The history of the filioque controversy is the historical development of theological controversies within Christianity regarding three distinctive issues: the orthodoxy of the doctrine of procession of the Holy Spirit as represented by the Filioque clause, the nature of anathemas mutually imposed by conflicted sides during the Filioque controversy, and the liceity (legitimacy) of the insertion of the Filioque phrase into the Nicene Creed. Although the debates over the orthodoxy of the doctrine of procession and the nature of related anathemas preceded the question of the admissibility of the phrase as inserted into the Creed, all of those issues became linked when the insertion received the approval of the Pope in the eleventh century.

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. (April 2023)

The first ecumenical council, that of Nicaea (modern day İznik Province, Turkey) [325] ended its Creed with the words "and [sc. I believe] in the Holy Spirit". The second, that of Constantinople in 381 spoke of the Holy Spirit as "proceeding from the Father" (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον). This last phrase is based on John 15:26 (ὃ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται).

The third ecumenical council, held at Ephesus in 431, which quoted the creed in its 325 form, not in that of 381,^[1] decreed in its seventh canon:

"It is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa. But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the clergy; and if they be laymen, they shall be anathematized".^[2]

While the Council of Ephesus thus forbade setting up a different creed as a rival to that of the first ecumenical council, it was the creed of the second ecumenical council that was adopted liturgically in the East and later a Latin variant was adopted in the West. The form of this creed that the West adopted had two additions: "God from God" (Deum de Deo) and "and the Son" (Filioque).^{[lower-alpha 1]}

Recent discoveries have shown that the earliest known introduction of "and the Son" into the Nicene Creed may have been the work of a local council in the east, the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Persia in about 410.^[4] This was some twenty years before the Nestorian Schism divided the Church in Persia from the Church in the Roman Empire; the Church in Persia after the schism became known as the Church of the East.^[5]

In John 15:26 Jesus says of the Holy Spirit: "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me." In John 16:13–15 Jesus also says of the Holy Spirit "he will take what is mine and declare it to you", and it is argued that in the relations between the Persons of the Trinity one Person cannot "take" or "receive" (λήψεται) anything from either of the others except by way of procession.^[6] Texts such as John 20:22 ("He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit"), were seen by Fathers of the Church, especially Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria and Epiphanius of Cyprus as grounds for saying that the Spirit "proceeds substantially from both" the Father and the Son.^[7] Other texts that have been used include Galatians 4:6, Romans 8:9, Philippians 1:19, where the Holy Spirit is called "the Spirit of the Son", "the Spirit of Christ", "the Spirit of Jesus Christ", and texts in the Gospel of John on the sending of the Holy Spirit by Jesus (14:16, 15:26,16:7).^[6]

Anthony E. Siecienski asserts that it is important to recognize that "the New Testament does not explicitly address the procession of the Holy Spirit as later theology would understand the doctrine." However, he asserts that there are, nonetheless "certain principles established in the New Testament that shaped later Latin Trinitarian theology, and particular texts that both Latins and Greeks exploited to support their respective positions vis-à-vis the filioque."^[8] The Orthodox believe that the absence of an explicit mention of the double procession of the Holy Spirit is a strong indication that the filioque is a theologically erroneous doctrine.^[9]

Before the creed of 381 became known in the West and even before it was adopted by the First Council of Constantinople, Christian writers in the West, of whom Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220), Jerome (347–420), Ambrose (c. 338 – 397) and Augustine (354–430) are representatives, spoke of the Spirit as coming from the Father and the Son,^[6] while the expression “from the Father through the Son” is also found among them.^[10][11]

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,^[12] which he conceives of as flowing forth from the Father and being transmitted by the Son to the Spirit.^[13]

Hilary of Poitiers, in the mid-fourth century, 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."^[14]

In 638, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, with the support of or at the instigation of Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople, published the Ecthesis, which defined as the official imperial form of Christianity Monothelitism, the doctrine that, while Christ possessed two natures, he had only a single will.^[62][63] This was widely accepted in the East, but before the Ecthesis reached Rome, Pope Honorius I, who had seemed to support Monothelitism, died, and his successor Pope Severinus condemned the Ecthesis outright, and so was forbidden his seat until 640. His successor Pope John IV also rejected the doctrine completely, leading to a major schism between the eastern and western halves of the Chalcedonian Church.^[64]

Meanwhile, in Africa, an Eastern monk named Maximus the Confessor carried on a furious campaign against Monothelitism, and in 646 he convinced the African councils to draw up a manifesto against the doctrine. This they forwarded to the new pope Theodore I, who in turn wrote to Patriarch Paul II of Constantinople, outlining the heretical nature of the doctrine. Paul, a devoted Monothelite, replied in a letter directing the Pope to adhere to the doctrine of one will. Theodore in turn excommunicated the Patriarch in 649, declaring him a heretic,^[65] after Paul, in 647 or 648, had issued in the name of Emperor Constans II an edict known as the Typos, which banned any mention of either one or two activities or wills in Christ.^[63] The Typos, instead of defusing the situation, made it worse by implying that either doctrine was as good as the other.^[66] Theodore planned the Lateran Council of 649 but died before he could convene it, which his successor, Pope Martin I, did. The Council condemned the Ecthesis and the Typos, and Pope Martin wrote to Constans, informing the emperor of its conclusions and requiring him to condemn both the Monothelite doctrine and his own Typos.^[67] Constans responded by having Pope Martin abducted to Constantinople, where he was tried and condemned to banishment and died as a result of the torture to which he had been subjected.^[68] Maximus also was tried and banished after having his tongue and his hand cut off.^[69]

Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – 13 August 662) wrote a letter in defence of the expression used by the Pope Marinus. The words with which Maximus the Confessor declared that it was wrong to condemn the Roman use of Filioque are as follows:

"They [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit – they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession –but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence. They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong to accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism]."^[70]

Widespread use of the Filioque in the West led to controversy with envoys of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V at a synod held at Gentilly in 767.^[71][72] The use of Filioque was defended by Saint Paulinus II, the Patriarch of Aquileia, at the Synod of Friuli, Italy in 796, and it was endorsed in 809 at the local Council of Aachen.^[73]

As the practice of chanting the Latin Credo at Mass spread in the West, the Filioque became a part of the Latin liturgical rites. This practice was adopted in Emperor Charlemagne's court in 798 and spread through his empire, but which, although it was in use in parts of Italy by the eighth century, was not accepted in Rome until 1014.^[24][74][75]

According to John Meyendorff,^[76] and John Romanides^[77] the Western efforts to get Pope Leo III to approve the addition of Filioque to the Creed were due to a desire of Charlemagne, who in 800 had been crowned in Rome as Emperor, to find grounds for accusations of heresy against the East. The Pope's refusal to approve the interpolation avoided arousing a conflict between East and West about this matter. Emperor Charlemagne accused the Patriarch of Constantinople (Saint Tarasios of Constantinople) of infidelity to the faith of the First Council of Nicaea, because he had not professed the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father "and the Son", but only "through the Son", an accusation strongly rejected by Rome, but repeated in Charlemagne's commissioned work the Libri Carolini, books also rejected by the Pope.

Later again around 860AD the controversy over the Filioque and the Frankish monks broke out in the course of the disputes between Photius and Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.^[75] In 867, Photius was Patriarch of Constantinople and issued an Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs, and called a council in Constantinople in which he charged the Western Church with heresy and schism because of differences in practices, in particular for the Filioque and the authority of the Papacy.^[86] This moved the issue from jurisdiction and custom to one of dogma. This council declared Pope Nicholas anathema, excommunicated and deposed.^[87]

Photius excluded not only "and the Son" but also "through the Son" with regard to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit: for him "through the Son" applied only to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit (the sending in time).^{[lower-alpha 13][lower-alpha 14][lower-alpha 15]} He maintained that the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit is "from the Father alone".^[89] This phrase was verbally a novelty.^[90][91] However, Orthodox theologians generally hold that in substance the phrase was only a reaffirmation of traditional teaching.^[90][91] Sergei Bulgakov, on the other hand, declared that Photius's doctrine itself "represents a sort of novelty for the Eastern church".^{[92][lower-alpha 16]}

Photius's importance endured in regard to relations between East and West. He is recognized as a Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church and his line of criticism has often been echoed later, making reconciliation between East and West difficult.

At least three councils (867, 869, 879) were held in Constantinople over the deposition of Ignatius by Emperor Michael III and his replacement by Photius. The Council of Constantinople of 867 was convened by Photius, so to address the question of Papal Supremacy over all of the churches and their patriarchs and the use of the filioque.^{[94][95][96][97]}

The council of 867 was followed by the Council of Constantinople 869, which reversed the previous council and was promulgated by Rome. The Council of Constantinople in 879 restored Photius to his see. It was attended by Western legates Cardinal Peter of St Chrysogonus, Paul Bishop of Ancona and Eugene Bishop of Ostia who approved its canons, but it is unclear whether it was ever promulgated by Rome.^[98]

It was only in 1014, at the request of the German King Henry II who had come to Rome to be crowned Emperor and was surprised at the different custom in force there, that Pope Benedict VIII, who owed to Henry his restoration to the papal throne after usurpation by Antipope Gregory VI, had the Creed, with the addition of Filioque, sung at Mass in Rome for the first time.^[24]

Since then the Filioque phrase has been included in the Creed throughout all the Latin liturgical rites except where Greek is used in the liturgy,^[99][100] although it was agreed to not be used by those Eastern Catholic Churches that were united with Rome by the Union of Brest.^[101]

Eastern opposition to the Filioque strengthened with the East-West Schism of 1054. Two councils were held to heal the break discussed the question.

The Second Council of Lyon (1274) accepted the profession of faith of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in the Holy Spirit, "proceeding from the Father and the Son".^[102]

The council of Lyons also condemned "all who presume to deny that the holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, or rashly to assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and not as from one."^{[14][103][104]}

Another attempt at reunion was made at the fifteenth-century Council of Florence, to which Emperor John VIII Palaiologos, Ecumenical Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, and other bishops from the East had gone in the hope of getting Western military aid against the looming Ottoman Empire. Thirteen public sessions held in Ferrara from 8 October to 13 December 1438 the Filioque question was debated without agreement. The Greeks held that any addition whatever, even if doctrinally correct, to the Creed had been forbidden by the Council of Ephesus, while the Latins claimed that this prohibition concerned meaning, not words.^[105]

During the council of Florence in 1439, accord continued to be elusive, until the argument prevailed among the Greeks themselves that, though the Greek and the Latin saints expressed their faith differently, they were in agreement substantially, since saints cannot err in faith; and by 8 June the Greeks accepted the Latin statement of doctrine. On 10 June Patriarch Joseph II died. A statement on the Filioque question was included in the Laetentur Caeli decree of union, which was signed on 5 July 1439 and promulgated the next day, with Mark of Ephesus being the only bishop to refuse his signature.^[105]

Council of Jerusalem in 1583 AD

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The 1583 Synod of Jerusalem condemned those who do not believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone in essence, and from Father and Son in time. In addition, this synod re-affirmed adherence to the decisions of Council of Nicaea I in AD 325.

Eastern Orthodox theologian Vasily Bolotov published in 1898 his "Thesen über das Filioque", in which he maintained that the Filioque, like Photios's "from the Father alone", was a permissible theological opinion (a theologoumenon, not a dogma) that cannot be an absolute impediment to reestablishment of communion.^[107][108] This thesis was supported by Eastern Orthodox theologians Sergei Bulgakov, Paul Evdokimov and I. Voronov, but was rejected by Vladimir Lossky.^[107]

Several Eastern Orthodox theologians have considered the Filioque anew, with a view to reconciliation of East and West.Theodore Stylianopoulos provided in 1986 an extensive, scholarly overview of the contemporary discussion.^[109] Twenty years after writing the first (1975) edition of his book, The Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia said that he had changed his mind and had concluded that "the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases than in any basic doctrinal differences": "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone" and "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" may both have orthodox meanings if the words translated "proceeds" actually have different meanings.^[110] For some Orthodox, then, the Filioque, while still a matter of conflict, would not impede full communion of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches if other issues were resolved. But many Orthodox consider that the Filioque is in flagrant contravention of the words of Christ in the Gospel,.^{[lower-alpha 17]} has been specifically condemned by the Orthodox Church, and remains a fundamental heretical teaching which divides East and West.

Eastern Orthodox Christians also object that, even if the teaching of the Filioque can be defended, its interpolation into the Creed is anti-canonical.^[111] The Roman Catholic Church, which like the Eastern Orthodox Church considers the teaching of the Ecumenical Councils to be infallible, "acknowledges the conciliar, ecumenical, normative and irrevocable value, as expression of the 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 profession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical tradition can contradict this expression of the faith taught and professed by the undivided Church",^[99] but considers permissible additions that elucidate the teaching without in any way contradicting it,^[112] and that do not claim to have, on the basis of their insertion, the same authority that belongs to the original. It allows liturgical use of the Apostles' Creed as well of the Nicene Creed, and sees no essential difference between the recitation in the liturgy of a creed with orthodox additions and a profession of faith outside the liturgy such that of the Patriarch of Constantinople Saint Tarasius, who developed the Nicene Creed as follows: "the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father through the Son".^[99]

Some theologians have even envisaged as possible acceptance of Filioque by the Eastern Orthodox Church (Vladimir Lossky) or of "from the Father alone" by the Catholic Church (André de Halleux).^[107]

The Catholic view that the Greek and the Latin expressions of faith in this regard are not contradictory but complementary has been expressed as follows:

At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son. The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque). ... This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.^[113]

For this reason, the Roman Catholic Church has refused the addition of καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ to the formula ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον of the Nicene Creed in the Churches, even of Latin Church, which use it in Greek with the Greek verb "έκπορεύεσθαι".^[99] Some Eastern Catholic Churches, semi-autonomous bodies within the Catholic Church, do not use the Filioque in the creed.^{[lower-alpha 18]}

• Papal infallibility