The Bishops who promoted the union and the members of their Church retained a lively awareness of their original close ties to their Orthodox brethren, together with a full consciousness of the Oriental identity of their Metropolia, an identity which was also to be upheld after the union. In the history of the Catholic Church, it is a highly significant fact that this just desire was respected and that the act of union did not involve passing over to the Latin tradition, as some thought would happen. Their Church saw an acknowledgment of its right to be governed by its own hierarchy with a specific discipline and to maintain its Eastern liturgical and spiritual heritage.

The Spirit receives His eternal subsistent being (i.e., His hypostasis) solely from the Father by ekporeusis; while as energy, but not as person, the Spirit is made manifest, both temporally and eternally, from the Father through the Son.

Sadly, the Florentine decree confuses these two distinct realities, and that is why I, as an Eastern Catholic, cannot subscribe to the Latin Church's teaching on the Spirit's procession (ekporeusis).

Next he notes,"That includes the filioque as a truth of Catholic teaching and a defined, immutable dogmatic part of the faith as defined at two ecumenical councils." I will be charitable and assume he has forgotten the fact that the framers of the Creed of 381 said only another RECOGNIZED ecumenical council could make changes in the creed.

Hi Apotheoun,

I have a pretty clear idea of your position on the theology, per se, of the filioque, but I'm not so clear about your take on Fr. Hopko's proposal.

Do you agree with him that the Pope should "insist on an explanation that would clearly teach that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Son” only in relation to God’s saving dispensation in the world"? Or do you the proposal should be tempered with a bit more tolerance of the Latin approach? (Or none of the above?)

He [the pope] would have to confirm the original text of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith and defend its use in all the churches, beginning with his own.

At the very least (should some churches for pastoral reasons be permitted to keep the filioque in their creed), he would insist on an explanation that would clearly teach that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Son” only in relation to God’s saving dispensation in the world. He would make certain that no Christian be tempted to believe that the Holy Spirit essentially proceeds from the Father and the Son together, and certainly not “from both as from one" (ab utroque sicut ab uno).

The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). "Theology" refers to the mystery of God's inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and "economy" to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God's works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.

I'm just trying to determine why you and Father Hopko seem to see the value of the procession as purely economical and not theological. What is the rationale for this and what would prevent someone from taking any other revealed truth of the Trinity in the same manner?

That said, I basically agree with Fr. Hopko's theological position, except when he says that the manifestation (phanerosis) or progression (proienai) of the Spirit from the Father through the Son is limited to "God's saving dispensation in the world."

I do not believe that there is any need for this so-called "pastoral" concession. The filioque should simply be removed from the creed.

So Todd, in your view, what precisely is the revelatory value or limits of any economic manifestation of the Trinity? How would you propose going about differentiating between what is purely economical (temporal accomodation) from what is truly theological (eternally revealed truth about the Holy Trinity)?

I ask this because it seems that the strength of the arguments in favor of the Spirit proceeding eternally from the Father through the Son is that there traditionally has been an intimate connection between economia and theologia.

I'm just trying to determine why you and Father Hopko seem to see the value of the procession as purely economical and not theological. What is the rationale for this and what would prevent someone from taking any other revealed truth of the Trinity in the same manner?

I make a real distinction between theologia (i.e., the inner life of the Trinity) and economia (i.e., the manifestation of God outside of His ineffable essence and tri-hypostatic existence), which is the traditional position of the Eastern Fathers. God is essentially and hypostatically incomprehensible; while He is communicable – at least to a limited degree – in His energies, which manifest His power and glory in the world.



The idea that the economia reveals the inner life of God is a Western – and particularly a Scholastic – notion, which I do not accept. The essence and tri-hypostatic existence of God is discursively unknowable, for God is utterly transcendent as it concerns these things, which are the proper realm of apophasis. While, on the other hand, His energies are unique because they transgress the diastemic boundary between the uncreated and the created, acting as a bridge between theology (i.e., the inner life of the Godhead) and the divine economy by imparting God's living presence to man.



As I indicated above, the procession (ekporeusis) of the Spirit as person from the Father alone is purely theological, while His eternal manifestation (phanerosis) or progression (proienai) as energy through the Son is both theological and economical. Sadly, the West has confused the Holy Spirit's procession of origin (i.e., His ekporeusis) as person, which is solely from the Father, with His eternal manifestation or progression as energy (i.e., grace), which is from the Father through the Son.

My concern is that, with the approach to the essence-energy distinction coupled with the assertion of the almost complete unknowability of God that you have personally outlined and ascribed to the whole of the Eastern Fathers, there appears to be the risk of driving a wedge between God and His self-revelation in history. How do you avoid the slippery slope of either modalism or, worse yet, Islam?