Why Does The Orthodox Church Reject The Filioque?

The Filioque is one of the most well-known differences between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. While this one word may seem like such a small difference between our confessions, this one word reaches into the Church’s understanding of God Himself and concerns how we should speak about Him. It also raises important questions about how the Church receives, preserves, and expresses the faith handed down by the Apostles.

Orthodox Christians confess one God in three Persons. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share one divine nature and one divine glory. At the same time, each Person has His own eternal relationship within the life of the Trinity. The Church has therefore guarded her language about these relationships with great care.

The controversy surrounding the Filioque developed over many centuries and involved both theology and ecclesiastical authority. Christians in East and West came to express the procession of the Holy Spirit differently. Those differences eventually became intertwined with broader disputes between the churches.

For Orthodox Christians, this remains a matter of faith rather than a mere historical disagreement. The Church’s language about the Holy Trinity shapes how we understand God Himself and His work in the world. To understand why the Orthodox Church continues to reject the Filioque, we must consider the Creed, Scripture, the writings of the Fathers, and the history of the Church. These provide the context for understanding both the theological disagreement and its lasting significance.

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What is the Filioque?

The word Filioque is Latin for “and the Son,” and it refers to the words added to the Creed in the Latin West concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit.

The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which the Church confessed at Constantinople in 381, says: “And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father.” The Orthodox Church continues to confess the Creed in this form. The Western version eventually came to say that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.”

This difference concerns more than wording. The verb “proceeds” refers to the Holy Spirit’s eternal relationship with the Father. Orthodox theology carefully distinguishes this eternal procession from the Spirit’s temporal mission, through which the Son sends the Holy Spirit into the world.

The question, therefore, is how the Church should describe the Spirit’s eternal origin within the Holy Trinity. The Orthodox Church confesses that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, while also affirming the Spirit’s eternal communion with the Son and His work through the Son.

Understanding this distinction requires us to look at how the Filioque entered the Western Creed and how the controversy developed over time.

How did the Filioque enter the Creed?

The Filioque did not appear in the original Creed of Constantinople. Its use developed gradually in the Western Church over several centuries.

The phrase first appeared in Spain during the sixth century. Historians generally associate its formal addition to the Creed with the Third Council of Toledo in 589. Spanish Christians used the phrase while defending the full divinity of Christ against Arianism. The practice later spread through Western Europe, and Frankish churches adopted the Filioque during the eighth and ninth centuries. The controversy eventually reached Rome, where Pope Leo III accepted the theology but opposed adding the words to the Creed itself. He reportedly had the original Creed displayed in Rome without the Filioque.

Rome eventually adopted the Filioque in the public recitation of the Creed in 1014, during the coronation of Emperor Henry II. By then, the addition had become established throughout much of the Latin West. The history therefore involves two related developments: the growth of the theological teaching and the gradual addition of its wording to the Creed.

The Orthodox objection would eventually concern both the theology of the Filioque and the authority to alter the Church’s common Creed.

What does it mean that the Holy Spirit “proceed from the Father”?

When the Orthodox Church confesses that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” she speaks about the Spirit’s eternal relationship with God the Father. The Father is the eternal source and origin of the divine Persons. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, while the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. These relationships distinguish the Persons while preserving the unity of the one God.

The Church distinguishes begetting from procession, although she cannot fully describe the mystery of these eternal relationships. Both belong to God’s eternal life and have no beginning in time. There was never a time when the Son or the Holy Spirit did not exist.

This teaching does not separate the Holy Spirit from the Son. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and the Father sends the Spirit into the world through the Son. Scripture itself presents this relationship in Christ’s teaching about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Orthodox theology therefore speaks of the Trinity as one God in three Persons. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share one divine nature, one will, one glory, and one divine action. Their personal distinctions remain real within that perfect unity.

The Creed preserves this distinction by naming the Father as the source of the Son and the Spirit. For Orthodox Christians, this language expresses the Church’s received understanding of the mystery of the Holy Trinity and provides the foundation for understanding why the Filioque became such a significant theological question.

The Holy Spirit and the Son

The Orthodox Church’s confession that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father does not separate the Spirit from the Son. Indeed, Scripture repeatedly shows the close relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit. Christ calls the Spirit “the Spirit of truth” and promises to send Him to His disciples. After His Resurrection, Christ breathes the Spirit upon the Apostles, and at Pentecost the Spirit comes upon the Church in power. The Son therefore has a central role in the Spirit’s mission in the world.

Orthodox theology distinguishes this mission of the Spirit through the Son from the Spirit’s eternal procession from the Father. The Creed speaks about the Spirit’s eternal origin within the Trinity, while Scripture also reveals how the Father works through the Son and in the Holy Spirit toward creation and salvation.

This distinction allows the Church to affirm both truths without confusion. The Father remains the eternal source of the Spirit, while the Son remains eternally united with the Spirit and sends the Spirit into the world.

The Orthodox Church therefore does not teach a distant or secondary relationship between Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit glorifies Christ, reveals Christ, and makes Christ present to us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are united to Christ and brought into communion with the Father.

The disagreement over the Filioque concerns the eternal procession of the Spirit, rather than the Spirit’s work through the Son in creation, revelation, and salvation.

The Biblical and Patristic witness

The Orthodox understanding of the Holy Spirit’s procession rests on Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers. Christ Himself gives the clearest biblical foundation when He says, “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father” (John 15:26).

At the same time, Scripture speaks repeatedly about the Spirit’s relationship with the Son. Christ promises to send the Spirit to His disciples, and the Spirit glorifies Christ and makes His presence known. The Apostle Paul likewise calls Him “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9). These passages show the profound unity between the Son and the Spirit while distinguishing their personal relationships within the Trinity.

The Fathers developed this language with great care. St. Gregory the Theologian distinguished the Spirit’s procession from the Son’s generation, teaching that the Spirit comes forth from the Father “not after the manner of the Son.” Other Fathers used language describing the Spirit as coming from the Father through the Son. This language affirms the Son’s eternal relationship with the Spirit while preserving the Father’s place as the source of the divine Persons. The Orthodox-Catholic theological dialogue has also recognized that “through the Son” appears in the writings of several early Fathers.

The Fathers therefore give us a consistent pattern: the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, and the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. The Son and Spirit remain perfectly united in the one divine life.

Why does the Orthodox Church reject the Filioque?

The Orthodox Church rejects the Filioque for both theological and ecclesiastical reasons. The two concerns developed together, but they address different questions. The theological concern begins with the Church’s confession that the Father is the eternal source of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, while the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. Orthodox theology therefore does not place the Son alongside the Father as a second source of the Spirit’s eternal procession.

The ecclesiastical concern involves the Creed itself. The Creed of Constantinople expressed the common faith of the Church, and the Orthodox Church holds that such a common confession belongs to the authority of the Church’s councils. The Council of Ephesus had already prohibited anyone from producing or presenting a different confession of faith from that established by the earlier councils.

For this reason, the Orthodox objection concerns more than the addition of two words. The Church seeks to preserve both the theological meaning of the Creed and the conciliar process through which the Church received it. The Orthodox Church therefore continues to confess the original wording: the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” This confession preserves the Father’s monarchy within the Trinity while affirming the Spirit’s eternal communion with the Son and His work through the Son.

What does the Roman Catholic church teach about the Filioque?

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. Catholic teaching does not understand this as two independent sources within the Trinity. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing Laetentur Caeli from the Council of Florence, teaches that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son “as from one principle and through one spiration.” It also teaches that the Father remains the first origin of the Spirit. The Son receives from the Father eternally the fact that the Spirit proceeds from Him.

Catholic theology therefore maintains both the Father’s primacy as origin and the Son’s participation in the Spirit’s eternal procession. The Catechism presents this as a distinction between the Eastern and Western theological traditions. It says the Eastern tradition emphasizes the Father as the first origin, while the Western tradition emphasizes the Father’s consubstantial communion with the Son.

The Roman Catholic Church also teaches that the Filioque expresses the same underlying Trinitarian mystery confessed by the Eastern tradition, even though the two traditions use different formulations. The Catechism describes these formulations as a “legitimate complementarity.”

The Orthodox Church does not accept that conclusion. Orthodox theology rejects the Son as a second principle of the Spirit’s eternal procession and continues to confess the Creed’s original wording: the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” The disagreement therefore concerns a real difference in Trinitarian theology, even though both traditions confess one God in three Persons and the full divinity of the Holy Spirit.

The Filioque and the Great Schism

The Filioque became one of several significant disagreements between the churches of Rome and Constantinople. By the ninth century, the issue had become closely connected with disputes over papal authority, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the governance of the Church. Patriarch Photius of Constantinople opposed the Filioque during the controversy of the ninth century. He argued that the Western addition departed from the Creed received by the whole Church. He also connected the issue with broader disagreements concerning Roman claims of authority.

The dispute continued into the eleventh century. Rome adopted the Filioque in the public recitation of the Creed in 1014, while tensions between Rome and Constantinople continued to grow. The Filioque became one of the theological differences that contributed to the breakdown of communion.

The year 1054 is traditionally associated with the Great Schism because papal legates and representatives of Constantinople exchanged formal acts of excommunication. Historians generally recognize, however, that the separation developed over a much longer period rather than occurring on a single day. Political conflict, cultural differences, questions of ecclesiastical authority, and other theological and liturgical disagreements all contributed to the growing division.

The Filioque therefore became both a theological disagreement and a visible sign of the widening separation between East and West. Its significance lies not only in the words themselves, but in what they express about the Holy Trinity and how the Church preserves her common confession of faith.

Why does the Filioque still matter?

The Filioque remains important because the Church’s language about the Holy Trinity concerns the very heart of Christian faith. The Creed gives careful expression to the eternal relationships among the divine Persons. The Father is the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, while the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father. These distinctions allow the Church to confess both the unity of God and the personal distinction of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The question also concerns how the Church receives and preserves her common confession of faith. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed belongs to the Church as a whole. Orthodox Christians therefore take seriously both its theological content and the manner in which the Church received it. We confess the same faith that the Church has handed down through Scripture, the Fathers, and the Ecumenical Councils.

For the Orthodox Christian, this is ultimately a question of knowing and worshipping God faithfully. The words of the Creed are not merely historical formulas. They give voice to the faith of the Church and shape how we understand the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Orthodox Church therefore continues to preserve the original Creed, trusting the wisdom of the Church’s received Tradition and guarding the mystery of the Holy Trinity with reverence and care.

Keep Reading: Differences Between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism: Understanding East and West