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Why Roman Church added the Filioque

Father George Nicozisin gives this answer in his book The Orthodox Church, A well- Kept Secret, A Journey Through Church History:

In the Creed issued by the First and Second Ecumenical Councils, it states: “I believe in the , the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.”

After “who proceeds from the Father,” the phrase “Filio que” (and the Son) was added to the Latin Creed. This practice first started in the 7th century in Toledo, Spain. To combat this alteration of the Creed and to admonish those using the “Filioque,” Pope Leo II in 794 ordered the Creed to be written on two silver plaques in Greek and Latin in its original form, and placed them in the Church of St. Peter in Rome.

In spite of this, the “Filioque” clause began to spread throughout the Western Christian Church. It was first detected in 806 when Greek monks heard Latin monks using it in the Divine in Jerusalem. [This change] helped build and reinforce Papal Supremacy.

The Petrine Promise [the promise to Peter]

The Church believes that Papal Supremacy is documented in the Bible. In Matthew 16:13-19, Christ asks: “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in . And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

[Commentary from the Orthodox Study Bible page 1299-1300: Peter/rock is a play on the word for “rock” in both Aramaic and Greek. This rock refers not to Peter per se, but to “the faith of his confession” (St John Chrysostom.) The true Rock is Christ Himself (1st Corinthians 10:4) and the Church is built on the faithful confession of Christ. The term church is mentioned only twice in all the gospels, here and in 18:17. This Church is the true Israel and the Body of Christ; her citizenship is heavenly. Keys of the kingdom refers to a special authority that will be given to both Peter and the other apostles after the Resurrection (see 18:18 and John 20:23). Peter was not a leader over the others, but among them. This truth was confirmed at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) where the apostles and presbyters met as equals, and where Peter advised, but James presided. Binding and loosing is a reference primarily to the authority “to absolve sins” (St John Chrysostom; see John 20:23) but also includes all the teaching, sacramental, and administrative authority of the apostles. This authority was in turn transmitted to the bishops of the Church and continues in effect to this day.]

The Popes of Rome considered this passage as Jesus’ personal call to Peter to succeed Him and be His representative on earth. The Orthodox Church does not take the same view…We believe that when Peter spoke, he represented all the disciples. And when Jesus answered him, he spoke not only to all the disciples, but to all the successive bishops of the Church throughout the centuries.

The Petrine Promise with the Filioque Clause

The Filioque clause is fully understood with the Petrine Promise. The First and Second Ecumenical Councils used certain words and phrases to describe how [people] could understand the of the Holy . One of the doctrinal statements was that the Holy Spirit is the “Giver of Life,” which works through the and the grace of the Church. After Jesus’ resurrection, He promised the disciples He would ask to send the Holy Spirit at the appointed time (Pentecost). The Filioque clause with the Petrine Promise would imply that if Jesus can send the Holy Spirit – and Jesus ostensibly asks Peter to be His Vicar, His successor and representative on earth – then Peter, too, can send the Holy Spirit. And if Peter is the First Bishop of Rome then, he too has both the power and the authority to send the Holy Spirit. If follows then, that each consecutive Bishop of Rome is also Christ’s Vicar and Representative on earth. Therefore the Pope of Rome has sole and sovereign authority and is above reproach in all matter. This false teaching solidified Papal authority to an unbelievable degree.

The Photian Schism

In the ninth century…ecclesiastical authority fell upon two eminently powerful churchmen: • Patriarch Photius of Constantinople • of Rome

It was a traditional practice for the five Patriarchal Bishops of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and Constantinople to exchange announcement greetings upon their election and enthronement.

When Photius ascended the throne of Constantinople in 861, Nicholas refused to recognize him claiming that he had not been consulted…. Pope Nicholas refused to accept this decision even after sending his own representatives to investigate. Nicholas called a council in Rome in 863 and stripped Photius of his title and reinstated the previous Ignatius. Nicholas asserted Papal prerogatives and declared that through Him Christ Himself was speaking. This was the first official and public declaration of Papal Supremacy in Constantinople. Patriarch Photius ignored the intervention.

Pages 58-61

Saint Photius: The Miracle and the Primacy of Truth By Pemptousia Partnership in Pemptousia Partnership Feb 06, 2017 Comment(s) Tags: Lives Of , St. Photios The Great

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• Stylianos G. Papadopoulos

The Miracle of Truth Photius was the chosen vessel of God in his times. He was, in other words, the outstanding, genuine bearer of Tradition and for that reason was the most famous and therefore the most significant theologian of the period. His outlook and his theology were an expression of the being of the Church and the result of enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. This fact, which is not so common as we would like in the Church, has warmed the hearts of the faithful to Photius over all the centuries since, and has made him a symbol and beacon of the truth. It is proper, therefore that the Church has decided to celebrate his memory (6th February) in a special way, with particular emphasis. In this way, we have the opportunity to realize the dimensions of, the profound meaning of, the feast. Today we honor a holy man of the Church; we honor the saint, who differs from the great cloud of saints, witnesses and the blessed. The latter were sanctified through martyrdom, which the faithful of the time wondered at, through their exceptionally virtuous lives and through their ascetic struggle and visions of God. All of these became signs which underscored their sanctity which functioned and continues to function in the spirit of the faithful as model and momentum, as an example and proof of our truth.

1 In the new reality, that is in the Church, the martyrs and saints took the place of heroes and models. And this was because they embodied more than others the ethos of the Church and sacrificed their lives for it. Even more, the saints and martyrs often sealed and continue to seal their superiority to other people by performing miracles. At all times, in all places the Church has known and knows countless miracles, apart from the miracle of miracles, its Divine Eucharist, which is repeated thousands of times all over the earth. The miracles of the saints show how small and how great humankind is. So the miracle, as a blatant abrogation of natural and spiritual reality, was kneaded into the life of the Church and is stunning proof of the sanctity of its saints, which, for centuries now, it has honored daily. But behold how tonight and tomorrow we are honoring a saint who does not bring to our minds the Roman persecutions and martyrdom. We do not honor Saint Photius for his many miracles: we do not know if he healed the lame and the blind; if he consoled people in pain; if he appeared to the faithful after his demise to advise, support, or encourage them. And though this is all true, Photius is admirable and great. So the miracle is to be found elsewhere. It is in the truth he expressed in his theology, in his struggles for the Church. He does not have wonder-working , but he has wonder-working truth in his works. The faithful are not accustomed to seeking comfort from Saint Photius, but they have become accustomed and must be accustomed to seeking the truth. His miracle is his truth. This is his uniqueness, his greatness. The miracle of manifesting the truth is a mightier miracle than other ones and in particular it is difficult to contemplate, to understand. Those who are unprepared do not recognize it for what it is. Those who have not learned to care as much for the truth as they do for their bodies do not understand. And yet, the manifestation of the truth to people is God’s greatest intervention. With His uncreated energies, the Holy Spirit breaks through the barrier of human relativity, parts the veil of secularity and makes people capable of contemplating, of experiencing the truth more deeply and broadly and then of expressing this terrible and divine experience. This is precisely the miracle of the truth. This is precisely what happened to Saint Photius and why we are honoring him today, as the Church honored him in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Just how significant the miracle of truth and how great the teacher who contributed to it are is clear from this simple fact: you can be saved even if your body is crippled; you cannot be saved however, if your faith is severely crippled, if you lose the truth, if you do not have genuine truth, if you doubt it. And this is so because salvation, deification, beatification mean participation in the divine reality. People with wrong beliefs however, are delusional, they think they have the truth when in fact they have nothing and so they are not brought to salvation. This outstanding teacher of the Church, as the genuine voice of truth, has contributed to the salvation of people, has participated in the task of the divine design for salvation and this is why he, who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 858, is considered a saint. The broader awareness of the nature of the Church This holy man challenged the evil of false faith and the Eastern Church, through his struggles and theology preserved its purity, which had been in grave danger from the bishops of Rome and the Frankish theologians. The Popes of Rome, imbued as they

2 were with secular concepts, adulterated the fact and the institution of the Church. And they attempted, through Pope Nicholas I (858-867) to introduce this adulteration, this ecclesiological sickness, by force into the Eastern Church. When the Church of Rome sought the primacy of authority, when it sought jurisdiction over another Patriarchal Church, this meant that it was not living the fact of the Church in a proper manner, that the undefiled mystical body of Christ had been damaged. Photius’ reaction, his robust and deeply theological struggles were justified because they were an attempt to manifest the genuine structure of the Church. Inspired by the anti- ecclesiastical claims of Rome, Photius demonstrated and underlined the nature of the Church. The significance of his struggles does not lie merely in the fact that the newly-constituted Church of Bulgaria did not, in the end, come under Roman jurisdiction, nor that they showed that the Pope did not have the right to intervene authoritatively in the theme (province) of the East, and, therefore, in matters of any local Church. What is fundamental is that the theology concerning the Church, the theology which began with Ignatios the God-bearer and was now widened by Photius, took on new dimensions. In a final and impressive analysis, Photius expressed and salvaged the notion of the local Church, particularly in relation to other local Churches. The primacy of authority sought by the Roman Church did great damage to local Churches. Local bishops were, to some extent, reduced to administrative organs, that is they were not “in place of God the Father”, as Ignatian theology had it, as the Eastern Church accepted it and as Photius correctly understood. The enormous significance of the problem can be understood when you consider that the Church has two fundamental poles “Eucharistic realism” and the theology of the bishop. For those outside our Church, these two poles- sometimes one, sometimes the other or even both together- scandalized, continue to scandalize and are strongly opposed, precisely because there is no Church without the real Eucharist or without a real bishop to celebrate it. In the context of the ninth century, as later, the Popes essentially attempted to shrink the true dimension of the episcopacy. Photius’ work, however, nullified their plan and so, in the East, the office of bishop has spiritual dimensions, created by Christ, the head of the Church. The procession of the Holy Spirit The other aspect of Photius’ great theological contribution is in the field of Trinitology and . The Frankish theologians, without a powerful Orthodox tradition and the Roman theologians, on doubtful theological grounds, taught that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son. They taught the Filioque which some of them, particularly the Franks, added to the Creed. The Eastern Church felt that, through this teaching, faith in God the Father was being adulterated, since we accept Him as the source of the other two persons. In other words, with this new teaching, consciously or unconsciously, the sources, the beginnings, of the persons became two, the Father and the Son, which cast doubt on the unity of the Trinity and the of the Spirit as regards the Father and Son.

3 The Filioque, then, was not genuine theological progress, but a partial subversion of the faith of the Church, which until then had been acquired and expressed through dramatic struggles and by enlightenment from the Holy Spirit. Saint Photius was able to show, in theological terms, the character of this innovative Western teaching, its mistaken basis and its subversiveness for what they were. With the aid of Tradition, brief study and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, he manifested the truth and thus it became clear that the Filioque does not stand up, it is not real, it is an imaginary truth and therefore puts at serious risk the salvation of those who accept it. The consequences of this theology on the life and outlook of the faithful quickly became obvious: after the ninth century, the Orthodox Church had a clearer awareness than it had previously had of the manner of the precession of the Holy Spirit and was entirely certain that the Filioque was a false belief. Even the Westerners have since tried to interpret their Filioque in such a manner as not to adulterate Trinitology. This is due to Saint Photius, who, for this, too, acts in the Church as a great Father and Teacher. The primacy of truth If we look at the person and theology of Saint Photius through a broader prism which will not distort either him or his contribution, then we shall make an observation of great significance. While it was the Roman bishops who generally claimed primacy, the Church, Eastern and Western, then accepted, directly or indirectly, the position and theology of Photius. The Roman bishops sought to impose themselves, believing that they had the special authority to do so. They did not, however, have genuine truth to impose, and therefore no authority over other Churches. Photius, who had Tradition on his side, tried to manifest the truth as this was related to the problems of his day. He did not speak of authority; he labored for the truth, which is the only thing that guarantees salvation. But the fact that the truth was given to Photius, who labored for it, and not to the Popes, who sought authority, means that the view of Photius and not that of the Popes was worthy of ; believers ought to have the mindset of Photius, to live like him. It follows then that the rule in the Church is that truth is what counts, as is he who expresses it. This is self-evident, because the ultimate measure and criterion in the Church is truth. Privileges and primacies depend solely on the truth. This is why there is no other form of primacy in the Church. There is only the primacy of the truth, which, in the ninth century was given by God through the person of Photius. The primacy of truth, which we can see and follow in the whole historical course of the Church, is not related to any place, because the Spirit breathes wherever He wills. It does not compromise with secular ambitions, with claims for privileges, because God is indifferent to those. And particularly today, the Church, which is hovering between nominally “Churchy” groups, transitory traditional figures, contemporary problems on the one hand and the truth on the other, will win this spiritual battle of life and death only if it follows in the footsteps of Saint Photius, that is, if it lives its true Tradition, if it sacrifices itself for the problems of the time, if it demonstrates complete confidence in the enlightening Holy Spirit. Amen.

4 Source: pemptousia.com

5 Explaining the Trinity to Muslims By Fr. Brendan Pelphrey in The Sounding Blog Aug 25, 2014 Comment(s) Tags: Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Muslim, Trinity

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Recently, the following question was received by OCN: Hi, Thanks for a great page and I’m very happy to see my Orthodox brothers and sisters from around the world. I have a question maybe you could help me to answer. I have a friend (a Muslim convert) who is questioning the Trinity. According to him the Christians took the words of Jesus and twisted them to create a Trinity. He explains that Jesus never said he is 3 in 1 only the followers of Paulus since it was Paulus who created the Trinity. My friend said this was the main reason he left . What chapters in the bible can I find what Jesus said about the Trinity? Maybe you can provide me with explanation to this subject. Thanks for your help! Best Regards Mara

Fr. Brendan Pelphrey responds: Christians believe that God is love. The Trinity defines love: the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, of the Father for the Spirit, of the Son for the Spirit, and of the Spirit for the Father and the Son. It is, finally, a love which is so great that it went out of itself. This is why God created and sustains all that exists.

Here we see that love is not a feeling or emotion, as many people think. Rather, love is a permanent relationship of self-giving and eternal mercy and compassion. Jesus Christ is the revelation to humanity of that permanent love, in which the Son lives in the Father, and the Father in the Son, and the Spirit in the Father and the Son. This kind of love is beyond our understanding. It is not rational. We cannot argue about it or prove it. However, we can experience it, and this experience changes lives and brings us into loving relationship with everything that exists, because God loves all things and is at work in all that exists.

Mara’s friend has not experienced divine love. Divine love is very different from religion, in which people agree with certain and therefore congregate with other like-minded people. Mara’s friend left religion, which he called “Christianity,” because certain things did not make sense to him.

1 So while his objections deserve answers, we have to realize that arguments like this will not change his life. Such arguments do not create love in the hearts of people who see God only in terms of rationality.

Beyond this, Muslim objections to the Trinity are part of a whole set of assertions that together make up Islam. For every false assertion that we can correct, there will always be more objections to Christian faith. For example, if we show that in the Bible there are clear images of the Trinity, then it will be objected that the Bible is inaccurate or that it has less importance than the Qur’an.

Nevertheless, it is possible to show how the Muslim objections cited above are false. To do this carefully requires more than just a few words, so in the future we hope to present a series on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. We will see what the doctrine of the Trinity actually is, where it appears in the Bible, what this means about the nature and person of Jesus Christ; and some practical implications of the mystery of the Trinity for Christian life. In the meantime, the following is a “short version” in response to the objections raised by Mara’s friend.

Jesus never claimed to be God. Actually, He did. In fact, this is exactly why He was crucified. There are many examples of this in the Gospels, but perhaps the clearest are in the . Jesus says, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30); “If you had known me, you would have known My Father also” (John 8:19); “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9); and “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (John 14:10). These statements are unambiguous. (*Commentary pg 1445: Jesus reveals Himself to be fully God: One means one in nature or essence. He is God before all ages, and He remains God after the Incarnation for all eternity. The plural verb are indicates two distinct Persons, while confirming a continuous unity. The Jews clearly recognize this claim of divinity and thus accuse Him of blasphemy.)

The accounts of Jesus’ trial also tell us that the main charge brought against Him was that He made Himself equal with God. Here we should remember that in Jewish faith, the promised Messiah (or in Greek, “the Christ”) was considered to be Immanuel, meaning “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). In Mark 12:35-36, Jesus points out that the Messiah is not simply the son of David, but is called “Lord” (meaning God) by David himself. There is no question that Jesus identified Himself with the promised Messiah, who was understood to proceed from God and to be divine.

In John 2:19 we read that Jesus says He could rebuild the temple in three days—something which only God could do. In Matthew 26:63, the High Priest asked Him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus answered, “It is as you said.” Then Jesus said, “After this you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of Heaven.” In other words, the assertion was true.

Jesus often referred to Himself as “the Son of Man” (John 6:62). This phrase does not mean an ordinary man, but is a direct reference to Daniel 7:13 in which the prophet Daniel describes a vision of the Messiah who would bring mankind to the presence of the Father. In John 8:28, Jesus says clearly, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing of Myself but as My Father taught Me…” Here He clearly identifies Himself both as the Messiah and God.

There is no evidence that Jesus was God in the flesh. Actually, Jesus’ whole ministry was filled with evidence that He had the power of God and proceeded from the Father. He fulfilled hundreds of 2 specific signs of the Messiah that are prophesied in the Old Testament. These included healing the sick, casting out demons, restoring sight to the blind, making the lame walk, causing the deaf to hear, and healing withered limbs. He fulfilled prophecies of where He would be born, and how. Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary was the first of the signs that He was indeed the promised Messiah. This sign is acknowledged even by Muslims, although some Muslims claim—contrary to history—that Jesus was born in Babylon and not in Bethlehem.

The Old Testament never mentions the Trinity. Actually there are over fifty references to the Trinity in the Old Testament. Some examples are in Genesis 18, Psalm 110, Proverbs 30:4, Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 48, Isaiah 49, and Zechariah 3. Perhaps the most striking of the “theophanies” (appearances of God) in the Old Testament is the story of the visit of God to Abraham at Mamre (Genesis 18).

The Bible says that the LORD (Hebrew, YHWH) appeared to Abraham in the form of three angels. In the story, the verbs used for the angels are sometimes plural and sometimes singular: thus there are three, but there is only One. Historically, this passage left rabbis puzzled as they tried to interpret it. How could there be One who is Three? But in the Book of Genesis, God is always referred to both in the singular, as one God (El), and in the plural (Elohim). This is illustrated in Genesis 1:26: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Even the first two verses of the Bible (Genesis 1:1-3) refer to the Trinity: God created, the Spirit hovered over the Deep, and the Word of God created light.

It does not make sense for God to be One and Three at the same time. To the prophet Isaiah, God said, “As the heaven is distant from earth, so My way is distant from your ways” (Isaiah 55:09). The logic of God is not our logic. That is why what is impossible for man, is possible for God. We are not God, and we cannot know the essence of God. However, the “mathematics” of God, as revealed in Christ, are: 1 + 1 + 1= 1.

Therefore, the nature of the Trinity is considered by the Church to be a mystery which, as God’s creatures, we cannot explain. However, it can be illustrated by the idea of “co-inherence” in contemporary physics. Science has discovered that certain sub-atomic particles must be considered as both separate particles, and as existing only within (or “one with”) other particles at the same time. Historically, the Church has used the example of three separate candle flames that come together and burn as one: the flames are all one, even though they are three.

The Greek word used for the “co-inherence” of the Three Persons of the Trinity is , which literally means “running in a circle.” It means that when we see the Son, we see the Father, who has sent the Spirit to reveal the Son, who gives the Spirit, who draws us to the Father, who is only seen in the Son… Each One reveals the Others, and is found only in, and with, the other divine Persons. This mode of existence defines what it means to be “person.” We cannot be real persons in isolation. Christians believe that our own nature, as persons, is a mirror of the person-hood of the Holy Trinity.

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It does not make sense for Jesus to be God and Man at the same time. Although we cannot understand how or why God came to live among men, this is exactly what God promised that He would do, as recorded by the Old Testament prophets. He did this without ceasing to be God. St. Athanasius used this illustration: imagine pouring a glass of wine into a glass of water, in which the water becomes “all wine,” but the volume of water does not change. In other words, the water and wine coexist in the same time and place, even though wine and water have different qualities altogether. This is the co-inherence of God in man, and man in God, so that there is no change in either. Jesus is both fully God, and fully man. (Also, see the previous answer.)

The idea of the Trinity was made up by “Paulus” (St. Paul). No. The Trinity is mentioned not only in all of the Gospels, but also in the Old Testament. While it is true that the Gospel of John was written after the letters of Paul, it is also true that the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and possibly Matthew, were earlier—even before Paul’s conversion to Christian faith. Jesus mentions the Trinity clearly in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”

The Holy Bible was written by men. Later translations changed its meaning. Therefore, the Bible does not have the authority of the Holy Qur’an, which was dictated to the Prophet directly by the angel Jibriel, revealing the very words of Allah’ (God). It is interesting that Muslims insist that the Qur’an has to be read in Arabic if it is to be understood. This is opposite to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which from the beginning was preached in all languages (see Acts 2), but without changing its meaning. This was because the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ was not in words, but in the flesh, just as God promised through the prophets of old. Jesus was himself the living Word () of God.

It is also worth pointing out that in history there have been many other books that claimed to contain the exact words of God. However, these books do not agree with one another. Which one is true? Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus also warned that many people would come after Him, claiming to be the Messiah or claiming to be the only path to God. These are false prophets.

How do we know what is true? Perhaps the only way is to judge according to people’s works. Human nature tells us that murdering everyone who does not agree with us is not what we were intended to do with our lives. It can never be justified, even though religious groups often do it in the name of God. But Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden light” (Matthew 11:28). For me, at least, this sounds like Truth. ______Posted by the Orthodox Christian Network

*Commentary is from the Orthodox Study Bible

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