FILIOQUE: A Response To Eastern Orthodox Objections – Mark J. Bonocore

“The Filioque controversy which has separated us for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote The Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study, that the problem is more in the area of semantics than in any basic doctrinal differences.” (Bishop Kallistos Ware, Diakonia, quoted from Elias Zoghby’s A Voice from the Byzantine East, p.43)

Fyi, Kallistos Ware is an Orthodox Bishop while Elias Zoghby is a Melkite-Catholic Bishop.

The quote above (emphasis mine) from renowned Eastern Orthodox bishop and scholar Kallistos Ware illustrates how even a keen and scholarly Eastern mind (such as that of the good bishop) can easily overreact and zealously mischaracterize the doctrine of Filioque. While a Westerner might be tempted to attribute this to blind prejudice on the part of the East, the reality is that both East and West have so poorly communicated with one another on this issue over the centuries that it is easy to understand why an Easterner would object to Filioque as strongly as many do.

Read the rest here: http://www.catholic-legate.com/articles/filioque.html

I think the article explains things very clearly… I wonder what the Orthodox brethren’s thoughts on the article.

1. Language difference

2. Canons at Council of Ephesus

3. Writing of the Fathers and Popes

4. Ecumenical, or Regional that became Ecumenical

5. etc…

~ by alwyn on March 24, 2009.