view of the Spirit’s eternal procession from the Father and the Son, as from a single principle and
in a single spiration. The *Filioque* was presented here as having the same meaning as the position
of some early Eastern Fathers that the Spirit exists or proceeds “through the Son.” The Council
also approved a text which spoke of the Pope as having “primacy over the whole world,” as
“head of the whole church and father and teacher of all Christians.” Despite Orthodox
participation in these discussions, the decisions of Florence – like the union decree of Lyons II -
were never received by a representative body of bishops or faithful in the East, and were
formally rejected in Constantinople in 1484.
The Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the fracturing effect of the Protestant Reformation in the
West, as well as subsequent Latin missions in the former Byzantine world and the establishment
of Eastern Churches in communion with Rome, led to a deepening of the schism, accompanied
by much polemical literature on each side. For more than five hundred years, few opportunities
were offered to the Catholic and Orthodox sides for serious discussion of the *Filioque*, and of the
related issue of the primacy and teaching authority of the bishop of Rome. Orthodoxy and
Roman Catholicism entered into a period of formal isolation from each other, in which each
developed a sense of being the only ecclesiastical body authentically representing the apostolic
faith. For example, this is expressed in Pius IX’s encyclical *In Suprema Petri Sede* of January 6,
1848, and in Leo XIII’s encyclical *Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae* of June 20, 1894, as well as
the encyclical of the Orthodox Patriarchs in 1848 and the encyclical of the Patriarchate of
Constantinople of 1895, each reacting to the prior papal documents. Ecumenical discussions of
the *Filioque* between the Orthodox Churches and representatives of the Old Catholics and
Anglicans were held in Germany in 1874-75, and were occasionally revived during the century
that followed, but in general little substantial progress was made in moving beyond the hardened
opposition of traditional Eastern and Western views.
A new phase in the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church began
formally with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the Pan-Orthodox Conferences
(1961-1968), which renewed contacts and dialogue. From that time, a number of theological
issues and historical events contributing to the schism between the churches have begun to
receive new attention. In this context, our own North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation
was established in 1965, and the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue
between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches was established in 1979. Although a committee of
theologians from many different Churches, sponsored by the Faith and Order Commission of the
World Council of Churches, studied the *Filioque* question in depth in 1978 and 1979, and
concluded by issuing the “Klingenthal Memorandum” (1979), no thorough new joint discussion
of the issue has been undertaken by representatives of our two Churches until our own study. The
first statement of the Joint International Commission (1982), entitled “The Mystery of the
Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Trinity,” does briefly address the
issue of the *Filioque*, within the context of an extensive discussion of the relationship of the
persons of the Holy Trinity. The Statement says: “Without wishing to resolve yet the difficulties
which have arisen between the East and the West concerning the relationship between the Son
and the Spirit, we can already say together that this Spirit, which proceeds from the Father (Jn.
15:26) as the sole source of the Trinity, and which has become the Spirit of our sonship (Rom.
8:15) since he is already the Spirit of the Son (Gal.4:6), is communicated to us, particularly in the
Eucharist, by this Son upon whom he reposes in time and eternity (Jn. 1:32).” (No. 6).
Several other events in recent decades point to a greater willingness on the part of Rome to
recognize the normative character of the original creed of Constantinople. When Patriarch
Dimitrios I visited Rome on December 7, 1987, and again during the visit of Patriarch
Bartholomew I to Rome in June 1995, both patriarchs attended a Eucharist celebrated by Pope
John Paul II in St. Peter’s Basilica. On both occasions the Pope and Patriarch proclaimed the
Creed in Greek (i.e., without the Filioque). Pope John Paul II and Romanian Patriarch Teoctist
did the same in Romanian at a papal Mass in Rome on October 13, 2002. The document
*Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church*, issued
by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on August 6, 2000, begins its theological
considerations on the Church’s central teaching with the text of the creed of 381, again without
the addition of the *Filioque*. While no interpretation of these uses of the Creed was offered, these
developments suggest a new awareness on the Catholic side of the unique character of the
original Greek text of the Creed as the most authentic formulation of the faith that unifies Eastern
and Western Christianity.
Not long after the meeting in Rome between Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, the Vatican published the document “The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding
the Procession of the Holy Spirit” (September 13, 1995). This text was intended to be a new
contribution to the dialogue between our churches on this controversial issue. Among the many
observations it makes, the text says: “The Catholic Church acknow­ledges the conciliar,
ecumenical, normative and irrevocable value, as the expression of one common faith of the
Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the
Second Ecumenical Council. No confession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical tradition
can contradict this expression of faith taught and professed by the undivided Church.” Although
the Catholic Church obviously does not consider the *Filioque* to be a contradiction of the creed
of 381, the significance of this passage in the 1995 Vatican statement should not be minimized. It
is in response to this important document that our own study of the *Filioque* began in 1999, and
we hope that this present state­ment will serve to carry further the positive discussions between
our communions that we have experienced ourselves.
## [III. Theological Reflections](#3) {#3}
In all discussions about the origin of the Holy Spirit within the Mystery of God, and about the
relationships of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with each other, the first habit of mind to be
cultivated is doubtless a reverent modesty. Concerning the divine Mystery itself, we can say very
little, and our speculations always risk claim­ing a degree of clarity and certainty that is more than
their due. As Pseudo-Dionysius reminds us, “No unity or trinity or number or oneness or
fruitfulness, or any other thing that either is a creature or can be known to any creature, is able to
express the Mystery, beyond all mind and reason, of that transcendent Godhead which in a superessential
way surpasses all things” (*On the Divine Names* 13.3). That we do, as Christians,
profess our God, who is radically and indivisibly one, to be the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit – three “persons” who can never be confused with or reduced to one another, and who are
all fully and literally God, singly and in the harmonious whole of their relationships with each
other - is simply a summation of what we have learned from God’s self-revelation in human
history, a revelation that has reached its climax in our being able, in the power of the Holy Spirit,
to confess Jesus as the Eternal Father’s Word and Son. Surely our Christian language about God
must always be regulated by the Holy Scriptures, and by the dogmatic tradition of the Church,
which interprets the content of Scripture in a nor­ma­tive way. Yet there always remains the
difficult herme­neutical problem of applying particular Scriptural terms and texts to the inner life
of God, and of knowing when a pas­sage refers simply to God’s action within the “economy” of
saving history, or when it should be understood as referring absolutely to God’s being in itself.
The division between our Churches on the *Filioque* question would probably be less acute if both
sides, through the centuries, had remained more conscious of the limitations of our knowledge of
God.
Secondly, discussion of this difficult subject has often been hampered by pole­mical distortions,
in which each side has caricatured the position of the other for the purposes of argument. It is not
true, for instance, that mainstream Orthodox theology conceives of the procession of the Spirit,
within God’s eternal being, as simply unaffected by the relationship of the Son to the Father, or
thinks of the Spirit as not “belonging” properly to the Son when the Spirit is sent forth in history.
It is also not true that mainstream Latin theology has traditionally begun its Trinitarian
reflections from an abstract, unscriptural consideration of the divine substance, or affirms two
causes of the Spirit’s hypostatic existence, or means to assign the Holy Spirit a role subordinate
to the Son, either within the Mystery of God or in God’s saving action in history.
We are convinced from our own study that the Eastern and Western theological traditions have
been in substantial agreement, since the patristic period, on a number of fundamental
affirmations about the Holy Trinity that bear on the Filioque debate:
* both traditions clearly affirm that *the Holy Spirit is a distinct hypostasis* or person within the
divine Mystery, equal in status to the Father and the Son, and is not simply a creature or a way
of talking about God’s action in creatures;
* although the Creed of 381 does not state it explicitly, both traditions confess the Holy Spirit to
be God, *of the same divine substance (homoousios)* as Father and Son;
* both traditions also clearly affirm that the Father *is the primordial source (arch‘) and ultimate*
*cause (aitia) of the divine being*, and thus of all God’s operations: the “spring” from which
both Son and Spirit flow, the “root” of their being and fruitfulness, the “sun” from which their
existence and their activity radiates;
* both traditions affirm that *the three hypostases or persons in God are constituted* in their
hypostatic existence and distinguished from one another solely *by their relation­ships of origin*,
and not by any other characteristics or activities;
* accordingly, both traditions affirm that *all the operations of God* - the activities by which God
summons created reality into being, and forms that reality, for its well-being, into a unified and
ordered cosmos centered on the human creature, who is made in God’s image – are *the*
*common work of Father, Son and Holy Spirit*, even though each of them plays a distinctive role
within those operations that is determined by their relationships to one another.
Nevertheless, the Eastern and Western traditions of reflection on the Mystery of God have clearly
developed categories and conceptions that differ in substantial ways from one another. These
differences cannot simply be explained away, or be made to seem equivalent by facile argument.
We might summarize our differences as follows:
### [1) Terminology](#3.1) {#3.1}
The *Filioque* controversy is first of all a controversy over words. As a number of recent authors
have pointed out, part of the theological disagreement between our communions seems to be
rooted in subtle but significant differences in the way key terms have been used to refer to the
Spirit’s divine origin. The original text of the Creed of 381, in speaking of the Holy Spirit,
characterizes him in terms of John 15.26, as the one “who proceeds (*ekporeuetai*) from the
Father”: probably influenced by the usage of Gregory the Theologian (Or. 31.8), the Council
chose to restrict itself to the Johannine language, slightly altering the Gospel text (changing *to*
*pneuma…ho para tou Patros ekporeuetai to: to pneuma to hagion… to ek tou Patros*
*ekporeuomenon*) in order to empha­size that the “coming forth” of the Spirit begins “within” the
Father’s own eternal hypo­static role as source of the divine Being, and so is best spoken of as a
kind of “movement out of (*ek*)” him. The underlying connotation of *ekporeuesthai* (“proceed,”
“issue forth”) and its related noun, *ekporeusis* (“procession”), seems to have been that of a
“passage outwards” from within some point of origin. Since the time of the Cappadocian Fathers,
at least, Greek theology almost always restricts the theological use of this term to the coming-forth
of the Spirit from the Father, giving it the status of a technical term for the relationship of
those two divine persons. In contrast, other Greek words, such as *proienai*, “go forward,” are
frequently used by the Eastern Fathers to refer to the Spirit’s saving “mis­sion” in history from the
Father and the risen Lord.
The Latin word *procedere*, on the other hand, with its related noun *processio*, suggests simply
“movement forwards,” without the added implication of the starting-point of that movement;
thus it is used to translate a number of other Greek theological terms, including *proienai*, and is
explicitly taken by Thomas Aquinas to be a general term denoting “origin of any kind” (*Summa*
*Theologiae* I, q. 36, a.2), including – in a Trinitarian context - the Son’s generation as well as the
breathing-forth of the Spirit and his mission in time. As a result, both the primordial origin of the
Spirit in the eternal Father and his “coming forth” from the risen Lord tend to be designated, in
Latin, by the same word, *procedere*, while Greek theology normally uses two dif­­fer­ent terms.
Although the difference between the Greek and the Latin tradi­tions of under­standing the eternal
origin of the Spirit is more than simply a verbal one, much of the ori­gi­nal concern in the Greek
Church over the insertion of the word *Filioque* into the Latin trans­lation of the Creed of 381 may
well have been due – as Maximus the Confessor explained (*Letter to Marinus*: PG 91.133-136) -
to a misunder­standing on both sides of the different ranges of meaning implied in the Greek and
Latin terms for “procession”.
### [2) The Substantive Issues](#3.2) {#3.2}
Clearly two main issues separate the Eastern and Western Churches in their history of debating
the Filioque: one theological, in the strict sense, and one ecclesiological.
#### [a) Theological:](#3.2.1) {#3.2.1}
If “theology” is understood in its Patristic sense, as reflection on God as Trinity, the theological
issue behind this dispute is whether the Son is to be thought of as playing any role in the origin
of the Spirit, as a hypostasis or divine “person,” from the Father, who is the sole ultimate source
of the divine Mystery. The Greek tradition, as we have seen, has generally relied on John 15.26
and the formulation of the Creed of 381 to assert that all we know of the Spirit’s hypostatic
origin is that he “pro­ceeds from the Father,” in a way distinct from, but parallel to, the Son’s
“generation” from the Father (e.g., John of Damascus, *On the Orthodox Faith* 1.8). However,
this same tradition acknowledges that the “mission” of the Spirit in the world also involves the
Son, who receives the Spirit into his own humanity at his baptism, breathes the Spirit forth onto
the Twelve on the evening of the resurrection, and sends the Spirit in power into the world,
through the charismatic preaching of the Apostles, at Pentecost. On the other hand, the Latin
tradition since Tertullian has tended to assume that since the order in which the Church normally
names the persons in the Trinity places the Spirit after the Son, he is to be thought of as coming
forth “from” the Father “through” the Son. Augustine, who in several passages himself insists
that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” because as God he is not inferior to the Son (*De*
*Fide et Symbolo* 9.19; *Enchiridion* 9.3), develops, in other texts, his classic understanding that
the Spirit also “proceeds” from the Son because he is, in the course of sacred history, the Spirit
and the “gift” of both Father and Son (e.g., *On the Trinity* 4.20.29; *Tractate on Gospel of John*
99.6-7), the gift that begins in their own eternal exchange of love (*On the Trinity* 15.17.29). In
Augustine’s view, this involve­ment of the Son in the Spirit’s procession is not understood to
contradict the Father’s role as the single ultimate source of both Son and Spirit, but is itself given
by the Father in generating the Son: “the Holy Spirit, in turn, has this from the Father himself,
that he should also proceed from the Son, just as he proceeds from the Father” (*Tractate on*
*Gospel of John* 99.8).
Much of the difference between the early Latin and Greek traditions on this point is clearly due
to the subtle difference of the Latin *procedere* from the Greek *ekporeuesthai*: as we have
observed, the Spirit’s “coming forth” is designated in a more general sense by the Latin term,
without the connotation of ultimate origin hinted at by the Greek. The Spirit’s “procession” from
the Son, however, is conceived of in Latin theology as a somewhat different relationship from his
“procession” from the Father, even when – as in the explanations of Anselm and Thomas
Aquinas – the relationship of Father and Son to the Holy Spirit is spoken of as constituting “a
single principle” of the Spirit’s origin: even in breathing forth the Spirit together, according to
these later Latin theologians, the Father retains priority, giving the Son all that he has and making
possible all that he does.
Greek theologians, too, have often struggled to find ways of expressing a sense that the Son, who
sends forth the Spirit in time, also plays a mediating role of some kind in the Spirit’s eternal
being and activity. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, explains that we can only distinguish the
hypostases within the Mystery of God by “believing that one is the cause, the other is from the
cause; and in that which is from the cause, we recognize yet another distinction: one is
immediately from the first one, the other is through him who is immediately from the first one.”
It is characteristic of the “mediation” (*mesiteia*) of the Son in the origin of the Spirit, he adds,
that it both pre­serves his own unique role as Son and allows the Spirit to have a “natural
relationship” to the Father. (*To Ablabius*: GNO III/1, 56.3-10) In the thirteenth century, the
Council of Blachernae (1285), under the leadership of Constantinopolitan Patriarch Gregory II,
took further steps to interpret Patristic texts that speak of the Spirit’s being “through” the Son in
a sense con­sis­tent with the Orthodox tradition. The Council proposed in its *Tomos* that although
Chris­tian faith must maintain that the Holy Spirit receives his existence and hypostatic identity
solely from the Father, who is the single cause of the divine Being, he “shines from and is
manifested eternally through the Son, in the way that light shines forth and is manifest through
the intermediary of the sun’s rays.” (trans. A. Papadakis, *Crisis in Byzantium* [St. Vladimir’s,
1996] 219) In the following century, Gregory Palamas proposed a similar interpretation of this
relationship in a number of his works; in his *Con­fession* of 1351, for instance, he asserts that the
Holy Spirit “has the Father as foundation, source, and cause,” but “reposes in the Son” and “is
sent – that is, manifested – through the Son.” (*ibid*. 194) In terms of the transcendent divine
energy, although not in terms of substance or hypostatic being, “the Spirit pours itself out from
the Father through the Son, and, if you like, from the Son over all those worthy of it,” a
communi­ca­tion which may even be broadly called “procession” (*ekporeusis*) (*Apodeictic*
*Treatise* 1: trans. J. Meyendorff, *A Study of Gregory Palamas* [St. Vladimir’s, 1974] 231-232).
The Greek and Latin theological traditions clearly remain in some tension with each other on the
fundamental issue of the Spirit’s eternal origin as a distinct divine person. By the Middle Ages,
as a result of the influence of Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, Western theology almost universally
conceives of the identity of each divine person as defined by its “relations of opposition” – in
other words, its mutually defining relations of origin - to the other two, and concludes that the
Holy Spirit would not be hypostatically distinguishable from the Son if the Spirit “proceeded”
from the Father alone. In the Latin understanding of *processio* as a general term for “origin,”
after all, it can also be said that the Son “proceeds from the Father” by being generated from him.
Eastern theology, drawing on the language of John 15.26 and the Creed of 381, continues to
understand the language of “procession” (*ekporeusis*) as de­not­ing a unique, exclusive, and
distinc­tive causal relationship between the Spirit and the Father, and generally confines the Son’s
role to the “manifestation” and “mission” of the Spirit in the divine activities of crea­tion and
redemption. These differences, though subtle, are substantial, and the very weight of theological
tradition behind both of them makes them all the more difficult to reconcile theologically with
each other.
#### [b) Ecclesiological:](#3.2.2) {#3.2.2}
The other issue continually present since the late eighth century in the debate over the *Filioque* is
that of pastoral and teaching authority in the Church – more precisely, the issue of the authority
of the bishop of Rome to resolve dogmatic questions in a final way, simply in virtue of his office.
Since the Council of Ephesus (431), the dog­matic tradition of both Eastern and Western
Churches has repeatedly affirmed that the final norm of orthodoxy in interpreting the Christian
Gospel must be “the faith of Ni­caea.” The Orthodox tradition sees the normative expression of
that faith to be the Creeds and canons formulated by those Councils that are received by the
Apostolic Churches as “ecumenical”: as expressing the continuing and universal Apostolic faith.
The Catholic tradition also accepts conciliar formulations as dogmatically normative, and
attributes a unique importance to the seven Councils that are accepted as ecumenical by the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches. However, in recognizing the universal primacy of the bishop
of Rome in matters of faith and of the service of unity, the Catholic tradition accepts the
authority of the Pope to con­firm the process of conciliar reception, and to define what does and
does not conflict with the “faith of Nicaea” and the Apostolic tradition. So while Orthodox
theology has regarded the ul­timate approval by the Popes, in the eleventh century, of the use of
*Filioque* in the Latin Creed as a usurpation of the dogmatic authority proper to ecume­nical
Councils alone, Catholic theology has seen it as a legitimate exercise of his prima­tial authority to
pro­claim and clarify the Church’s faith. As our own common study has repeatedly shown, it is
precisely at times in which issues of power and control have been of concern to our Churches
that the question of the *Filioque* has emerged as a central concern: held out as a condition for
improving relations, or given as a reason for allowing disunity to conti­nue unhealed.
As in the theological question of the origin of the Holy Spirit discussed above, this divergence of
understanding of the structure and exercise of authority in the Church is clearly a very serious
one: undoubtedly Papal primacy, with all its impli­cations, remains the root issue behind all the
questions of theology and practice that continue to divide our communions. In the continuing
discussion of the *Filioque* be­tween our Churches, however, we have found it helpful to keep
these two issues methodologically separate from one another, and to recognize that the mystery
of the relationships among the persons in God must be approached in a different way from the
issue of whether or not it is proper for the Western Churches to profess the faith of Nicaea in
terms that diverge from the original text of the Creed of 381.
### [3) Continuing our Reflections](#3.2.3) {#3.2.3}
It has often been remarked that the theology of the Holy Spirit is an underdeveloped region of
Christian theological reflection. This seems to hold true even of the issue of the origin of the
Holy Spirit. Although a great deal has been written about the reasons for and against the theology
of the *Filioque* since the Carolin­gian era, most of it has been polemical in nature, aimed at
justifying positions assumed by both sides to be non-negotiable. Little effort has been made, until
modern times, to look for new ways of expressing and explaining the Biblical and early Christian
understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, which might serve to frame the
discussion in a new way and move all the Churches towards a consensus on essential matters that
would be in continuity with both traditions. Recently, a number of theologians, from a variety of
Churches, have suggested that the time may now be at hand to return to this question together, in
a genuinely ecumenical spirit, and to seek for new developments in our articulation of the
Apostolic faith that may ultimately win ecu­menical Christian reception.
Recognizing its challenges, our Consultation supports such a common theological enterprise. It is
our hope that a serious process of reflection on the theology of the Holy Spirit, based on the
Scriptures and on the whole tradition of Christian theology, and conducted with an openness to
new formulations and conceptual structures consonant with that tradition, might help our
Churches to discover new depths of common faith and to grow in respect for the wisdom of our
respective forbears. We urge, too, that both our Churches persist in their efforts to reflect –
together and separately – on the theology of primacy and synodality within the Church’s
structures of teaching and pastoral practice, recognizing that here also a continuing openness to
doctrinal and practical development, intimately linked to the Spirit’s work in the community,
remains crucially necessary. Gregory Nazianzen reminds us, in his *Fifth Theological Oration* on
the divinity of the Holy Spirit, that the Church’s slow discovery of the Spirit’s true status and
identity is simply part of the “order of theology (*taxis tēs theologias*),” by which “lights break
upon us gradually” in our understanding of the saving Mystery of God. (Or. 31.27) Only if we
“listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (Rev 3.22), will we be able to remain faithful
to the Good News preached by the Apostles, while growing in the understanding of that faith,
which is theology’s task.
## [IV. Recommendations](#4) {#4}
We are aware that the problem of the theology of the *Filioque*, and its use in the Creed, is not
simply an issue between the Catholic and Orthodox communions. Many Protestant Churches,
too, drawing on the theological legacy of the Medieval West, consider the term to represent an
integral part of the orthodox Christian confession. Although dialogue among a number of these
Churches and the Orthodox communion has already touched on the issue, any future resolution
of the disagreement between East and West on the origin of the Spirit must involve all those
communities that profess the Creed of 381 as a standard of faith. Aware of its limitations, our
Consultation nonetheless makes the following theological and practical recommen­dations to the
members and the bishops of our own Churches:
* that our Churches commit themselves to a new and earnest dialogue con­cerning the origin and
person of the Holy Spirit, drawing on the Holy Scriptures and on the full riches of the
theological traditions of both our Churches, and to looking for constructive ways of
expressing what is central to our faith on this difficult issue;
* that all involved in such dialogue expressly recognize the limitations of our ability to make
definitive assertions about the inner life of God;
* that in the future, because of the progress in mutual understanding that has come about in
recent decades, Orthodox and Catholics refrain from labeling as heretical the traditions of the
other side on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit;
* that Orthodox and Catholic theologians distinguish more clearly between the divinity and
hypostatic identity of the Holy Spirit, which is a received dogma of our Churches, and the
manner of the Spirit’s origin, which still awaits full and final ecumenical resolution;
* that those engaged in dialogue on this issue distinguish, as far as possible, the theological
issues of the origin of the Holy Spirit from the ecclesiological issues of primacy and
doctrinal authority in the Church, even as we pursue both questions seriously together;
* that the theological dialogue between our Churches also give careful consideration to the
status of later councils held in both our Churches after those seven generally received as
ecumenical.
* that the Catholic Church, as a consequence of the normative and irrevocable dogmatic value
of the Creed of 381, use the original Greek text alone in making translations of that Creed for
catechetical and liturgical use.
* that the Catholic Church, following a growing theological consensus, and in particular the
statements made by Pope Paul VI, declare that the condemnation made at the Second
Council of Lyons (1274) of those “who presume to deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds
eternally from the Father and the Son” is no longer applicable.
We offer these recommendations to our Churches in the conviction, based on our own intense
study and discussion, that our traditions’ different ways of understanding the procession of the
Holy Spirit need no longer divide us. We believe, rather, that our profession of the ancient Creed
of Constantinople must be allowed to become, by our uniform practice and our new attempts at
mutual understanding, the basis for a more conscious unity in the one faith that all theology
simply seeks to clarify and to deepen. Although our expression of the truth God reveals about his
own Being must always remain limited by the boundaries of human understanding and human
words, we believe that it is the very “Spirit of truth,” whom Jesus breathes upon his Church, who
remains with us still, to “guide us into all truth” (John 16.13). We pray that our Churches’
understanding of this Spirit may no longer be a scandal to us, or an obstacle to unity in Christ,
but that the one truth towards which he guides us may truly be “a bond of peace” (Eph 4.3), for
us and for all Christians.
Washington, DC
October 25, 2003

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title: Response to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue regarding the ‘Ravenna Document’
date: 2009-10-24
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/ravenna-response.pdf
---

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title: Steps towards a Reunited Church: A Sketch of an Orthodox-Catholic Vision for the Future
date: 2010-10-02
author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/steps-towards-a-reunited-church.pdf
---

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title: A Response to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church Document “Synodality and Primacy during the First Millennium: Towards a Common Understanding in Service to the Unity of the Church” (2016)
date: 2017-10-28
Author: North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
source: https://www.usccb.org/resources/Chieti-Response.pdf
---

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title: Paderborn Communiqué
date: 2004-06-27
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2004_paderborn_en.pdf
---

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title: Athens Communiqué
date: 2005-11-13
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2005_athens_en.pdf
---

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title: Chevetogne Communiqué
date: 2006-12-03
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2006_chevetogne_en.pdf
---

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title: Belgrade Communiqué
date: 2007-11-04
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2007_belgrade_en.pdf
---

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title: Vienna Communiqué
date: 2008-11-23
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2008_vienna_en.pdf
---

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title: Kiev Communiqué
date: 2009-11-08
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2009_kiev_en.pdf
---

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title: Magdeburg Communiqué
date: 2010-11-21
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2010_magdeburg_en.pdf
---

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title: St. Petersburg Communiqué
date: 2011-11-13
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2011_petersburg_en.pdf
---

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title: Bose Communiqué
date: 2012-11-04
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2012_bose_en.pdf
---

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title: Thessaloniki Communiqué
date: 2013-11-17
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/Communique_2013_Thessaloniki_EN.pdf
---

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title: Rabat Communiqué
date: 2014-11-09
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/Communique_2014_Malta_EN.pdf
---

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title: Halki Communiqué
date: 2015-11-08
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2015_Chalki_EN.pdf
---

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title: Taizé Communiqué
date: 2016-11-06
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2016_Taiz%C3%A9_EN.pdf
---

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title: Caraiman Communiqué
date: 2017-10-08
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2017_Caraiman_EN.pdf
---

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title: Graz Communiqué
date: 2018-10-21
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2018_graz_en.pdf
---

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title: Serving Communion: Re-thinking the Relationship between Primacy and Synodality
date: 2018-10-21
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2018_graz_serving_communion.pdf
---

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title: Trebinje Communiqué
date: 2019-10-13
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2019_Trebinje_EN.pdf
---

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title: Rome Communiqué
date: 2021-10-10
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/2021_Rome_EN.pdf
---

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title: Cluj-Napoca Communiqué
date: 2022-10-16
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/texte/kommuniques/2022_Cluj-Napoca_EN.pdf
---

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title: Balamand Communiqué
date: 2023-06-25
author: Saint Irenaeus Joint Orthodox-Catholic Working Group
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/en/texts/kommuniques-irenaeus-arbeitskreis
source: https://de.moehlerinstitut.de/pdf/Communiqu%C3%A9_Balamand-2023_EN.pdf
---