A Response to Jeffrey Hensley, “A Modest Defense of the Filioque” 27 February 2016 Christ Church (Episcopal) Georgetown Washington, DC Fr
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A response to Jeffrey Hensley, “A Modest Defense of the filioque” 27 February 2016 Christ Church (Episcopal) Georgetown Washington, DC Fr. Ronald Conner Memorial Paul Crego I am honored to be a part of this memorial evening for Fr. Ronald Parks Conner, late priest in Washington, DC; may his memory be eternal! Sharing a mentor in Boston, the Rev. Dr. Horace T. Allen Jr. of the Boston University School of Theology, I had met Fr. Conner before I arrived in Washington. Over the years, I had the privilege of serving at Mass with Fr. Conner at St. James’ Parish on Capitol Hill and later at the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation. We fell into easy conversation in the sacristy, often on topics of the Orthodox Church that we had both studied in some detail. We were both Anglo-Catholics not afraid to wield a thurible, even at a Low Mass. And, there was the Christmas Eve Mass at St. Stephen’s when Fr. Conner was presiding and I thurifying: the time came to charge the thurible at the altar, and after passing him the incense boat I struggled to open the thurible – the hot resin had sealed it shut. As I struggled Fr. Conner, in a stagge whisper, exclaimed: “Protestant!” I have been asked this evening to give my response to Jeffrey Hensley’s paper: “A Modest Defense of the Filioque.” My response is 1 divided into three basic sections: 1. East is East and West is West?; 2. Authority -- with attention also to modern ecumenical matters; and 3. Theology – what does it matter anyway whether the filioque comes or goes? East is East and West is West? The first issue I would like to take up, in reaction to the “Modest Defense,” would be a more detailed looked at the “Eastern Church.” I want to do some parsing, if I may, of the concept of Eastern and Western Churches; and in this context, which churches in the “East” say “and from the Son” and which do not. While certainly there is a relative East and a relative West that, at one time existed among the churches, this ecclesiastical metageography, if you will, has very much been overcome by the migration of churches of all sorts to all of the cardinal points on the compass and quite many of the points in between. “East” and “West” in many ways have become value judgments. Perhaps we can move to a historical understanding of the universal Church that, while often enough defined in some cases by national and regional identities, is not made up of churches, or church families that are defined by points on the compass. Those churches traditionally called “Eastern” come in essentially four different communions (and I will not be dealing in this paper with the 2 dizzying array of schismatic churches that claim their pseudo-apostolicity from this or that church in the “East.”)1 We think first of the “Orthodox” or what is often called “Eastern Orthodox” – that is, those local churches (including patriarchates and national churches) that are in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople. They have received the authority of seven ecumenical councils. This group is sometimes referred to as the Byzantine family of churches. These churches uniformly have no filioque in their standard versions of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The second group of “Eastern Churches” consists of those that have received the first three ecumenical councils, Nicea (325), Constantinople I (380/1), and Ephesus (431), but not Chalcedon (451) or any subsequent council. They are sometimes called Oriental Orthodox Churches2 or, if one insists on misusing an epithet from the fifth century, Monophysites. These churches now prefer the description “Miaphysite.” This group includes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. These churches are not in communion with those Orthodox Churches that are in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople. They are of at least two opinions on the procession of the Holy Spirit: the Armenian Church, in its version of the 1 Cf. Peter F. Anson’s Bishops at Large for a detailed study of small communities claiming this or that apostolicity and catholicity. (Berkeley, CA: Apocryphile Press, 2006). 2 Is “Oriental” here more east than east, a different type of east, or a signal of the “more exotic?” 3 Nicene Creed, has no mention of the Holy Spirit processing from either the Father or the Son.3 The Coptic Church, on the other hand, professes belief in the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father.4 A third and much smaller group, now one small church, descends from the Syriac-speaking Christian community of the Persian Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. This so-called “Church of the East” once spread over a missionary field that stretched from Eastern Anatolia to Beijing in East Asia and the Indian subcontinent in South Asia. Lazy nineteenth century orientalists referred to this body as the “Nestorian Church.” There are remnants of this community, now known as the Assyrian Church of the East, in what used to be Iraq and Syria – its Patriarch-Catholicos Mar Gewargis III, enthroned in September 2015, resides in Chicago as did his predecessor Mar Dinkha IV. In the Nicene Creed of this church the Holy Spirit processes from the Father, but not the Son.5 The fourth group are called “Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.” These churches, all of which have counterparts among the first three groups, are 3 Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Church. (New York: Diocese of the Armenian Church of America, 1982) 12a-13a (English). An immensely detailed treatment of creedal statements for the Armenian Church may be found in: Gabriele Winkler, Über die Entwicklungsgeschichte des armenischen Symbolums. (Roma: Pontificio istituto orientale, 2000). 4 The Coptic Liturgy – The Holy Kholagy. (Oxford Publishing House, 2007) 50-51. 5 Nestorian is an insult hurled at one party of combatants in the Christological controversies of the fifth century. They were accused of so separating their understanding of the union of human and divine in the person of Jesus Christ that the unity was destroyed. They also were reluctant to use “Theotokos” as a title for the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nestorius, one time and subsequently deposed Patriarch of Constantinople himself seems to have used Christotokos for St. Mary. 4 in communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. Although they retain many of the customs and much of the liturgies of the churches out of which they were “born,” they, as Rome, recite the filioque in their creeds.6 Second: the issue of authority. I bring authority up to expand upon Jeff’s coverage of some of the Anglican views on the filioque issue, such as the Lambeth Conferences, the installation rites for the Archbishops of Canterbury, and the almost, but not quite, elimination of the filioque from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The Nicene Creed that we Episcopalians recite during the Eucharistic liturgy and some feast days, save for those liturgies, especially including the Sacrament of Baptism, when the Apostles’ Creed is appropriate, is a compilation of the first two ecumenical councils: of Nicea in 325 and I Constantinople in 380/1. It was ratified as a statement of faith by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, in addition to what we know as the “The Definition of the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Person of Christ.”7 As a part of the Eucharistic liturgy it was introduced by Christians who had not received as authoritative the Council of Chalcedon, 6 For an accessible treatment of these four groups and their individual churches, see: Ronald Roberson, The Eastern Christian Churches : A Brief Survey. 7th edition. (Roma, Italy: Edizioni “Orientalia Christiana”, 2008). 7 This may be found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer: 864; with other “Historical Documents” in type face smaller than the rest of the prayer book. 5 recognized by the majority of Christians as the Fourth Ecumenical Council. Their motive was to show that they adhered to the proper orthodoxy of the earlier, that is, the fourth century, and the creed of the first two councils.8 There is some evidence that it was introduced in the latter part of the fifth century, but more firm evidence exists for an early sixth century introduction. Not to be outflanked on the issue of Nicene Orthodoxy, the pro-Chalcedonian party in the sixth century came to include the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed as a part of the Eucharistic liturgy.9 The Latin liturgy, which is an intermediary for our Anglican customs, picked up the “Nicene Creed” as normative within the liturgy as a result of being party to these first four ecumenical councils and developing their liturgy in parallel with Constantinopolitan and Jerusalem norms.10 Rome was one of the five patriarchates as defined first by the Council of Chalcedon and played an especially large role in the Council of Chalcedon by means of the Tome of St. Leo that became the basis for the aforementioned “Definition” of that council. Before getting to the “birth” of the filioque in the church of the Latin liturgy centered in Rome, it would be appropriate here to ask: What does 8 This is on the assertion by some that Chalcedon had produced an innovative product that was not in line with the received faith and that older pronouncements were on principle more Orthodox. 9 Robert F. Taft, S.J., A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, volume II: The Great Entrance. 2nd edition.