Filioque as a distortion of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Significance of the Filioque Question

27.01.2022 -

Orthodoxy differs from Catholicism, but not everyone will answer the question of what exactly these differences are. There are differences between the churches in symbolism, and in the ritual, and in the dogmatic part.

1. Different crosses

The first external difference between Catholic and Orthodox symbols concerns the image of the cross and the crucifix. If in the early Christian tradition there were 16 types of cross shapes, today the traditionally four-sided cross is associated with Catholicism, and the eight-pointed or six-pointed cross with Orthodoxy.

The words on the tablet on the crosses are the same, only the languages \u200b\u200bare different, in which the inscription “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. In Catholicism, this is Latin: INRI. In some Eastern churches, the Greek abbreviation INBI is used from the Greek text Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ Bασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων.

The Romanian Orthodox Church uses the Latin version, and in Russian and Church Slavonic versions, the abbreviation looks like I.Н.Ц.I.

Interestingly, this spelling was approved in Russia only after Nikon's reform, before that, "King of Glory" was often written on the tablet. This spelling was preserved by the Old Believers.

The number of nails often also differs on Orthodox and Catholic crucifixes. Catholics have three, Orthodox have four.

The most fundamental difference between the symbolism of the cross in the two churches is that on the Catholic cross Christ is depicted extremely naturalistically, with wounds and blood, wearing a crown of thorns, with arms sagging under the weight of the body, while on the Orthodox crucifix there are no naturalistic traces of the suffering of Christ, the image of the Savior shows the victory of life over death, the Spirit over the body.

2. Why are they baptized differently?

Catholics and Orthodox have many differences in the ritual part. Thus, there are obvious differences in making the sign of the cross. Orthodox are baptized from right to left, Catholics from left to right.

The norm of the Catholic cross blessing was approved in 1570 by Pope Pius V "He who blesses himself ... makes a cross from his forehead to his chest and from his left shoulder to his right."

In the Orthodox tradition, the norm for performing the sign of the cross changed in terms of double and triple fingers, but church leaders wrote about the need to be baptized from right to left before and after Nikon's reform.

Catholics usually cross themselves with all five fingers as a sign of "ulcers on the body of the Lord Jesus Christ" - two on the hands, two on the legs, one from the spear. In Orthodoxy, after the reform of Nikon, three fingers are accepted: three fingers are folded together (symbolism of the Trinity), two fingers are pressed against the palm (the two natures of Christ - divine and human. In the Romanian Church, these two fingers are interpreted as a symbol of Adam and Eve, falling to the Trinity).

3. Overdue merits of the saints

In addition to the obvious differences in the ritual part, in the monastic system of the two churches, in the traditions of iconography, Orthodox and Catholics have a lot of differences in terms of dogma.

Thus, the Orthodox Church does not recognize the Catholic teaching on the overdue merits of the saints, according to which the great Catholic saints, the Doctors of the Church left an inexhaustible treasury of “overdue good deeds”, so that then sinners could use the riches from it for their salvation.

The manager of the wealth from this treasury is the Catholic Church and personally the Pontifex.

Depending on the diligence of the sinner, the Pontiff can take riches from the treasury and provide them to the sinful person, since a person does not have enough of his own good deeds for salvation.

The concept of "super-due merit" is directly related to the concept of "indulgence", when a person is freed from punishment for his sins for the amount paid.

4. Pope Infallibility

At the end of the 19th century, the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope. According to him, when the pope (as the head of the Church) determines her doctrine concerning faith or morality, he has infallibility (infallibility) and is protected from the very possibility of error.

This doctrinal infallibility is a gift of the Holy Spirit given to the Pope as the successor of the Apostle Peter by virtue of apostolic succession, and is not based on his personal sinlessness.

The dogma was officially proclaimed in the dogmatic constitution of Pastor Aeternus on July 18, 1870, along with the assertion of the "ordinary and immediate" authority of the jurisdiction of the pontiff in the universal Church.

The Pope used his right to proclaim a new doctrine ex cathedra only once: in 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The dogma of infallibility was confirmed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) in the dogmatic constitution of the Lumen Gentium Church.

Neither the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope nor the dogma of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary was accepted by the Orthodox Church. Also, the Orthodox Church does not recognize the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

5. Purgatory and ordeal

The understanding of what the human soul goes through after death also differs in Orthodoxy and Catholicism. In Catholicism, there is a dogma about purgatory - a special state in which the soul of the deceased is located. Orthodoxy denies the existence of purgatory, although it recognizes the need for prayers for the dead.

In Orthodoxy, unlike Catholicism, there is a doctrine of air ordeals, obstacles through which the soul of every Christian must pass on the way to the throne of God for a private trial.

Two angels guide the soul along this path. Each of the ordeals, the number of which is 20, is controlled by demons - unclean spirits trying to take the soul going through the ordeal to hell. In the words of St. Theophan the Recluse: “No matter how wild the thought of ordeals seems to smart people, but they cannot be avoided.” The Catholic Church does not recognize the doctrine of ordeals.

The key dogmatic difference between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches is the "filioque" (lat. filioque - "and the Son") - an addition to the Latin translation of the Creed, adopted by the Western (Roman) Church in the XI century in the dogma of the Trinity: about the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from God the Father, but "from the Father and the Son."

Pope Benedict VIII included the term "filioque" in the Creed in 1014, which caused a storm of indignation on the part of Orthodox theologians.

It was the filioque that became the “stumbling block” and caused the final division of the churches in 1054.

It was finally approved at the so-called "unifying" councils - Lyons (1274) and Ferrara-Florentine (1431-1439).

In modern Catholic theology, the attitude towards the filioque, oddly enough, has changed a lot. So, on August 6, 2000, the Catholic Church published the declaration “Dominus Iesus” (“Lord Jesus”). The author of this declaration was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).

In this document, in the second paragraph of the first part, the text of the Creed without the filioque is given: "Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre procedit, qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur, qui locutus est per prophetas" . (“And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who, together with the Father and the Son, is to be worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.”)

No official, conciliar decisions followed this declaration, so the situation with the filioque remains the same.

The main difference between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church is that the head of the Orthodox Church is Jesus Christ, in Catholicism the church is headed by the vicar of Jesus Christ, its visible head (Vicarius Christi), the Pope of Rome.

The doctrine of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is the second most important doctrinal position, after the doctrine of the power of the pope over the Church, separating Catholicism from Orthodoxy. In contrast to the Creed confessed by the Orthodox, which proclaims the procession of the Holy Spirit only “from the Father” (I believe ... “in the Holy Spirit ... proceeding from the Father”), the Catholics added “and the Son” to the text of the eighth member, which introduces в Symbol is a distortion that has a deep dogmatic meaning. In Latin, the words for "and the Son" sound like "filioque" ("filioque"). This term is widely used to denote the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.

The Dogmatic Essence of the Filioque Doctrine

The creed, as a brief confession of what the Church believes, occupied in the life of the Church of Christ and continues to occupy to this day an exceptionally important significance.

Historically, the Creed arose from the preparation of catechumens, that is, new converts preparing to enter the Church, for the sacrament of Baptism. Each baptized person had to read it and thereby express their faith. The members, that is, the constituent parts of the Symbol, had a double meaning: on the one hand, they indicated the truth of Revelation, which the believers were supposed to accept as an article of faith, and on the other, they protected them from any heresy against which they were directed.

77 The word symbol is Greek, in translation it means that which unites, gathers, holds together. "The creed precisely "contains" all those truths that, as the Church knows and believes, are necessary for a person, for the fullness of his life in Christ, for salvation from sin and spiritual death.

In the first three centuries, each significant Local Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Caesarea, Antioch, Rome, Aquileia had its own baptismal Creed. Being similar in spirit as an expression of a single and inseparable faith, they differed in letter, having almost every feature associated with the refutation of certain misconceptions that existed in those places where this or that symbol was used. Of these Symbols, the Symbol of St. Gregory the Wonderworker, a learned bishop of the 3rd century, expounding the doctrine of the personal properties of the perfect equality of all the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.

At the beginning of the 4th century, when the Arian heresy became widespread, undermining the very foundations of Christian doctrine through the recognition of the Son of God only as a creature, and when heretics began to publish their own symbols on the model of the Orthodox, a general church need arose to draw up a single creed. This task was completed at the First Ecumenical Council (325) in Nicaea, which issued its oros - its "message of a dogmatic nature. In this oros, compiled on the basis of the ancient baptismal symbols of the Caesarean or Jerusalem Church, the wording was introduced about the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. Here its text:

"We believe in the One God the Father, the Almighty, the Creator of everything visible and invisible. And in the One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father, the only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God begotten - uncreated, consubstantial with the Father, through whom everything happened both in heaven and on earth. For us for the sake of men and for ours for the sake of salvation, he descended and became incarnate, became man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven and is coming to judge the living and dead. And in the Holy Ghost."

The Creed, which the Orthodox Church uses to this day, was originally one of the expressions of this "Nicene" faith" (a specific feature of this presentation of the Nicene Faith was the detailed confession of the Divinity of Christ), compiled after 370 from the baptismal Antiochio-Jerusalem Symbols. Then the liturgical Symbol was refined and adopted by the Fathers of the II Ecumenical Council (381) in Constantinople (Tsargrad), thus, the name of the Nicene-Tsaregrad (or Niceno-Constantinople) Creed was established behind it.

78. Subsequently, this Creed spread throughout all the Churches of East and West. Finally, the III Ecumenical Council (431) decided by its 7th canon that this Symbol should remain forever inviolable: "Do not allow anyone to either pronounce, write, or compose another faith ..."

It is significant to note that, in the order of silent practice, the Nicene-Tsaregrad symbol is accepted both in those who have retired and in those who have broken away from the Universal Church - the Monophysite and Nestorian Churches.

For more than one and a half thousand years, the Niceno-Tsaregradskaya confession has been truly the Universal Creed, which is sung or read at every liturgy, and all later confessions of faith, dogmas and symbolic texts were called upon to interpret it, protect it from errors and, as necessary, reveal it. meaning.

Today, for the Orthodox Church, the Nicene-Tsaregrad Creed is just as modern and vital as it was during the period of the Ecumenical Councils, obligatory for all believers, cannot be changed or supplemented except by the voice of the entire Church’s Fullness, that is, at the Ecumenical Council .

The doctrine professed by the Orthodox Church about the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Father ascends to the truth affirmed by Holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ testified in a farewell conversation with the disciples: "The Spirit of Truth proceeds from the Father (John 15, 26). It is this belief in the procession of the Holy Spirit only from the Father that was proclaimed by the Ecumenical Church in the Niceno-Tsaregrad Creed. Expanding somewhat the text of the Symbol, according to the teachings of the Holy Fathers, can be said as follows: the Church teaches that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son, that is, it possesses (without appropriating it to itself) the same essence as the Father and the Son, that He proceeds from the Father, that is receives His hypostatic being from Him alone, and rests on the Son, is sent by the Son into the world (“the Comforter Spirit, I will send him to you from the Father”), through the Son is taught to us in the Church and is rightly called both the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.

79 The doctrine of the double pre-eternal procession of the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son, accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, originated in the West. The roots of this teaching can be found in Blessed Augustine (5th century), who, emphasizing the unity of the Divine Essence, common to all the Persons of the Holy Trinity, was inclined to belittle the significance of the personal property of the Father and the Trinitarian one-man command, carried out by one Father. The term "filioque" was first introduced into the Creed in Spain in the 6th century, and by the 3rd century. it spread in the power of the Franks.

The Roman Catholic Church completed the final formation of the doctrine of the "filioque" in the 15th century, however, the most profound among the holy fathers of the Church should be recognized as the assessment of the dogmatic foundations of this doctrine given by Patriarch Photius of Constantinople in his District Epistle (867). To a large extent, all subsequent criticism of this doctrine is based on the arguments formulated by him.

Photius gives four groups of arguments against the filioque:

He derives the first group from the idea of the unity of command of the Holy Trinity. “Filioque introduces,” writes St. Photius, “two principles into the Trinity: for the Son and the Spirit-Father, and also for the Spirit-Son. By this, the one-man command of the Trinity is resolved directly into ditheism, and in further conclusions into polytheism. Namely, if the Father is the cause of the Son, and the Son, together with the Father, is the cause of the Spirit, then why does not the Spirit produce a fourth Person, and this fourth a fifth, and so on up to pagan polytheism, "that is, reduction to absurdity is used here. “In relation to the Person of the Holy Spirit,” Photius writes further, “the following unacceptable conclusion is obtained: as being raised to two reasons. The Holy Spirit must be complex” (in contrast to the general church teaching about the simplicity of the Godhead - M. K.).

80. The second group of arguments follows from the analysis of the qualitative aspect of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. "If this procession is perfect (and it is perfect, for the perfect God is from the perfect God - M. K.), that procession from the Son is superfluous and in vain, for it can bring nothing into the being of the Spirit. The procession of the Spirit from the Son can be either identical with its procession from the Father, or opposite to it. But in the first case, personal properties would be generalized, only thanks to which the Trinity is known as the Trinity, in the second case, the heresies of Manes and Marcion come to life before us. As you know, Manes is the founder of the doctrine called Manichaeism, and Marcion is the representative of the Gnostic heretics. They are united by dualism, that is, the recognition of two principles (light and dark), equally underlying the existence of the world. St. Photius here recalls these heresies because if we accept the argument that the procession from the Son is the opposite of the procession from the Father, then, therefore, his properties must be opposite. If the procession from the Father possesses all the fullness of light, divine perfections, then the procession from the Son, as the opposite, must have directly opposite characteristics, that is, two principles are introduced into the being of God - along with the principle of light and the principle of darkness. The conclusion is clearly unacceptable, forcing the rejection of the premise itself - the doctrine of the "filioque".

The third group of objections is based on the fact that the "filioque" violates the quantitative harmony of the personal properties of the three Hypostases and thus places the Persons (or Hypostases) in unequal proximity to each other. The personal property of the Son is birth from the Father. The property of the Holy Spirit is the procession from the Father. If, however, they say that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, then the Spirit will differ from the Father in a greater number of personal properties than the Son. And, therefore, it will stand further from the being of the Father than the Son, which leads to the heresy of Macedonia.

The heresy of Macedonia, or Dukhoborism, lies in the fact that the Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit was placed in a subordinate position in relation to the Hypostasis of the Father. This heresy was a variation, or rather a further modification of Arianism. The Arians placed the Hypostasis of the Son of God in a subordinate position. This heresy was condemned at the First Ecumenical Council (325), and Dukhoborism was condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council (381). And Photius points out that the arguments of the filioque lead to a revival of this heresy.

81 The fourth and last group of objections St. Photius derives from the opposition of the general and personal properties of the Holy Trinity - the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son cannot be attributed to either general or personal properties. "If the production of the Spirit is a common property, then it must also belong to the Spirit Itself, that is, the Spirit must come from Itself, be both the cause and the product of this cause." St. Photius writes that pagan myths did not invent this either, meaning that this is an obvious internal contradiction. Further, if this is a personal property, then which of the Persons? "If I say that this is the property of the Father, then they (the Latins - M.K.) must renounce their new doctrine", since if this is a personal property of the Father, then you just need to cross out the "filioque" and accept the Creed as it was before this insertion. "If this is the property of the Son, then why did they not discover that they do they only recognize the creation of the Spirit for the Son, but take it away from the Father?" Here St. Photius wants to emphasize that it is unacceptable to operate with intra-trinitarian properties as some kind of logical categories, that is, to transfer arbitrarily, to please this or that theological or near-theological opinion, the concept of proceeding from one hypostasis to another. He writes that if one follows this path, then it can be argued that it is not the Son that is born from the Father, but the Father from the Son. He draws the following conclusion: "But if the procession of the Spirit cannot be recognized as either a general or a personal property then in the Trinity there is no procession of the Holy Spirit at all.

These arguments, given by St. Photius, are, of course, generally not easy to understand. But it is important to delve into them and take them seriously. Precisely because the dogmatic experience of the Orthodox faith should be the basis of piety and asceticism, in polemics with Western confessions one should not rely on the facts of historical injustice brought by Catholics or Protestants in relation to the Orthodox, or, for example, personal impurity of representatives of Western confessions, in particular Roman ones. papa It is necessary to proceed from dogmatic wrongness rooted in heterodoxy. And the arguments cited by St. Photius just testify to his very deep dogmatic awareness of the disastrous consequences of the filioque.

In the years following the notorious case of Photius, the doctrine of the "filioque" was repeatedly the subject of controversy between Catholic and Orthodox theologians.

In the years following the Second Uniate Council of Lyons (1274), the patristic texts were misinterpreted by the Latinophiles. Patriarch Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289), Patriarch of Constantinople, clarified the meaning well: “The Spirit has His perfect being from the Father, Who is the only reason from which He proceeds together with His Son, in His own way, appearing simultaneously through the Son, through Him and at Shining from him, just as the light comes from the sun together with the beam, shines and appears through it and with it, and even from it ... It is clear that when some say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, that is, from the Father and the Son , or from the Father through the Son, or that He appears, or shines, or proceeds, or exists from the essence of both, then all this does not mean that they confess that the being of the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in the same way as from the Father .. Indeed, just as water that is drawn from a river exists from it, so does light exist from a ray, but neither one nor the other (that is, neither light nor water) have the cause of their being these two things (a ray or a river ) Indeed, water exists from the source from which it is poured ayatsya, existing; and light exists from the sun, whence it, receiving its radiance, shines together with the ray, and proceeds through it.

In the great work of the Council of Chalcedon, whose 1500th anniversary we recently celebrated, there is one side to which attention should be paid: this is the manifestation of dogmatic unanimity between East and West, achieved thanks to the famous tomos of Pope Leo the Great. This confession, which made possible the worthy elevation of the authority of the see of the Apostle Peter, which caused on the part of the refined minds of the East admiration for the simplified, but assimilated the greatest mystery of Christology, Western theology, is the glory of the Roman Church, which then managed to unite the Christian world around itself.

But what subsequently led to the dogmatic break?

In this essay, we will try to determine the historical setting and theological problems in which the controversy about the procession of the Holy Spirit arose, which constituted and continues to constitute an inevitable stumbling block between the two halves of the Christian world. A comprehensive study of this issue can undoubtedly contribute to finding ways to resolve it, in addition to biases accumulated over the centuries, but also avoiding hasty union schemes that do not take into account the tradition of the Church.

Epiphany. Painting - XIV century. Vysoki Decani Monastery, Serbia

I. Filioque in the West until the 8th century

The spread of terminology approaching, at least outwardly, the doctrine of the "double" procession of the Holy Spirit, is connected in the West, as well as in the East, with polemics against Arianism, Nestorianism, adoptionism and heresies in general, aimed at denying the consubstantial Persons of the Holy Trinity or, more precisely, the consubstantiality of the Personality of the God-man with the Father. Claiming consubstantial, the Orthodox insisted on those places of the Holy. Scriptures, which indicate the sending of the Spirit by the Son, the connection of Christ with the Comforter. At the same time, the question of the difference between the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit and His temporal message was not usually raised. Hence, some fathers, for example, St. Cyril of Alexandria, we find a direct and unconditional statement about the origin of the Spirit “from the Father and the Son” or “from Both”, which, however, did not prevent him from explaining these expressions in the sense of a temporary message, especially when they caused confusion among the Antiochians .

But if in the East this terminology did not finally triumph, then in the West things turned out differently. Arianism long held out among the Germanic peoples - the Visigoths - who conquered northern Africa and Spain. The Arian king of Spain, Riccared, converted to Orthodoxy. only in 587, and in connection with this conversion, several local councils of the Spanish Church approved the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, in opposition to Arianism, and hardly putting into it the whole meaning that Catholic theology later gave it. Here the word Filioque was first included in the Nikeo-Tsaregrad symbol, and in this modified form it spread to Spain, Gaul and Germany.

In connection with the continued anti-Arian controversy, terminology, which in the East was characteristic of a few individual theologians, became generally accepted in the West, especially since a new heresy arose here in the 8th century, adoptionism, which also rejected the consubstantial Father and Son. Without going into details, we can say, as a general rule, that the edge of the ancient Latin theology on the Trinity is always directed in defense of consubstantiality, and the basic Latin terminology does not differ from the terminology of St. Cyril, and, therefore, can be interpreted in the Orthodox sense.

However, a special place is occupied by bl. Augustine. Guided by the same anti-Arian motive and seeking to explain the mystery of the consubstantiality of Persons, the Bishop of Hippo constructs a new system of Triadology in the well-known work "De Trinitate", which allows him to put forward in his polemical works against Arianism (Contra Maximinum, sermons) new arguments in favor of consubstantiality. In his system bl. Augustine proceeds from the premises of Greek philosophy - essentially essentialistic - in contrast to the Eastern Fathers, for whom the starting postulate of any theology has always been the Truth of Revelation, and philosophical terms are only an expression of this Truth. Modern attempts by Catholic theologians to harmonize the teachings of Bl. Augustine with the teachings of the Cappadocians remain unconvincing for the Orthodox. As you know, the main point of the teachings of l. Augustine lies in the system of "opposites of the relationship" between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, constituting Their difference in the bosom of a single Divine Essence.

Teaching bl. Augustine, due to its complexity and difficulty, for a long time did not have a profound influence on Western theology, which, if it accepted the formula of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, rarely defended its arguments from De Trinitate, but simply referred to consubstantial Persons and adhered to terminology similar to that used by St. Cyril of Alexandria. In this sense, it is interesting to mention the letter of St. Maximus the Confessor to Marina. Rev. Maximus, who lived for a long time in Rome and relied on the papal throne in his struggle against Eastern Monothelitism, appears here as a defender of the Western doctrine of the descent, which was already subjected to some attacks by the Greeks. “The Westerners,” writes St. Maximus, “put forward in the first place the word usage of the Roman Fathers, as well as Cyril of Alexandria in his interpretation of the holy evangelist John. From this it is clear that they do not offer the Son as the Cause of the Spirit, for they know that The Father is the one Cause of the Son and the Spirit, the One by generation, the other by procession, but they (these expressions are kept) to show that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, and thus affirm the immutability of the Being.

Thus, for St. Maximus, it is clear that Latin theology is just as Orthodox as the theology of St. Cyril, because it does not introduce a second cause of the Deity and recognizes that the only Cause is the Father.

***

II. Situation in the 8th century

In the 8th century, the general political situation of Christendom changed dramatically with the emergence in the West of the great Frankish power, which concentrated the attention of the popes and sought to subject them to its influence. The doctrine of the "double procession of the Holy Spirit" was put forward by the empire with a clear bias not only anti-Arian, but also anti-Greek polemics. The question was raised more than once before the coronation of Charlemagne. The king of the Franks, Pepin the Short, at the beginning of the second half of the 8th century had repeated relations with the iconoclastic court of Constantinople. Western chronicles tell about this and mention the letters of the popes, alarmed by this communication. The desire for a political union was not the only topic of the talks. Adon of Vienna tells how "in the year 757, after the Incarnation of the Lord, a council was assembled and, between the Greeks and Romans, the question of the Trinity was discussed, and whether the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, and about holy images. From other sources we learn that this council met at Gentilly, and that it was presented to contemporaries as a major event, a doctrinal meeting of the Eastern and Western Churches. Unfortunately, we have neither the acts of this council, nor more detailed information about it. Probably, representatives of the iconoclasts defended the traditionally Eastern point of view against the Westerners.

But these first skirmishes were only the forerunners of a great clash between the two Churches, which took place in connection with the appearance in the West of the theocratic empire of Charlemagne. There are many studies on the ideology and structure of the Carolingian state. Undoubtedly, the basic principles of the state-church structure were adopted from Byzantium, but also significantly changed, in particular, as regards the relationship between the Church and the State. To be convinced of this, it suffices to read the introduction to the famous Caroline Books sent by Charles to Rome as a refutation of the decrees of the Second Council of Nicaea. The church, according to the emperor, "nobis in hujus saeculi procellosis fluctibus ad regendum commissa est". Thus, Charles thought of himself as the ruler of the Church "by divine right." He writes to Pope Leo III about the relationship between the emperor and the pope in the bosom of a single church-state whole, how he thinks of the empire: "Nostrum est... sanctam ubique Christi ecclesiam ab incursu paganorum et ab infidelium invasione armis defenderte, foris et intus catholicae fidei agnitione munire . Vestrum est... elevatis ad Deum cum Moyse manibus nostram adjuvare militiam" . Thus, the emperor is not only the protector of the Church from external enemies, but also the guardian of the Catholic faith from without and from within. The role of the pope is limited to praying for the success of the royal arms. In Byzantium, the union of the Church and the State did not allow anything like this in principle. In particular, the diarchy of the tsar and the patriarch assumed that the custodian of dogmatic truth was the Patriarch of Constantinople. Undoubtedly, Charles' ideas about the role of the emperor in the Church were much closer to "Caesar-papism" than in the usual Byzantine scheme. True, just in the 8th century this scheme was grossly violated by iconoclasts: Emperor Leo the Isaurian for the first time expressed and tried to implement in Byzantium the theory of real Caesaropapism, and it is possible that he is the true inspirer of Charlemagne.

The emergence in the West of the Christian Empire, which imagined itself, like Byzantium, to be based on the fullness of Orthodoxy, guarded by the all-powerful emperor, anointed of God, competing with the legitimate successors of the Roman Augusts, located in Constantinople, played a huge role in the history of the division of the Churches and, in particular, in establishing West teaching about "Filioque".

After unsuccessful attempts to negotiate peace and cooperation, Karl entered in the 80s of the VIII century on the path of political competition with Byzantium. In 787, negotiations for a proposed marriage between Charles's daughter, Rotruda, and the young emperor Constantine VI, son of Irene, finally ceased, which would have ended the division of Christendom into two empires claiming the inheritance of the Roman Augusts. In Italy, a war broke out between the Franks and the Greeks.

It was at this time that Charles received the acts of the VIII Ecumenical Council. The Latin translation was made more than unsatisfactorily: on the basis of the quotations given in the Caroline Books, we see that the inaccuracies amounted to a direct distortion of the meaning. In addition, Charles found in the acts views that were completely alien to the Western piety of that time. He seized the opportunity to compromise the Orthodoxy of the Greeks and thereby raise his authority as the guardian of true piety, to play the role of an arbiter between the councils of 753 and 787. To this end, he published his "Libri Carolini" or, more precisely, "Capitulare de imaginibus", written on behalf of the king of the Franks himself, probably Alcuin, and addressed to Rome. Here the Greeks are directly accused of heresy, not only on account of their conception of icon veneration, but also on account of their triadology.

In the acts of the council of 787, the confession of faith of St. Patriarch Tarasius, where the dogma of the Trinity was expounded in the ancient, traditional language of the Greek Fathers. In particular, the procession of the Holy Spirit "from the Father through the Son" was mentioned. But the Frankish theologians who revolved around the court of Aachen were no longer completely familiar with Greek theology, but were afraid of everything that might seem similar to Arianism. If in the 4th and 5th centuries the Westerners, although they were already beginning to forget the Greek language, wished to live in communion with the East, feed on the common church wealth, possessed a genuine sense of catholicity, then this was no longer the case at the court of Charles. Here we are witnessing a cultural and theological renaissance on entirely Western soil, after long centuries of separation from Eastern tradition. At the court of Charles, they are interested in ancient antiquity, the study of the classics is being revived, but in addition to Byzantium. The cultural revival is based on the remains of a purely Latin enlightenment, kept in the monasteries of Britain, Ireland, northern France. Italian scholars, who retained some connection with the Greek heritage, rarely appeared in Aachen. Alcuin, the author of the Caroline Books and Charles' closest adviser, was himself an Englishman and, at any rate, ignorant of Greek theology.

As one of the important deviations of the Greeks from Orthodoxy, he exposes the fact that "Tarasius proclaimed in his confession of faith that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father - as some, although somehow silent about His procession from the Son, but who wholly believed that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, and not that he proceeds from the Father and the Son, as the whole universal Church confesses and believes, but that he proceeds from the Father through the Son. Thus, the author knows that "some" were silent about the procession of the Spirit from the Son: he does not blame them for this, as he apparently recognizes as permissible those confessions of faith read at the same Council of Nicaea, where there is no mention of the procession of the Spirit from or through the Son, but only it is said of Him that He proceeds from the Father. Only "through the Son" seems to him Macedonian, and perhaps also Arian. In general, like all Western ones, his thought is always aimed only at protecting consubstantiality.

“We believe,” he writes, “that the Holy Spirit does not proceed through the Son, as a creature that was through him, nor as one who followed Him in time, or lesser in power, or different in substance, but we believe that He proceeds from Father and Son, as coeval, as consubstantial, as equal to Them, as partaker of the same glory, power and Divinity, existing with Them. Further, Alcuin tries to accuse Tarasius of Macedonianism, as if "through the Son" means the creation of the Spirit, and provides evidence that the Son is indeed the Creator, and that everything was created "through Him". If Tarasius does not agree with this, then he undoubtedly falls into Arianism, which denies the Divinity of the Son and the Spirit. From all these arguments of Alcuin it is clear how much the "Filioque" was, in essence, for the Westerners tantamount to the affirmation of the consubstantial Persons of the Holy Trinity. It is interesting that Alcuin admits the possibility of using the expression "through the Son" to affirm the action of the Holy Spirit in the economy of salvation: in this way he distinguishes this action from the eternal procession of the Spirit. But "through the Son" is absolutely not applicable, in his opinion, to the eternal procession of the Spirit: this expression was not used either in Nicaea or in Chalcedon. On the other hand, speaking of "Filioque", Alcuin claims that it is present in the original symbol of the fathers.

Finally, as a final argument, he cites the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which seems to him to be Orthodox. And here he begins with the assertion that the Spirit is God and the Creator, for it seems to him that the Greeks deny precisely this: “it is impossible,” he writes, “to take away the name of the Creator from the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son are the Beginning of the Spirit, not by birth for He is not a Son, not a creature, for He is not a creature, but a giving, for He proceeds from Both." As confirmation, he cites a long quotation from Bl. Augustine, where the well-known doctrine of the Father and the Son as a single principle of the Spirit is developed, just as all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are a single principle of creation.

The Caroline books thus give us a clear picture of how the Frankish court treated the Eastern Triadology, or rather, the idea of the latter that was created when reading the Latin translation of the acts of the 7th Ecumenical Council. It should be noted that the "Filioque" was considered the obvious truth, contained in the original text of the Symbol, and expressing the doctrine of consubstantiality in opposition to Arianism and adoptionism. Theory Bl. Augustine was cited as a secondary argument, an explanation of the primary formula, not a postulate. Therefore, if the Frankish theologians, in order to please the interests of the policy of Charlemagne, had not come out against the East on completely unfounded reasons, then their theological formulas could also be justified, just as St. Maximus the Confessor justified the Latin theology of his time.

The See of Rome specifically condemned Charles' attacks on Eastern theology: "Naes dogma," writes Pope Adrian I to the King of the Franks, "Tarasius non per se explanavit, sed per doctrinam sanctorum patrum confessus confessus est." In order to justify the Eastern formula "through the Son," the Pope cites a rather long series of quotations from the Eastern and Western Fathers, refraining from commenting on them. In his efforts to establish the legitimacy of this formula, the pope has no guiding criterion, no definite trinitarian theology. In his selection of patristic texts, we find expressions where "through the Son" cannot be interpreted otherwise than as an expression of the dependence of the Spirit on the Son in the economy of salvation, and texts where "through the Son" does not occur at all, but simply affirms consubstantial, and, finally , texts where this formula is understood in the sense of the procession, temporal or eternal, of the Spirit from the Son. It is quite clear that for Adrian the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is tantamount to the dogma of consubstantiality, which can also be expressed by the formula "through the Son." And "through the Son" expresses the message of the Holy Spirit into the world. The Pope does not deny the procession of the Spirit from the Son: on the contrary, he gives new arguments in favor of this teaching from Bl. Augustine. He, undoubtedly, is characterized by the main ambiguity of Western theology in this matter, which contributed to the gradual rooting, and subsequently dogmatization, of the doctrine of the Bishop of Hippo. Nevertheless, Pope Adrian's response is significant in that it expresses the lofty ecclesiastical self-awareness of the See of Rome in the face of advancing Western Caesaropapism. Precisely at the moment when the whole Western world has found its master in the person of Charles, the pope clearly expresses his refusal to sacrifice the unity of the Church in the name of the political interests of the Western Empire.

But, alas, not all the episcopate of the West followed his example. In the year 796 or 797, the Patriarch Peacock of Aquileia presides over the council of the bishops of his district at Cividale of Friuli. The purpose of the council is to establish the legitimacy of the addition of the word "Filioque" to the Symbol. In a lengthy speech, Peacock develops his views on the meaning of conciliar definitions and the purpose of the Creed. In his opinion, if the fathers of the Council of Constantinople added to the Symbol a term about the Holy Spirit, which was not available in the Nicene oros, then the contemporary Church has the right to insert into the Symbol "and from the Son" in order to resist heretics who claim that the Spirit comes from the One Father . Pavlin admits that there are reasons in Holy Scripture for reading the Symbol without the addition of , but he finds enough texts in favor of "and from the Son." Arguments from bl. Augustine has none. The need to confess the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son follows exclusively from the dogma of consubstantiality, which he reiterates and comes to the following conclusion: “If the Father abides in the Son and the Son in the Father, indivisibly and essentially, then how can one not believe that the Holy The Spirit, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, always proceeds from the Father and the Son, essentially and inseparably." At the council, the Symbol is read with an increase, and thus the Patriarch of Aquileia enters the orbit of the Frankish Empire in ecclesiastical terms, where the increase has long been accepted and is considered indisputable. Peacock even makes a corresponding report to Karl, asks him to approve the decisions of the council and even, if he pleases, to make changes to them. This text by Peacock shows how high the prestige of the Aachen theocracy stood in the West, and with what humility a part of the Western episcopate obeyed the will of Charles, and already at that time laid the foundation for the conciliar condemnations of the Greeks in heresy. True, the Friulian Cathedral did not have significant consequences: starting from the year 787, negotiations were underway between Aachen and Constantinople for peace and even an alliance between the two empires, secured by the marriage of Charles himself with the Byzantine Basilissa Irina. Under such circumstances, the accusations of heresy against the Greeks by the Franks ceased for a time.

***

The question of the "Filioque" soon, however, arises again, at the initiative of the Greeks, in Jerusalem. There has long been a Latin monastery on the Mount of Olives. The abbot of this monastery, accompanied by another monk of the same monastery, went in the year 807 to the court of Charles and, apparently, as a result of their mission, the Latin monastery was taken under the special protection of the German court. In any case, the liturgical customs of the court chapel were introduced in the Olivet monastery. Soon this circumstance caused bewilderment among the Greeks. Monk John, from the monastery of St. Savvas, began to say that all "the Franks who are heretics on the Mount of Olives", tried to provoke popular indignation against them and expel them from the Bethlehem Basilica, telling them in front of everyone: "You are heretics, and the books that you have are heretical" . The content of the heresy was the inclusion of the "Filioque" in the Symbol. Thus it is clear that the indignation of the Greeks was caused not by the Latin rite and piety as such, but precisely by the Germanic ritual - the "books" brought from Aachen - which also involved the singing of the Symbol with an addition at the liturgy. After the preliminary examination of the whole case by the Patriarch Thomas of Jerusalem, special letters are sent to Rome, to Pope Leo III.

Pope Leo's confession of faith, sent to the monks in response to their request, is addressed in the available Latin text to "all the Eastern churches." Here we do not find a mention of the insert itself, but expressions are used that directly affirm the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, which were characteristic of all Western theology. This confession was probably sent with cover letters to the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the monks: it contained the answer to the monks' question about the increase and about the Frankish liturgical books. From the whole subsequent policy of Leo III, as well as from the fact that the attacks on the monks by the Greeks ceased, it can be concluded that the pope spoke out against the inclusion of "and from the Son" in the Symbol. One can still regret that these letters have not reached us: they would no doubt be interesting for clarifying the opinion of the pope on this issue, as well as for understanding the meaning of the right of appeal to Rome to the court of the eastern local bishops, which the monks used. We still have a letter from Pope Leo to Charles, where it is reported that all material relating to the Jerusalem case is being sent to Aachen for information.

At this time, a military struggle began again between the Frankish Empire and Byzantium. Charles wanted to hit the Greeks with a serious, justified accusation of heresy. For this purpose, the Western theocrat had at his disposal a galaxy of obliging theologians who were really well-read in the works of the Holy Fathers. True, this erudition extended to the Greek Fathers only in so far as they were translated into Latin, and the translations were few and often bad. Many "translations" were pseudopigraphs.

Three literary works have come down to us, compiled at this time and directed against the Greeks. The first of these works was compiled by Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, with a preface in verse, which praises the emperor Charles, who commissioned the author to compile the book. This work is simply a collection of patristic quotations confirming the doctrine of the "Filioque". Quoted: Athanasius the Great, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary of Pictavia, Ambrose, Didymus (translated by Jerome], Augustine, Fulgentius, Pope Hormidza, Leo and Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Prosper, Vigilius Africanus, Proclus of Constantinople, Agnellus, Cassiodorus and Prudentius. With a rather considerable erudition, Theodulf is the ancestor of a very sad tradition that will be firmly established in relations between Orthodoxy and Catholicism: quoting the fathers with a polemical purpose and searching only for verbal formulas that are beneficial for one's side, even though they are divorced from their meaning arising from the context. like Pope Adrian I in the above-mentioned letter to Charles, Theodulf also cites authentic Western texts, especially texts from St. Augustine, which would later have a decisive influence on Catholic theology.

We do not know the author of the second work against the Greeks. He belonged, like Theodulf, to the number of scholars patronized by Charles, and his work is also dedicated to the emperor, in whom he sees the only patron of the Church. In him we see an attempt to give a system of arguments in favor of the doctrine of the procession of the spirit from the Father and the Son. The first chapter consists mainly of references to Holy Scripture and the Fathers. Most of the citations are the same as those of Theodulf, and it should be assumed that the author used Theodulf's work as a reference book, supplementing it with quotations from Leo the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Jerome, Gennady of Marseilles, Boethius, Paskhasius. The author also refers to the authority of popes and ecumenical councils, which allegedly confirmed the same teaching. But it is interesting that in the only place in his work where he tries to theologize on his own, without literally repeating the text of the cited authorities, he claims that for him the "double" procession is simply an expression of the consubstantiality of Persons, i.e. he adheres to the ancient Western theology, which knew St. Maxim . The remaining two chapters, which give evidence that the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and that the Spirit is sent from both, deserve less attention.

The third work in this series is a letter written for Carl by Smaragd, abbot of the monastery of St. Miguiel. This letter was sent by Charles to Rome in his own name. In this rather insignificant work, the author, in addition to citations from St. The scriptures, with comments in a favorable spirit for him, uses exclusively the collection of Theodulf: he did not read the fathers themselves.

By mobilizing his scientific forces, Karl, apparently, wanted to achieve the condemnation of the Greeks by the entire Western Church. In 807 he collects the cathedral in Aachen. We have no information about this cathedral, except for a brief note by the chronicler. Hardly anyone stood up here to defend the East. But Charles faced an obstacle of paramount importance: the See of Rome. In Rome, the Symbol was read without addition and refused to accuse the entire Christian East of heresy.

In connection with the Jerusalem affair and with the general direction of Charles's policy, an embassy from the Frankish court is going to Rome with instructions to get a definite statement from the pope in favor of the insertion. We have the minutes of the meeting that the German delegation had with Pope Leo III. The compiler of the protocol is the abbot Smaragd.

The meeting began with reading testimonies from Scripture and Sts. fathers, confirming the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. The pope announced that the teachings presented were Orthodox, that he subscribed to them, and that those who consciously oppose this teaching could not be saved. Then the ambassadors asked whether it was possible to explain the Orthodox teaching to believers by singing in church. To this, the pope answers in the affirmative, but categorically denies the possibility of making changes to the Symbol: the fathers of the councils compiled it completely and forbade anything to be added or subtracted from it. When the representatives of Charles refer to a missionary, pedagogical need - "if it is not sung in church, no one will learn a sound doctrine," the pope notices that many of the Church's teachings necessary for salvation are not contained in the Symbol, and directly condemns the singing of the Symbol with an interpolation . "I gave permission to sing the Symbol, but not to reduce or change it while singing," he says. In order to gradually remove the increase that has become habitual from everyday life, the pope suggests that the Franks return to the ancient practice that was in force at that time in Rome: not to sing the Symbol at all at the liturgy, so that the people would wean themselves from the "Filioque", and legality would be restored.

Thus, it is clear that the pope attached absolute importance to the conciliar decrees forbidding changing the Symbol: in his dispute with the ambassadors, he even laughs at those who include "and from the Son" in the Symbol, thus placing himself above the council. Of course, Pope Leo at the same time fully accepts the doctrine contained in the increase, but in this he only follows the Western usage of words.

It is interesting to note that in terms of architectural improvements made by Pope Leo in St. Peter's Basilica, two silver plates were erected, to the right and left of the entrance to the crypt, on which the text of the Symbol was inscribed, of course, without insertion, in Greek and Latin . Liber Pontiflcalis remarks that the purpose of the plates was "the defense of the Orthodox faith." Probably, this gesture was precisely directed against the inclusion of "and from the Son" in the Symbol: in any case, this is how his contemporaries understood it and, what is especially important, the Greeks themselves. Patriarch Photius in his "Mystagogy" mentions this event: "In the treasuries of the supreme apostles Peter and Paul, from ancient times, when piety flourished, two plates were kept with sacred remains, which proclaimed in letters and Greek words the often repeated sacred confession of faith. (Pope Leo) ordered the contents of these plates to be proclaimed before the Roman people and erected so that everyone could see them, and many who saw and read this are still alive.

Charles could not at that time be expected to agree to the proposals of the pope: the "Filioque" continued to be sung in Germany at the liturgy. But this question ceased to rise for a while: peace again settled between Aachen and Constantinople, and Michael I Rangav even recognized the imperial title for Charles.

Thus stood the problem of the "Filioque" in the West, at a time when certain circumstances would lead the East to a rather sharp, first statement against the Latin theory. It should be especially noted to what extent Western theologians were deprived of the clarity of thought and expression with which the Greeks so shone. The theological terminology of the West, although it is possible, after St. Maximus understood in the Orthodox sense, since it is not necessarily associated with Augustinian metaphysics, has undoubtedly played a major role in dividing both halves of the Christian world from the moment the Frankish theologians began to put forward it as an anti-Greek banner. They thus gave a heretical meaning to what could remain a theological and canonical misunderstanding. But the characteristic feature of the beginning of this dispute was the role taken in it by the German emperors. The "Filioque" is carried out and distributed by the Germans, despite some opposition from Rome. But, alas, this opposition did not last long: in the West, the idea of a Christian "Universe" arose and firmly took root, with its center no longer in the East, but in the West, based on Latin culture, which had forgotten the Greek heritage. The popes were inevitably involved in this process. If in the 9th century they still retained their independence and even actively fought against German influence, then occasionally they were nevertheless forced to reckon with it and even enter into a temporary alliance with German interests, in particular in the Slavic countries. Such a temporary, essentially accidental, cooperation caused the reaction of the East, since it took place almost at the very doors of the "reigning City", in the immediate orbit of Byzantine interests - in Bulgaria.

III. Crisis of the 9th century

The long silence of the Eastern Church in the face of the ever-spreading practice of including "and from the Son" in the Niceno-Tsaregrad Symbol, all the more, it may seem surprising that this insertion subsequently aroused so much irreconcilable passion. Is it possible to imagine that the East simply did not know the state of affairs? Unlikely. In the ninth century, there was still a constant connection between Rome and Constantinople, at least through the numerous Greek monasteries that flourished even at the very throne of St. Petra, and in other parts of Italy. In Rome, the Greeks had their churches, even their own special quarters. Pope Paschal I (847-855) and Leo III founded Greek monasteries themselves. At the 7th Ecumenical Council, the pope was represented by "two Peters", Greeks from Rome, of whom one was abbot of the Greek monastery of St. Savvas in Rome. All these Greek ecclesiastical centers, of course, maintained a constant connection with the East. On the theology prevailing in the Roman Church, they made reports similar to the one that St. Maxim, as we will see on the example of Anastasius the Librarian. The East was satisfied with this, since the inclusion of the "Filioque" in the Symbol in Rome was out of the question, especially since, upon accession to the throne, the popes always sent confessions of faith to the East, drawn up in the accepted "Cappadocan language".

We have already seen that Frankish theology was also known in Constantinople: the question had already been discussed at councils in iconoclastic times, and then in Jerusalem. But here the silence of the Greeks is explained, in our opinion, by that special authority which they undoubtedly recognized in the pulpit of Ancient Rome. Photius himself, in his Mystagogy, extols this authority to the shame of those who accept a raise. For the East, despite the incident with Pope Honorius, Rome retained the halo of the guardian of Orthodoxy, and therefore the faith of the entire West was judged on the basis of the beliefs and actions of the Western patriarch.

But, in addition, along with Western self-isolation, supported by the new German Empire, there undoubtedly already existed in the 9th century, and Eastern national-political self-isolation, which cannot but play a detrimental role in church relations between West and East. The Byzantine world, culturally and administratively united around Constantinople and completely guiding the destinies of the Eastern Church, which by that time had become entirely "Byzantine" in ritual and culture, tended to be interested in the "barbarian" world only insofar as it directly came into contact with the interests of the Eastern Christian Empire. Church life in the West, as such, became completely alien to him. Filioque became a concern when it began to be preached in a country politically and geographically in contact with Byzantium. At the same time, we do not in the least suspect the sincerity of Photius and the anti-Latin polemicists: they really saw heresy in the newly appeared teaching, and their dependence on the political interests of Byzantium should not at all be considered as a rude subordination of their faith to worldly predilections. We only want to say that their speeches and actions implied an unconscious acceptance of the Byzantine theocratic worldview, which assumed that the fate of the Church was connected before the Last Judgment with the fate of the historical world Roman Empire, i.e. Byzantium. This worldview, of course, colored their idea of the catholicity of the Church in a peculiar way. Belonging to the Christian Church was definitely made dependent on submission, at least formally, to "the holy king of all Christians." And those who did not accept this submission, became, in the eyes of the Byzantines, incomplete Christians, whose Orthodoxy was itself doubtful, but who could condescendingly forgive even theological errors, explainable, among other things, as Photius thought, and the use of "barbarian" of the Latin language, until they claimed to directly attack "the sublime, heavenly country, the queen of cities, emitting the sources of Orthodoxy and pure streams of piety" - Byzantium.

***

The penetration of Christianity into the Slavic countries should be considered as one of the most significant phenomena of the 9th century. The baptism of the Slavs was a rather painful process due to the fact that the Slavs were forced to choose their spiritual parents: the Christian world was already divided, if not formally, then at least psychologically. This choice depended both on the geographic location of the people being baptized and on a number of political conjunctures connected with the plans of the great Christian empires and the jurisdictional interests of the patriarchal sees. Different Slavic peoples solved the task before them in different ways. But none of them caused so many events of common Christian significance with their conversion as the people of Bulgaria.

The baptism of Bulgaria took place during the reign of the intelligent, politically gifted, albeit rather primitive, from a cultural point of view, Khagan Boris. Events involved him in the complex situation of the then European politics, where the interests of Byzantium, the German Empire, the papal throne intersected and intertwined, while the Slavic peoples, one after another, sought to join the family of cultural Christian powers through baptism, without losing their national independence.

Relations between Boris and Louis of Germany begin already in the middle of the 9th century, and several Bulgarian embassies visit the German court. It happened that a war broke out between the Bulgarians and the Franks, which, however, never lasted for a long time. Rapprochement with Louis was undoubtedly beneficial to Boris, if only because, due to its remoteness, Germany did not pose an immediate danger to him, while neighboring Byzantium directly threatened him with absorption, which subsequently happened. In any case, we find Boris in 863 in a strong alliance with Louis in the war with Carloman of Bavaria, who had rebelled against the German emperor, acting in concert with Rostislav of Moravia. It is characteristic that during this war Rostislav seeks an alliance with Constantinople, and from there the holy brothers Constantine and Methodius go to Moravia, while Boris negotiates with Louis, intending to accept Christianity from Germany. Thus, both Slavic peoples desire to receive a new faith not from their neighbors, but from distant Christian powers that do not threaten their independence. On the intention of the Bulgarians to be baptized, Louis informs Pope Nicholas I through a certain Bishop Solomon. On this occasion, the pope writes a letter to Louis, expressing joy that Bulgaria accepts the Christian faith. We also learn from the letter that at that time many Bulgarians were already baptized, i.e. the Frankish missionaries were already in Bulgaria in 863. This fact, perhaps, is confirmed by Anastasius the Librarian, who writes that Boris was baptized by the Roman presbyter Paul. This news is, of course, essentially false. Boris was baptized by the Greeks, but the name of the presbyter Paul is hardly just invented by Anastasius: he was probably one of the missionaries sent by Louis, from whom Boris only intended to accept Christianity. But, in any case, the Germanic ecclesiastical influence in Bulgaria dates back to this time, and, consequently, the introduction of the Germanic rite and liturgical books, which included the Symbol with an increase.

In 864 the situation changed dramatically. After the Bulgarians raided Byzantine territory in order to plunder food supplies, which they were short of, Emperor Michael III attacked Boris with all his strength and led him not only to surrender, but also to be baptized - of course from Byzantium. Vasilevs himself was Boris's successor, and Patriarch Photius probably baptized him.

We do not know what became of the Frankish missionaries sent by Louis. It is possible that, by staying in Bulgaria, they inspired the movement that led Boris to change his policy in 866. Dissatisfied with his relations with Byzantium, which denied him the right to have his own archbishop, the Bulgarian Kagan turned to the West again. But in the West at this time there was a constant struggle between the German emperor and the pope, foreshadowing a struggle for power in the Christian world, which would continue throughout almost all of the Middle Ages. In addition, there were ceremonial and canonical misunderstandings between Rome and Germany, at least in the same question of the "Filioque", detrimental to the unity of the Western world.

We have rather vague information about the change in Boris's policy in Western chronicles. In any case, it can be said that there was a clash over Bulgaria between Louis and Nicholas I. At the court of Boris there undoubtedly existed a party that had received baptism from the Franks and naturally sought to restore the broken connection with Louis. On the other hand, Pope Nicholas so exalted the authority of the Roman See at that time that Boris did not consider it possible to bypass it. Therefore, the Bulgarian Kagan sends ambassadors to both Louis and Nicholas. Success was assured, of course. Clerics come to Bulgaria both from Germany and from Rome. Louis even asks his brother Charles for vessels, vestments and church books to send them to Boris. But in Bulgaria, the Franks find competitors - clerics from Rome. If, according to one chronicler, the Frankish clergy were received with honor by Boris, then, according to another source, Bishop Emmerich, sent by Louis, should return back. On the other hand, we know that Bishops Paul and Formosa, sent from Rome, enter into the administration of the Bulgarian Church. Offended, Louis demands from the pope, as compensation, gifts sent by Boris "as a gift to St. Peter", in particular, the weapon that the Bulgarian kagan wore when pacifying the boyar rebellion. The pope, having received Bulgaria, easily agrees to this very modest concession to the emperor's vanity.

But, of course, the cultural and liturgical influence of German Christianity remained strong in Bulgaria, for the main contact with Western Christianity came through the Franks. It is unlikely that the bishops sent from Rome were very insistent on the eradication of customs rooted in the "Western" party, with which they were united in the fight against a common enemy - the Greeks and Greek influence. Thus, a Church was formed in Bulgaria with a Germanic rite, but Roman jurisdiction. And "Filioque", still rejected by Rome, began to be sung in the church area, which is directly dependent on it and under its patronage.

In science, the opinion was expressed that in Bulgaria the Western missionaries did not introduce the Symbol with the "Filioque", but only preached the doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit: for how could they introduce something that did not yet exist in Rome? But from the writings of Patriarch Photius, as well as from the general attitude of the Greeks on the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit, which they did not touch until an addition was made to the Symbol, it is clear that they considered the confession of the Symbol in its intact form as the criterion of Orthodoxy. Therefore, Photius, although arguing with the doctrine itself, considers those popes who opposed the prefix to be Orthodox.

Thus, the Greeks for the first time met with the Church, which is in the direct jurisdiction of Rome and yet accepts the "Filioque", at the same time harboring conscious enmity towards Byzantium and leaving its spiritual mother. In Bulgaria, it was no longer individual representatives of the "barbarian" West, but the Roman Patriarch himself, if he did not fall into heresy himself, then openly patronized it, contributed to its spread among the people whom the Byzantines baptized and considered their natural ally. And the Greeks took the heresy itself seriously precisely when it began to be preached on behalf of the glorified and respected Old Rome. In the minds of the Byzantines, in particular Patriarch Photius, who firmly professed the primacy of Rome in the Church, Pope Nicholas was the first violator of the Symbol: he is the only pope whom the author of the Mystagogy considers unorthodox. Bishop Formosa, who ruled the Bulgarian Church on behalf of Pope Nicholas and the future pope himself, continued to be regarded in later Byzantine literature as a conductor of heresy, although he himself, being a Roman, may not have personally been a supporter of the insertion. From the point of view of the Greeks, he nevertheless went down in history as the first representative of Rome, patronizing the "Filioque".

In 867, Patriarch Photius wrote his famous circular letter to the Eastern Patriarchs, calling them to a council. The enemies of piety are declared already condemned, probably by the local council of Constantinople, but the proposed large council should finally decide the Bulgarian question. By "enemies of piety," he means the "bishops of darkness," that is, the West, "who call themselves bishops," who are in Bulgaria. Personally, Pope Nicholas is nowhere accused of heresy, although it is clear that Photius considers him an enemy: at the end of his message, he mentions a “conciliar letter and private letters received by him from Italy and Germany, complaining about the “tyranny” of the Bishop of Rome.

The envoy of Photius and the subsequent conciliar condemnation of Pope Nicholas in Constantinople did not have great consequences: a few months later, Photius was removed from the patriarchate, and under his successor, Ignatius, Boris again changed his policy and returned Bulgaria to the orbit of Byzantium. Yes, and one should hardly regret that this first attempt of patri. Photius to raise the question of "Filioque" before the church consciousness ended in failure: neither its sharp form, nor, most importantly, the general political situation in which it was made - the Byzantines tried to rely on the German emperor, from whom the main patronage of the "Filioque" insert in A symbol to take Bulgaria out of Roman jurisdiction! - could not contribute to its successful ending.

More favorable conditions were created when Patr. Photius again returned to the patriarchal chair, and a man of a slightly different spirit than Nicholas I sat on the throne of Old Rome: Pope John VIII. At the council, convened in Constantinople in 879-880, the church peace was established. Indeed, the recent works of some Catholic historians, especially Abbot Dvornik, who undoubtedly do honor to the scientific impartiality and "irenical" mood of a significant part of Catholic scientists, have shown that Pope John and Patriarch Photius should be revered as great peacemakers and spiritual patrons of all those who to this day seeks to bring about the unity of the Christian world.

The terms of the peace were as follows: Photius renounced jurisdiction over Bulgaria, but retained the right to send clergy there, thereby passing into the jurisdiction of Rome. The Bulgarians, therefore, continued to be in the sphere of cultural and liturgical influence of Byzantium, while observing the ancient canonical rights of Rome in the Balkan Peninsula, in Illyricum. The Patriarch of Constantinople also reaffirmed his recognition of the primacy of Old Rome, in particular with regard to his right to receive appeals from the East to the judgment of the Bishop of New Rome. For his part, Pope John agreed to once again condemn any addition to the Symbol, and thereby, in our opinion, dealt a heavy blow to the doctrine of papal infallibility, since Photius and the entire Eastern Church accepted the decision of the council in the sense that John VIII condemns the doctrine that was allowed Nicholas I. In addition, we have enough reason to think that John himself understood the decision of the council in this way. In the acts of the 7th meeting, after reading the Symbol, there is a solemn proclamation: "If anyone is so reckless as to compose a different confession of faith, or if anyone begins to alter this teaching with alien expressions, additions or subtractions, let him be anathema!" .

Catholic historians usually emphasize that here we are talking only about the canonical issue of adding to the Symbol, and not about the very doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, and canonical issues can be resolved differently at different times. But, firstly, one can doubt that the question of the increase could then be interpreted as canonical, after Photius explicitly, in his district epistle, condemned those who adhered to the increase in heresy, and secondly, one cannot but reckon with the fact that the entire Eastern Church understood the council's decision in the sense that John VIII condemned the very doctrine of the "Filioque" as well, for in the eyes of the Greeks the doctrine was inseparable from its formulation in the Symbol.

Patriarch Photius, in his "Mystagogy", written after the Council and systematically refuting the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit "and from the Son", directly ranks Pope John among the opponents of this doctrine as such; for nowhere in his work does he distinguish doctrine from formula. “My John,” writes the patriarch, “he, by the way, is also mine, because he protected me stronger than anyone else, this is my own John, courageous in thought and piety, courageous in hatred and in crushing all unrighteousness and of all wickedness, capable of helping both sacred and civil institutions and restoring order, this blessed Roman bishop, through the mediation of his pious and glorified deputies, bishops and priests of God Paul, Eugene and Peter, who arrived at our cathedral, signed and sealed the Creed, with the thought , tongue and sacred hands of the aforementioned men, together with the catholic Church of God and the Roman Bishops, his predecessors.

But apart from this testimony of Photius, we have indirect information about the opinions of John VIII on the issue of "Filioque".

Just in the era of the Council of Constantinople, at which Photius was solemnly justified by the legates of the pope, St. Methodius in Moravia was forced to defend himself against the attacks of the Frankish missionaries who competed with him, who preached the doctrine of a double procession and offered the Moravians the text of the Symbol with an addition, that is, in the German edition. The Life of Methodius describes the struggle of the Slavic First Teacher with the "Iopatorian" heresy, that is, with those who preached the doctrine of the procession of the Spirit from the Son and the Father. St. Methodius, as a result of this struggle, decided to seek support in Rome, and for this purpose he went to Pope John VIII in 880. John, after some hesitation, stands up for him and writes corresponding letters to Moravia. Only later did the See of Rome, under Pope Stephen (885-891), change its policy, support the supporters of the "Filioque" and thus put an end to the Byzantine mission in Moravia.

There is yet another piece of evidence that throws light on the probable opinion of John VIII himself on the question of the dogmatic content of Western terminology about the descent. This testimony comes from a direct collaborator of Popes Nicholas I, Adrian II and John VIII, who was behind the scenes of all papal politics at that time and undoubtedly played a major role in determining its new direction, adopted under John VIII, - Anastasius the Librarian. Anastasius, who knows Greek well and was the papal apocrysiar in Constantinople, writes in a letter to John, the future pope: The Greeks unjustly accuse us, for we do not say that the Son is the cause or beginning of the Holy Spirit, as they assert, but, knowing the unity of the essence of the Father and the Son, we think that He proceeds both from the Father and from the Son: but we understand the message, not the procession. He (St. Maximus) correctly understands and calls to the world those who know one and the other language. He teaches both us and the Greeks that the Holy Spirit proceeds in a certain sense and in a certain that sense does not come from the Son, indicating the difficulty of translating the properties of the Spirit from one language into another. Thus, we see here that the ruling circles in Rome have not changed their views since the time of St. Maximus, did not consider the teachings of Bl. Augustine is obligatory in this matter, but they explained the existing misunderstandings in the same way as Photius explained them, i.e., the difficulties of the language.

We can, on the basis of these testimonies, say with certainty that Pope John carried out his policy quite consciously. In his person we have the Roman High Priest, who is responsible for his universally recognized function of the Ecumenical Judge, despite all the misunderstandings and political circumstances that violated the peace between East and West. But his achievements, alas, will not last. In connection with the deep decline of the Roman Church in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the German emperors will turn the popes into obedient executors of their will, purely Western hierarchs. A certain Bernon, abbot of the Reichenau monastery, tells how in 1002 Emperor Henry II, who arrived in Rome for the coronation, demanded that the rite be performed by Pope Benedict VIII according to the German rite. "The Sovereign Emperor," writes Bernon, "did not retreat until, by common consent, he convinced the Apostolic Bishop Benedict to sing it (the Symbol) at the Liturgy." It was against the singing of the Symbol at the liturgy, which would officially fix the "Filioque", that Pope Leo III objected, but now the times were different, and the irreparable was done.

When the papacy resurrected again at the end of the ΧΙth and in the twelfth century, it was already difficult for it to go back, and it did not want to. In canonical collections, cathedral 879-880. was replaced, as the VIII Ecumenical, by the Ignatian Council of 869. The popes were completely absorbed in their efforts to lead the Western Christian world and did not hesitate, after some hesitation, to bless the campaigns of the crusaders against the "schismatic" Greeks.

3conclusion

This brief study of the place of the "Filioque" controversy in the relations between West and East in the 8th and 9th centuries allows us to come to the following conclusions:

1) At that time, the Westerners, although they professed the doctrine of the "double" procession of the Holy Spirit, usually did not resort to the triadology of Bl. Augustine to substantiate their views, and if they resorted to it, then as a secondary argument, and not as a starting point. Simply terminology was used, emphasizing consubstantial Persons, which was also characteristic of some fathers in the East, in particular St. Cyril of Alexandria. At the same time, some Western theologians, such as Anastasius the Librarian, explained this word usage in the Orthodox sense, that is, in the sense of the "economic" procession of the Spirit from the Son.

2) The Easterners, despite their complete uncompromising attitude as regards the doctrine of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the One Father, allowed the Westerners to use this word usage, since it was understood in the Orthodox sense, and since no addition was made to the Symbol.

3) The first incidents about the "Filioque" show what great importance was attached by the Eastern to the See of Rome, and what confidence he enjoyed on their part: while Rome resisted the addition of the Symbol, he enjoyed the unconditional respect of the East, and his rights in the Universal Church were recognized and were put into action. But his betrayal of Orthodoxy through the direct support of the German missionaries in Bulgaria, thanks to which the "Filioque" began to be held not in spite of Rome, but under its auspices, caused an immediate reaction. Thus, all the jurisdictional and canonical privileges of Rome were subject to one condition: the confession of the catholic faith.

***

The experience of the past should show us the way to the future. The unity of East and West is impossible without a common confession of faith, for which the Byzantine Church fought, while being ready to recognize and observe the primacy of Old Rome and allow wide terminological freedom in the field of theology. In the question of descent, therefore, the greatest obstacle is the decrees of the councils of Lyon and Florence, which established as a dogma not only one-sided terminology, but the formula "sicut ab uno principio", presupposing the acceptance of the whole metaphysics of bl. Augustine, incompatible with the teachings of the Greek Fathers.

John Meyendorff, archpriest

Magazine "Orthodox Thought" Issue No. 9, 1953

Notes:

1. See my article "La procession du St.-Esprit chez les Pères orientaux". - Russie et Crétienté, 1950, no. 3-4, pp. 164-165.

2. See Th. Camelot: "La tradition latine sur la procession du St.-Esprit "a Filio" ou "ab utroque". Ibid., pp. 179-192.

3. About the place of these works in the works of Bl. Augustine, see J. Chevalier. "St. Augustin et la pensee grecque". - "Les relations trinitares". Frlbourg-en-Suisse, 1940, pp. 27-36.

4. See mention. a book by J. Chevalier and reports on Orthodox-Catholic conventions devoted to the question of the Filioque (Eastern Churches Quarterly VII, Suppl. Issue, 1948; Russie et Chrétienté, 1950, no. 3-4).

5. P. G. XCI, 136.

6. See Annales Laurfssenses, a. 756 - P. L. CIV, 377 BC. The chronicle indicates that at this time the iconoclastic emperor Constantine Copronymus sent an organ to King Pepin, which later began to be used in Western liturgical music.

7. Jaffé - Wattenbach, nos. 2355, 2356, 2364.

8. P. L. CXXIII, 125 A.

9. "Orta quaestione de Sancta Trinitate et de sanctorum imaginibus" inter orientalem et occidentalem ecclesiam, id est Romanos et Graecos, rex Pippinus, conventu Gentiliaco villa congregato, synodum de ipsa quaestione habuit" - Annales Eginhardi. anno 767 (P.L. C, 385 A) - "Tune habuit domnus Pippinus rex in supradicta villa (Gentiliaca) synodum magnum inter Romanos et Graecos de sancta Trinitate vel de canctorum imaginibus" Annales Laurissenses, anno 767 (P. L. CIV, 386 A).

10. See, for example, I. Ketterer: "Karl der Grosse und die Kirche", München, 1898; F.-X. Arquillière: "L" Augustinisme politique", Paris 1934; Fr. Dvornik: "The making of Central and Eastern Europe", London, 1950. (Bibliography).

11. Praefatio, P. L. XCVII. 1002 a.

12. Monumenta Germaniae Hlistorica, Epistolae, IV, p. 137.

13. See the famous monument of Byzantine statehood, probably compiled by Photius, known under the name "Epanagogues". Here the king and the patriarch are called "the greatest and most necessary parts of the state" (ed. Zachariae von Lingenthal "Collectio librorum jur. gr. rom.", Lipsiae, 1852 - III, 8). The patriarch is "a living image of Christ, depicting the Truth" (III, 1), and it belongs to him to defend the Orthodox, to bring heretics and schismatics to the Church (III, 2).

14. Leo wrote to Pope Gregory II, - "I am a king and a priest" (Mansi XII, 975, 979). In the "Eclogues" the same emperor directly ascribes episcopal power to himself, paraphrasing the words of I Peter. V, 2; Christ "ordered us to shepherd the most faithful flock" (Introduction - ed. Zachariae v. Lingenthal - "Coll. libr. jur. gr. rom.", 10). These notions found fertile ground in the West, for the Latin Church tended to confer priestly titles on converting Frankish kings, like pagan kings. So, the Council of Orleans in 511 called Clovis a priest (M. G. H. - Concilia I, p. 2, 196). Venantius Fortunatus addressed Childebert I as "our Melchizedek, king and priest" (Auct. Ant. IV, 40). Similar views were expressed by Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum IX, 21 - M. G. H. Scriptores v. Merov. I, 379).

15. Doelger, "Regesta", 345.

16. Anastasius the Librarian in the preface to the new translation made under Pope John VIII (872-882) accuses the translator of not knowing both languages. Mansi XII, 981 CD; P. L. CXXIX, 195 C.

17 Annales Nordhumbrani, a. 792: "Carolus rex Francorum misit sinodalem librum ad Britanniam s bi a Constantinopoli directum, in quo libro, heu proh dolor, multa inconvenientia et vera fidei contraria reperientes. Contra quod scribit Albinus epistolam ex auctoritate ditvinarum scripturarum mirabiliter principum nostrum regi Francorum attulit." - Mon. Germ, Hist., Scriptores XIII, p. 155. - It is unlikely that anyone else in Karl's entourage had the necessary erudition to compose the Capitulary - see E. Amann: "L" Epoque carolingienne ". Hist, de l᾽E. - Fliche et Martin, XI, Paris 1947, p. 125. We do not touch here on the question of whether the "Libri Carolini" were sent to Rome in its present form, or in a more abbreviated form. The best researcher of this problem, H. Bastgen, tends to the first sense (see "Neues Archiν der Geselschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskundes", Hannover u. Leipzig, t. XXXVII (1912), S. 475 ff.), Hefele stands for the second (French translation), Hefele - Lelercq - Historedes Conciles - III, 2, Paris, 1910, pp. 1086-1088.

18. Mansi XII, 1122.

19. Libri Carolini III, 3 - P L. XCVIII, 1117 C.

20. Such, for example, is the confession of Theodore of Jerusalem - Mansi XII, 1136.

21.Col. 1178 a.

22. Per Filium enim super apostolos in igne apparuit, per Filium hominibus datus est, quoniam ab omnibus Spiritus Sanctus accipi non n᾽si per Filium poteret - id. 1119C.

23. ...quaerendum est utrum necesse sit eum per Filium a Patre et non potius ex Patre et Filio procedere profiteri, cum hujuscemodi professio neque in Nicaeno, neque in Chalcedonensi symbolo a sanctis partribus facta inveniatur... Per Filium vero eum a Patre procedere profiteri, synodica confessione inusitatum, est" - ibid.

24. ...his verbis hisque sententis fidelum confessio roboretur quae sanctae et universales synodi in symbolo taxaverunt" - col. 1121 B.

25 Col. 1122 a.

26. De Trinitate, I, V, p. XIII-XIV - P. L. XLII, 920-921.

27. M. G. H. Epistolae aevi Carolini III, p. 7.

28. These are the texts of Athanasius the Great (De incarn. 9, 12 - P. G., XXVI, 997 B, 1003 C, De virgin. 1 - P. G. XXVIII, 251 A), Gregory of Nyssa (De Greg. P. G. XL VI, 911), Ilarius Pictavia (De Trinitate VIII, 26-28 - P.L. X, 255-256), Bl. Augustine (Sermo 265, De ascensione, V, 9), Cyril of Alexandria (D recta fid. P.G. LXXXV, 1187), Leo the Great (Er 28, Sermo 76 - P.L. LIV, 775 V, 406 BC).

29. Gregory the Theologian (Or. XXXIX, 12 - P.G. XXXVI, 348 AB., Gregory the Great (Moralia in Job, XXVII, 34 - P.L. LXXVI, 418 D - 419 A).

30. Bl. Augustine (De Trinitate IV, p. 20, § 29; XV, p. 26, § 45-46), Gregory the Great (Hom. in Εν. II, P.L. LXXVI, 1198 C), Cyril Alex. (De ador. et cultu. P.G. LXVIII, 147).

31. It is in this sense that Adrian himself paraphrases the liturgical works of Pope Gregory the Great: "Sancta catholica et apostolica ecclesia ab ipso sancto Grigorio papa ordo missarum, solemnitatum, orationum suscipiens, pluras nobis edidit orationes, ubi Spiritum Sanctum per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum infundi atqueillustrari et confirmari nos suppliciter docuit" - p. eleven.

32. Propter eos videlicet haereticos qui susurrant Sanctum Spiritum solius esse Patris et a solo procedere Patre additum est. "qui ex Patre Filioque procedit" - M. G. H., Concilia aevi Carolini, p. 182.

33. He quotes the texts of Io. XV, 26 and XVI, 14.

34. Io. XIV, 9-10; XX, 22; XVI, 7; XIV, 26.

35. Ibid. p. 186.

36. Quicqud vobis placuerit vel displacuerit, aut si omnino nil dignum duxeritis, sacris nobis vestris jubete syllabis significantius propalare. - M.G.H. Epistola IV, p. 519.

37. For the monks' travels, see Annales Eginhardi, a. 807.-P.L. IV, 468.

38. Letter from the monks of Olivet, M. G. H. Epistolae aevi Carolini V, 6466 (P. L. CXXIX, 1257 sq.). From it we have details of the Jerusalem incident. The letter of Patriarch Thomas has not been preserved: we know about him only from the letter of Leo III to Charles.

39. P. L. CII, 1030-1032. We have neither a Greek translation, nor the slightest evidence of the reaction of the East to this confession. In view of the fact that it contains a direct affirmation of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, which was never found in the papal letters to the East, which always adhered to ancient Eastern terminology, one involuntarily begs the assumption that the confession was not sent precisely in this form, although it was completely it is probable that the pope held those opinions, the cat. expressed in the text known to us.

40. M. G. H., Epistolae aevi Carolmi V, 66-67 (P. L. CXXIX, 1259 cq.).

41. P.L. CV, 239-276 - "De Spiritu Sancto".

42. Many quotations are taken from unauthentic books "On the Holy Trinity" and from the symbol of pseudo-Athanasius.

43. The text from Proclus got into this series obviously due to incorrect translation. We present this incorrectness, which is by no means the only one in the translations quoted by Theodulf. In the script of the probe, it is worth: φύγωμεν τὴν μακεδονίου λύσσαν, χωοίουσαν τῆς θεότητος τὸ ἀχωρίστως ἐκπορεόόμενον πνεῦμα (P. G. LXV, 869 V). In the cited translation we have "Fugiamus Macedonii rabiem qu sequestrat ab essentia Detatis Spiritum Sanctum inseparabiliter procedentem" (col. 273 D). The words "ab essentia" are not in the original. It is they who interpret the text in the sense that the Spirit proceeds from the "essence of the Divine," especially since Theophulf understood "ab essentia Deitatis" as an addition to the "procedentem", and not to the "sequestrat", as is clear from the original.

44. It is printed among the works and under the name of Alcuin: "De processione Spiritus Sancti" - P.L. C.I., 63-82.

46. This passage is contained in the conclusion of the first chapter: "Idem vero Spiritus Sanctus, qui unius ejusdemque est cum Patre et Filio substantia, licet, ut secundum divinae scripturae auctoritate... monstravimus, propter unitatem ipsius cum Partre et Filio substantiae, et propter inseparabilem sanctae Trinitatis naturam, voluntatem, virtutem, operationem, Spiritus Dei Patris et Christi Spiritus appellatur, et ab utroque procedere dicitur in alio atque alio loco et missus" - col. 77 Sun.

47. M. G. H., Concilia aevi Carolini, pp. 236-239 (P. L. XCVIII, 923-928).

48. All patristic quotations are taken from Theodulf, except for one unknown quotation from bl. Jerome - see ed. Wirminghoff (M.G.H.), b. 238, no. 5.

49. Here is this note: "mense novembrio concilium habut de processione Spiritus Sancti, quam quaestionem: Joannes quidam monachus Hierosolimis primo commovit; cujus definiende causa, Bernharius episcopus Wormacensis et Adalhardus abbas monasteri Corbeiae Romam ad Leonem pàpam missi sunt" - Anna ales Eginhard . 809 - P. L. CIV, 472 B.

50. See H. Peltier: "Smaragde" - Dictionnaire de T. C. XIV, 2 (1914), col. 2249. Edition of this protocol: P. L. CII, 971 sq. = Mansi XIV, 23 sq. = M. G. Concilia aevi Carolini pp. 239-244.

51. Probably, it was just a letter from Karl, compiled by Smaragd, that was read.

52 Ed. Duchesne, II, p. 26; cf. R. 46, no. 110.

53. P. G. CII, 380 A.

54. See L. Bréhier: "Les colonies d'orientaux en Occident" - Byzant Zeitschr XII (1903), pp. 439, and especially Fr. Dvornik: "Les Légendes, de Constantin et de Méthode vues de Byzance" , Prague, 1933, p.284 sq.

55. Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne II, 54, 113.

56 Mansi XIII, col. 380, see also Liber Pontificalis I, p. 292.

57. True, a letter from Pope Hormizda (514-523) is known. to imp. Justin, where there is the expression: "Proprium Spiritus Sancti ut de Patre et Filio procederet sub una substantia Dietatis" (R. L. LXXIII, 514). But as the publisher of the text himself notes, the manuscript has been corrected at this point. The original wording was: "notum etiam quod silt proprium Spiritus Sancti, proprium autem Filii Dei".

58. District Epistle of Patriarch Photius - P. G. CII, 721 D.

59. Annales Fuld., a. 852. M. G. H. Scriptores, I, 367.

60. Annales Bert., a. 853. M. G. H. Scriptores, I, 448.

61. For Rostislav's embassy to Constantinople, see F. Dvornik: "Les Legendes de Constantin et de Méthode", pp. 226-228; about the negotiations between Boris and Louis, the same author: "Les Slaves, Byzance et Rome", Paris 1926, pp. 186-187, and also S. Runcman: "A History of the first Bulgarian Empire". London, 1930, pp. 102-103. - Boris even had to personally see Louis: "Hludovicus, rex Germaniae, hostiliter obviam Bulgarorum Cagano, qui christianus se fieri velle promiserat, pergit" (M. G. H., Scriptores, p. 465. - Annales Bert., a. 864): - Adverb "hostiliter" here expresses precisely the concept of "staying away" (See Ε. Ε. Golubinsky: "A Brief Essay", p. 245, note 38. -V. Η. Zlatarsky: "History on Bulgarskata Dyarzhava", Sofia, 1927, I, part 2, p. 16).

62. M. G. H. Epist. aevi Carolini, IV, 293 = P. L. CXXIX, 875

63. Praef. ad Synodum VIII, P. L. CXXXIX, 18 D.

64. This is the opinion of Golubinsky, op. cit., p. 239, approx. 31.

66. B. H. Zlatarsky thinks that the rebellion of the boyars, which took place in Bulgaria shortly after Boris was baptized and, according to available sources, sought to restore paganism, was supported by agents of Louis (op. cit., 1, 2, pp. 54-55).

67. On the double embassy of the Bulgarians, see Annales Bert., a. 866 - M.G.H., Scriptores, I, p. 474; for the embassy to Louis, see Annales Fuld., a. 866-ibid., p. 379.

68. Annales Bert., ibid.: "ab eo (Hludovico) missos, rex (Vulgarorum) cum debita veneratione suscepit".

69. Annales Fuld., a. 867, ibid., p. 380.

70. Annales Bert., ibid.

71. M. Jugie: "Origine do la controverse sur l" addition du "Filioque" au Symbole" - Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, t. XXVIII (1939), pp. 369-385. See also, his own " Le schisme byzantin", Paris, 1941, p. 126.

72. From a purely formal point of view, the opinion of Fr. Zhyugi refuted by V. Grumel "em ("Photius et l" addition du Filioque au symbole de Nicée-Constantinople" - Etudes byzantines, t. V (1947), pp. 218-224).

73. P.G.CII. 377. There is an opinion that Photius here has in mind Pope Formosus, but this opinion does not stand up to criticism (See V. Grumel, "Formose ou Nicolas I-er?" - Echos d "Orient XXXIII (1934), pp. 194 sq. .).

74. See the later Byzantine "history of the division of the churches", one of which was published by Hergenröther - "Monumenta graeca ad historiam Photii pertinentia" pp. 160-170.

75. "We condemned these theomachists by a conciliar and divine decision" - P. G. CII, 732 D.

76 Col. 732 VS.

78. According to Mitrophan, at the council of 867, Louis was proclaimed "autocrat" - Mansi XVI, 417.

79.Fr. Dvornik. "The Photian Schism. - History and Legend" - Cambridge, 1948, - French edition. "Le schisme de Photius. - Histoire et Légende", ed. du Cerf, Paris, 1950.

80. Mansi XVII, col 520 E.

81. Myst., 89; P. G. CII, 380-381.

82 Ed. Pastrnek, pp. 217, 234; French translation by Janitor, "Les Légendes", § I, XII.

83. M. G. H., Ep. VII, pp. 222 sq. cf. Dvornik "Le Legendes", pp: 310-311:

84. M. G. H., Ep. VII, p. 353; Vita Methodii, ed. Pastrnek, p. 259.

85. P. L. CXXXIX, 560 D.

80. Myst., 87. - P. G. CII, 377 A.

87. "De officio missae" - P. L. CXLII, 1060 D. 1062 A.

88. See F. Dvornik: "The Photian Schism", pp. 309-330.

Features of Catholicism

Catholicism - The Western or "Roman Catholic Christian Church" is the most massive variety of Biblical Christianity. More than 1 billion people are adherents of Catholicism. in the world. The population baptized according to the Catholic rite is the majority in 50 countries of the world. Geographically, Catholicism is most common in America (USA, Mexico, Latin America) and in Europe (Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, part of Ukraine, and part of Belarus). Large Catholic communities exist in many countries in Africa and Asia (Philippines).

Main dogmatic The differences between Eastern (Orthodoxy) and Western (Catholic) teachings of Biblical Christianity are as follows:

· Dogma about "Filioque" (from latin filioque - and from the Son) - about the source of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In Catholicism, it is accepted that the Holy Spirit comes from both God the Father and God the Son, while in Orthodoxy it comes only from God the Father. The Orthodox hierarchs retained the original Creed (finally approved at the II Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381), and the Catholic hierarchs added to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in 589 the position of the second source of the Holy Spirit - emanating from God the Son. In this form, the Creed became widespread starting from the 9th century in the empire of Charlemagne, which covered the territories of modern France, Germany and Italy.

· The doctrine of purgatory. In accordance with the Orthodox doctrine of the afterlife, the souls of people, depending on how they lived their earthly life, will necessarily go to heaven or hell. The Catholic Church advocates the idea of purgatory- as an intermediate place between heaven and hell, where the souls of sinners are not burdened with mortal sins. The dogma of purgatory was adopted at the Ecumenical Council of Florence in 1439. The council also determined that the prayers of the living faithful, that is, sacrifices, prayers and alms, as well as other deeds of piety, which the faithful are in the habit of doing for other faithful, serve these souls to reduce their suffering". It is clear that such an approach further subdues the flock in earthly life and the ministry of the church. As is commonly believed, in purgatory, souls, as well as in hell, are tortured by fire, similar to hell - but to a lesser extent .

· The doctrine of "super-due merit" , that is - about good deeds. These "good deeds" belong to the category of those that are not necessary for the salvation of the perpetrators themselves, but those that are performed in excess of religious duty. For example, "super-due merit" is considered a vow of voluntary poverty, or a vow of virginity. It is clear that this also adds submissiveness to the grazing crowd and reduces consumption in general in society. This is in Catholicism. The Catholic Church believes that due to the activities of the saints and the righteous, it accumulates a stock of good deeds. And How " the mystical body of Christ, his vicar on earth”, the church is called to manage this stock of “good deeds”. Cunningly: the saints and the righteous, as they say, “work hard”, and the church collects their “merits” and uses them at its own discretion - for “good deeds” known only to it. The biggest benefit of the church from this, of course - use of the authority of "the righteous and saints"(which she herself appoints, as a rule: but there are exceptions) to strengthen your authority in the eyes of the grazing crowd (a kind of "PR"). Thus the Church made the person of Christ the first authority.

· Theory and practice of indulgences (from the Latin indulgentio - mercy). Only in Catholicism, in the development of the doctrine of "excessive merits", was it considered possible to issue special papal letters - indulgences- about forgiveness of sins. Indulgences were usually purchased with money. Special tables were even developed in which each form of sin had its own monetary equivalent. Blatant abuses associated with the granting of indulgences forced the Catholic Church in the 16th century to categorically prohibit their sale, as contrary to the norms of church law.

· Sublime veneration of the Virgin - Mother of Jesus Christ Virgin Mary ( Madonnas). It began to take shape already in the 4th century at the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus in 431. The Virgin Mary was recognized as the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven - in contrast to the generally sound (with respect to this issue) thoughts of Bishop Nestorius that Jesus Christ was born a simple man, and the divine united with him later: on this basis, Nestorius called Mary - the Mother of God.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII introduced the dogma " about the bodily ascension of the Mother of God after the end of her earthly journey”, which demonstrated the almost divine essence of the “Virgin Mary”, since all other souls (ordinary people), according to the teachings of the church, were waiting for a meeting with the body only at the Last Judgment. In 1964, Pope Paul VI proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary "mother of the Church", which raised the authority of the church with another man-made idol for the crowd.

· The doctrine of the supremacy of the Pope over all Christians and his infallibility. The dogma of papal infallibility was adopted at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870) and confirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It says: " When the Roman High Priest speaks ex cathedra, that is, while fulfilling the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, with his supreme apostolic authority determines the teaching in the field of faith and morals, obligatory for the whole Church, then, by virtue of God's help, promised to him in the person of blessed Peter, he has that the infallibility that the Divine Redeemer wanted his church to be endowed with in terms of the doctrine of faith and morals". This doctrine is connected with the claims of Catholicism (Catholicism - from the Greek "general", "worldwide") to power over the entire "Christian" world.

· The principle of dogmatic development. Catholicism continued to develop its dogmas after 1054 (the split of the churches), guided by the principle of dogmatic development. It is based on the provision that the Council has the right to bring the traditional position in line with the "living voice" (that is, to change some dogmas in accordance with the dynamics of church practice). Therefore, the top of the Catholic Church continued to collect new Ecumenical Councils (21 in total) after 1054. The last such council took place in 1962-1965. The Orthodox hierarchy has convened more Ecumenical Councils since the Seventh Ecumenical Council. And therefore, the dogmas did not change radically.

In addition to dogmatic differences between the Western and Eastern churches, there are a number of canonical differences - relating to the ritual-cult side of biblical Christianity. The most significant of them are the following:

· The principle of celibacy of the Catholic clergy. Celibacy(from Latin caelebs - unmarried) - obligatory celibacy. The Code was approved by Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085) ostensibly as a precautionary measure against the creation of "spiritual dynasties". Confirmed by a special encyclical by Pope Paul VI in 1967. In fact, the celibacy of the clergy was necessary not only in order to suppress "spiritual dynasties", but also in order to preserve the church "Spirit", which will be discussed later when we analyze the role of monasticism.

In Orthodoxy, this issue is resolved somewhat differently. There the clergy is divided into black(celibate) and white(married priests).

· The inviolability of the sacrament of marriage . Catholicism professes the principle: "An approved and consummated marriage cannot be dissolved by any human authority and for any reason other than death." Orthodoxy allows the possibility of divorce and repeated marriages.

· Differences in the rite of baptism. The sacrament of baptism in Catholicism is carried out over children most often through a triple sprinkling, and in Orthodoxy - by dousing or triple immersion in the font.

· A number of differences in the sacrament of communion and the sign of the cross. Catholics are baptized with five fingers from top to bottom and from left to right, and Orthodox - with three fingers.

Catholic monasticism has its own organizations - orders, of which there are officially more than 150 today. Monastic orders have their own charters, perform their functions, and it is believed that they are subordinate to the Pope. Orthodox monasticism is not considered to have official orders. The most famous of them are the following:

The largest and oldest monastic order - Benedictines (VI century). Their charter requires a permanent stay in the monastery and compulsory labor. Following the motto pray and work", they laid the foundation for the exoteric culture of Western biblical European civilization(including introduced coffee, invented champagne, created musical notation). The Benedictines are creative individuals involved in literature and art. From the beginning of the formation of “Christianity”, with their creativity, in isolation from society, they created secondary (in relation to “Christianity”) foundations of biblical culture and for a long time (until the Renaissance) supported these foundations in their “purity” through monasticism, developing them in accordance with the requirements of Catholicism . This is a kind of “standard” of primordial European biblical culture, the fruits of spiritual activity of which have been put on the entire Western society for more than one hundred years.

· Franciscans (XII century) - mendicant order. Their main requirement is poverty. The Franciscans did not live in monasteries, but in the world, preaching, doing charity work and caring for the sick. If the Benedictines gave out a “standard” of culture for the middle and “rich”, then the Franciscans were an example for the poorest and slaves. The same applies to fragments of the spirituality of biblical Christianity, which were supported by each of the church orders.

· Jesuit Order (from the Latin "Society of Jesus") - founded in the 16th century. It is characterized by strict discipline, unquestioning obedience to the authorities of the order and the pope. From the very beginning, the Jesuits tried to give their members a comprehensive education, so the Jesuit schools are considered the best in Europe. In the 16th century, the first bourgeois-democratic revolutions took place and the church, trying to keep up with the times, “gave birth” to this kind of order, forging modern literate cadres, loyal to the cause of the church and, of course, to the cause of the “world behind the scenes”. But in parallel with the church orders, it was still necessary to create additional secular orders, which were called Masonic. Why? - we will talk about this when we analyze the role of Freemasonry.

· Dominican Order arose in the XII century and set as its goal the fight against heresies. The main church order, which supported and directed the Inquisition, was engaged in missionary work. Received the name "dogs of the Lord."

The pinnacle of the power of the Catholic Church was the reign of the Pope Innocent III(1198–1216). With regard to Europe of this period, we can confidently say that the "world behind the scenes" firmly intended to bring together all the states of Europe under the cruelest tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church. And she is almost succeeded. It can also be assumed that, having established spiritual autocracy in Europe, the "behind the scenes" tried to crush the Eastern Church under itself - including, not disdaining the Crusades and the Inquisition to maximize the centralization of power. But the latter did not work out: because of the “triumphal procession” of historical Islam, church Catholic unity was established only in Europe, and even then not everywhere.

Before Innocent III, there was a hundred-year period of struggle for power in Europe between major European emperors (mainly German), who bore the title of sovereigns of the Holy Roman Empire and, like the Pope of Rome, claimed absolute power in Europe, asserting themselves as the heirs of the Roman emperors, rulers of the state uniting all European lands - and dad. Thus, the "world behind the scenes" faced the problem of disobedience to a single discipline on the part of a number of emperors of Europe.

The conflict was temporarily resolved after a series of Crusades (the militant "steam" of the German emperors was released through aggressive campaigns), during which the warring parties were partly reconciled, and partly there were personnel changes in the composition of the imperial corps. In particular, Jerusalem and the “Holy Sepulcher” were “liberated” from Muslims, as a result of which the Catholic Kingdom of Jerusalem arose in Palestine. Catholicism, through the need for the Crusades, became not only a spiritual organization, but also a paramilitary one. In Palestine there were two large paramilitary church chivalrous orders - ioannites (hospitallers) and Templars . It is clear that the essence of the activities of these orders (as well as Dominicans) corresponded more to the police and punitive functions in the name of Christ, and not to the spiritual ones - which some other orders claimed. And the personnel base of these orders could well be replenished with special persons who secretly profess Judaism and follow the Talmud and Kabbalah (somewhat later).

The unprecedented rise of Catholicism by the end of the 11th century after the victory of the papacy over the small-town rule of emperors under Innocent III provided the following besides the Crusades. Vassal dependence on the pope was recognized by the English king John Landless, the Portuguese king Sancho I, the Leonese (region of France) king Alphonse IX, the Aragonese king Pedro II, and the Bulgarian king Kaloioann.

In the same time, the pope was opposed by a number of German emperors, the conflict with which from the XII century turned into a struggle between two parties Guelphs(supporters of the popes) and gibbelins(supporters of the emperor). The Pope was especially opposed by Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, who was known as an atheist and blasphemer. Neither Innocent III nor his successors managed to defeat him (which means that the Germans violated the world order in Europe, implanted "behind the scenes"). From that time began decline of papal power, which ended at the beginning of the XIV century " Avignon captivity of the popes". In general, the eternal German desire to be “cooler” than everyone else, despite even animal treachery, may have been decisive in breaking the scenario for establishing pan-European unity under the central leadership of the pope.

The "behind the scenes", waiting for an opportunity when the Germans got rid of the "Christian" ideology (so as not to mess it up: suddenly it will come in handy - and it came in handy) and plunged into their ancient "Aryan" system of the pantheon of gods, decided to teach the Germans a lesson with "fascism" - for that that they did not allow the installation of biblical fascism in Europe more abruptly than German - papal universal fascism under the general control of the Catholic Church. This German “greenhouse” “fascism” was also confronted with Masonic-Marxist fascism because in the 20th century, the establishment of worldwide (primarily all-European) unity on the basis of a secular modification of the biblical concept (Marxism) was no longer prevented by the Germans, but by the Russians. So the Germans and Russians were pushed together in the middle of the 20th century - as two systems that do not fit into a single biblical order: one did not fit into the Catholic unity, and the second - into the Marxist one.

A serious blow to the authority of the church was dealt by the French king Philip IV the Handsome, who overthrew Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 and appointed his own pope, who received the name Clement V. Submissive to Philip, Clement moved the residence of the popes from Rome to provincial Avignon in southern France. That's how it started" Avignon captivity of the popes» . Popes who found themselves on French soil had to support the policy of the kings of France. The claims of the popes who were in captivity caused only grins and irritation from other European sovereigns. Despite the fact that in 1377 Pope Gregory IX managed to return to Rome, the Roman Church did not reach its former power. never again. And after the death of Gregory IX, Catholicism struck "The Great Split".

In Rome, he was elected the new pope in 1378. Bartalomeo Prignano who called himself Urban VI. And in Avignon, the conclave of cardinals, on the orders of the French king Charles V, appointed the count Robert of Geneva under the name of Clement VII. There were two popes (or even three) at the same time. In almost 40 years, the Catholic world has split into two parts. The dispute was resolved at the Local Council of Constance in 1414-1418, when three (then already three) rival popes were deposed, and Martin V became the new pope. The Catholic Church tried to consolidate in the face of a new threat - a schism. Protestantism became the extreme expression of the centrifugal movement that tore apart the "spiritual empire." To fight against Protestantism, in defense of the popes in Paris in 1534, the Spaniard Ignatius Loyola created a new monastic order - “ Society of Jesus", whose members began to be called Jesuits .

However, from now on, Catholicism claimed universality. only in the religious sphere: in the secular sphere, he was not omnipotent. Catholicism has always relied on secular institutions of power, and the latter did not always support papal authority.

By the end of the 14th century, the Catholic Church, which assumed the functions of imperial control of a fragmented Western European society, faced insurmountable opposition to the centralization of power under the pope from the secular elites of many state regimes. European tsars and kings (and the emerging stratum of “elites” with huge stolen “wealth”) wanted to be their own masters, sending the popes away in this sense. It was not possible to establish discipline to the end, and the time of bourgeois revolutions was already approaching - the time of the power not of church orders and dynasties, but the time of the power of money, capital. Having once provoked the dual system of the biblical concept of "Judaism-Christianity", the "behind the scenes" itself launched a dual process that the church only held back for about 1000 years: the accumulation of capital by noble Jews through usury allowed them to gain power through money, which they also provoked technical progress (the interest on the loan had to be paid back, which stimulated scientific and technical thought: how to organize production cheaper and more efficiently). And technical and technological progress is the main engine of political formations in our civilization, and, unfortunately, it was the reason for changing the morality of people (in a natural way for a person, without external coercion, morality did not change) in accordance with the change logic of social behavior. The time of capitalism was approaching to replace church feudalism.

In the middle of the 15th century, an attempt to achieve the reunification of the Western and Eastern churches ended in failure. By this time, the Turkish Empire was able to subjugate most of the Balkan countries and began to threaten the Byzantine Empire. Part of the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, headed by Patriarch Joseph II of Constantinople, hoped for the help of the Roman Church and proposed to resolve all controversial issues of dogma and ritual at a common council. Such a cathedral opened in 1438 in Ferrara and was named ferraro-florentine, as it continued in Florence and ended in Rome. Pope Eugene IV, in fact, offered the Orthodox Church to completely submit to the Catholic. After long disputes, on June 5, 1439, representatives of the Orthodox churches signed an agreement on unification with the Catholics - Union of Florence. But this formal unification did not lead to anything: neither the most powerful Russian Orthodox Church, nor the majority of hierarchs of other local churches accepted the union. In 1453 the Turks took Constantinople.

The 18th century was marked by a global crisis in Catholicism. In this Age of Enlightenment, educated Europe recoiled from the Church. The aversion to biblical Christianity in many countries resulted in the murder of priests and the return of polytheistic cults. The crown of the anti-Catholic movement was the destruction of the ecclesiastical state in Italy (Papal States). In 1870, the troops of the Italian king Victor Emmanuel II captured Rome and annexed the papal lands to Italy. Pope Pius IX was deprived of secular power.

The First World War of the 20th century destroyed the spiritual world of the Western man in the street, which had formed by the end of the 19th century. The crisis caused by the war forced many to return to the Catholic religion, because apart from it they knew nothing "spiritual". The revival of Catholic philosophy began. In 1929, the power of the Roman popes was restored in part of the territory of the Italian Republic. In Rome, the dwarf state of the Vatican arose, where all secular power belonged to the pope.

What is filioque? This teaching of the Roman Catholic Church about the descent of the Holy Spirit not only from the Father, but also from the Son, was one of the main dogmatic reasons for the division of the Churches and still remains the most important doctrinal error of Catholicism, which prevents any possible unity.

Filioque

As a theological opinion, the doctrine of the filioque arose long before the division of the Churches. It proceeds from a peculiar interpretation of a number of gospel passages in which one can see indications of such a procession. For example, in the Gospel of John (15:26) the Savior says: “When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth. which proceeds from the Father,” and His words are seen as direct evidence of the procession of the Holy Spirit from Him, whom Jesus promises to send from Himself. Very often used is a verse from John 20:22, when Jesus “having said this, breathed, and said to them: receive the Holy Spirit” and the words of St. Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts” (Gal. 4:6), as well as a number of other passages.

It should be taken into account that the Gospel conception of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is not distinguished by the same completeness and certainty as the Old Testament teaching about God the Father and the New Testament teaching about God the Son. Almost everything we know about the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is contained in the farewell conversation of the Lord with the disciples at the Last Supper in the exposition of the Gospel of John. Paradoxically, we know more about the grace-filled participation of the Holy Spirit in the life of the world than about its Trinity being. The fundamental limitation of earthly ideas in the description of trinity relations, about which St. Gregory the Theologian: “Explain ... to me the unbegottenness of the Father, then I will also dare to speak naturally about the birth of the Son and the procession of the Spirit” most of all touched on the image of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Quite early one-sided views on the Second Person of the Holy Trinity appeared in the Sabellian and Macedonian heresies.
This teaching received significant development at the Second Ecumenical Council, whose fathers, instead of the brief Nicene formula “we believe in the Holy Spirit” gave a detailed definition “and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-Giving One, who proceeds from the Father”, which quite definitely testifies to the way of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Spirit and does not give grounds for the differences of opinion, which later became established in Western theology in the doctrine of His descent "and from the Son."

The spread of the doctrine of filioque in the West is associated with the name of Blessed Augustine, who taught about the Holy Spirit as “about the very communion of the Father and the Son, and … that very divinity, by which is meant … mutual love between the One and the Other.” The Toledo Council of 688 directly refers to his authority: "We accept the teaching of the great teacher Augustine and follow it."

Indeed, it was Blessed Augustine who first authoritatively declared the procession of the Holy Spirit “and from the Son” in the interpretation of an episode from the Gospel of John (20:22), when Jesus “having said this, breathed, and said to them: receive the Holy Spirit.” According to Blessed Augustine, “why should we not believe that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son, when He is also the Spirit of the Son? For if He had not proceeded from Him, then, appearing to the disciples after His Resurrection, He - the Son - would not have breathed on them, saying: receive the Holy Spirit, for what else meant it, if not that the Holy Spirit proceeded from Him."

However, many researchers rightly draw attention to the fact that “Augustine in various senses understood the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the procession from the Son ... by the procession of the Spirit from the Father, he meant His procession ... from the beginning of His being”, while “under the procession of the Spirit from the Son he understood … co-eternal with His proceeding from the Father abiding in the Son.” Blzh.Augustin, undoubtedly, stood at the origins of the doctrine of filioque, but he did not attach to these words the significance that it acquired in later development and by no means considered it to be dogmatic truth.

Nevertheless, theological opinions about the participation of the Son in the bringing forth of the Holy Spirit became widespread in the Western Church, for example, in the person of Pope Leo the Great, Prosper of Aquitaine, Peacock of Nolan, and later, Pope Hormizda and Isidore of Seville. For the first time filioque received ecclesiastical recognition in Spain, at the Council of Toledo in 589, moreover, more for practical than dogmatic reasons. At this council, the Visigoths-Arians accepted Orthodoxy, and in order to dogmatically make up for the Arian belittling of the trinitarian dignity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, it was strengthened by the additional trinitarian quality of the emanation of the Holy Spirit. The participation of the Son on an equal footing with the Father in the presentation of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity was to affirm in the eyes of the Arians the equal trinity dignity of the Son and the Father.
The doctrine of the filioque was apparently not known outside the Latin world until the seventh century, when Pope Theodore I's confession of faith containing the filioque attracted the attention of Eastern theology. St. Maximus the Confessor dealt with the resolution of this perplexity, and, after studying the matter, he came to the conclusion that “by numerous testimonies they proved that they do not make the Son the cause of the Holy Spirit, for they know that the one principle of both the Son and The Spirit is the Father - the One through birth, the other through the procession. But their formulation is intended to show that the Spirit proceeds through the Son and thus establish the unity and identity of essence.” In this definition, St. Maximus, we encounter the somewhat ambiguous formulation "through the Son", the true meaning of which will be discussed later.
The message of St. Maximus the Confessor pacified the East, until in 808 a second incident occurred with Frankish pilgrim monks who arrived in Jerusalem. During the celebration of the liturgy, they sang the Creed with filioque, which did not escape the attention of the local monks and served as a pretext for a new trial. It is noteworthy that the Church of Jerusalem did not impose sanctions on the Franks.

The first attempt to achieve a general recognition of the filioque by the Western Church occurred at the Council of Aachen in 809. The reasons were again more historical than ecclesiastical. The decision on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son was made under the influence of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne, who, by participating in the dogmatic affairs of the Church, sought to establish his not only state, but also ecclesiastical equality with the Byzantine emperors.
It must be said that the recognition of the filioque in the Western Church was far from universal. Attempts to dogmatize this doctrine caused serious dogmatic disputes at the end of the 7th-8th centuries. Many prominent Western theologians, such as Alcuin, spoke out against changing the conciliarly approved Creed. Pope Leo III could not force Charles to abandon the filioque, but he himself flatly refused to accept this insert, because "it is illegal to write or sing it where it was forbidden by the Ecumenical Councils."
A critical theological examination of the Western doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit was undertaken in the 9th century by Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, who outlined four groups of arguments against such a way of thinking in his essay “Mystery of the Procession of the Holy Spirit”. At the Hagia Sophia Cathedral of 879-80, it was forbidden to change the Niceno-Tsaregrad Creed, and the Western Church, in the person of Pope John VIII, confirmed this actual condemnation of the filioque.
However, the decisions of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral suspended the dogmatization of the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit “and from the Son” only for a time. In 1014, Pope Benedict VIII incorporated the filioque into the Western creed and thereby hastened the imminent division of the Churches. Many researchers agree that the real reason for the schism in 1054 was not so much the dogmatic side of the doctrine of the descent of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but the very fact of “the encroachment of the diocesan opinion on the ecumenical common faith.” As a private theological opinion of the West, and even as a theologian, it was known to the East for at least several centuries, but “many Western fathers of the ancient Church who preached the filioque lived and died in communion with the Eastern Church, which honors their memory equally. Patriarch Photius, who fought against this teaching, nevertheless had communion with the Western Church.” Rather, it was not the doctrine of the filioque itself that provoked a decisive condemnation, but an attempt to dogmatize it. The Eastern Church rebelled against the open violation of the rules of a number of conciliar resolutions, in particular, Canon 7 of the Third Ecumenical Council, which categorically forbade any change to the Nicene-Tsaregrad Creed.

After the Great Schism, the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit invariably found itself at the center of any controversy or union between East and West. The outstanding scholastics of the West, primarily Thomas Aquinas, devoted their works to substantiating this dogmatic opinion. It acquired its final dogmatic affirmation in the Roman Catholic Church precisely at the unifying councils: Lyon (1274) and Ferrara-Florentine (1431-39). In the East, the filioque theme received a thorough theological development, in particular, in the writings of the Patriarch of Constantinople Gregory of Cyprus and St. Gregory Palamas.
The condemnation of the doctrine of the filioque was confirmed by the “District Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs” of 1848, which directly states that “the doctrine ... of the procession of the Holy Spirit is and is called heresy, and those who think like that are heretics, according to the definition of His Holiness Damasus, Pope of Rome, who spoke so "he who thinks right about the Father and the Son, but wrong about the Holy Spirit, he is a heretic."

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries. Russian Orthodox theologians took a significant part in the study of the filioque problem. Heightened interest in it was caused by attempts to reunite with the Orthodox Church of the Old Catholic movement, whose religion inherited the Roman Catholic doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In Russian theological science, there are two main opinions about the true nature of this teaching.
One of them is presented, in particular, by V. Bolotov in his famous theses on filioque. Together with a number of other theologians, he believed that the doctrine of filioque can be recognized as a theologumen, having the right to exist and having received indirect recognition of the Eastern Church in ancient times.

Another opinion, which was held by a number of contemporaries of V. Bolotov, and then, in particular, V. Lossky, defended a deep dogmatic difference between the Orthodox understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit and the Roman Catholic teaching, seeing in it the reason for the different understanding of triadology.

If the historical role of the filioque seems clear enough, then its theological assessment is hampered by the fact that some Eastern Fathers, in particular St. Maximus the Confessor, whose words were quoted above, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory the Theologian, as well as St. John of Damascus, allowed expressions that suggested the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son. For example, St. John of Damascus wrote "God ... has always been the Father, having His Word out of Himself and through His Word His Spirit proceeding from Him." In the “Definition of Orthodoxy ... by Patriarch Tarasius”, approved by the VII Ecumenical Council and Pope Adrian, it says: “I believe in One God the Father Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... and in the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving Lord, who proceeds from the Father through the Son ".
The dogmatic meaning of the wording “through the Son” is that this kind of procession of the Holy Spirit “from the Father through the Son” differs in nature from His timeless procession “from the Father”, in which He finds His trinity being. The procession from the Father is the procession from the First Cause within the limits of the Holy Trinity, while the procession “through the Son” is understood by Orthodox theology as an “energetic radiance”, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the boundaries of the Holy Trinity for the grace-filled sanctification of the world.

In the 13th century, Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus, Patriarch of Constantinople, very poetically explained the dogmatic meaning of the procession of the Holy Spirit “through the Son”: Son, shining through Him and with Him, just as light comes from the sun along with a ray, shines and appears through it and with it, and even from it. ... after all, the water that is drawn from the river exists from it; so light exists from a beam. But neither one nor the other has these two things as the cause of their existence.
In their theology, both the West and the East proceeded from those names and the hypostatic order of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, which were indicated by the Lord Himself in the commandment “go, make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28 :nineteen)

On the other hand, the human mind involuntarily tried to comprehend the mystery of the heavenly existence of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, applying to Them the semantic coloring that Their names had in earthly representations. At the same time, the general idea of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity was largely determined by His name in the Gospel, since Revelation does not give us a more complete knowledge of Him.

Considering the filioque as the temptation of human likeness in the ideas of the divine being of the Holy Trinity, we see how the distorting influence of human consciousness penetrates through the naming of the Persons of the Holy Trinity into the image of comprehending Their inexpressible being. The Word of God - the Second Person of the Holy Trinity - has eternal existence with God the Father, His temporary incarnation exceeded the limits of our comprehension, therefore, if the name Father is assimilated to the Parent, and the Son to the Born, then only in their appearance to man. The naming of the Third Person by the Holy Spirit is also nothing more than condescension to human concepts. The inevitability of such indulgence remains the only reason why the First, Second and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity are mentally represented as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The judgment of their inner life cannot be based on this human conception. We only know that the First Person of the Holy Trinity is the cause of the existence of the Son and the Holy Spirit, while the inner life of the Divine is inaccessible to human definition. In other words, theology can only assert that in God there are three hypostases of the same eternity, and that one of them is the cause of the existence of the other two. About the rest blzh. Augustine said that "even angelic language, and not that human language, cannot explain it."

The two first Persons of the Holy Trinity have absolutely definite features of their own, which make it possible to distinguish the kind of Their trinity being without any confusion. The logical connection of the Father and the Son is a direct connection ... Both concepts are inconceivable one without the other, for when we pronounce the word “Father”, we thereby think of this person as possessing the properties of a father, that is, having a Son. The logical connection between the Father and the Holy Spirit no longer has such strength, because between the words “Father” and “Spirit” there is no such direct connection as between “Father” and “Son”. We do not have and the Lord has not revealed to us any special name for the third Hypostasis, which would connect it with the name of the first as irreversibly as the latter is connected with the second. The "Father" also appears to the Holy Spirit first of all as the Father of the Son. This is the logical temptation of the rational perception of the revelation of the Holy Trinity as coming from the Father to the Son and through the Son to the Holy Spirit.

In addition, the very historical sequence of the revelation of the Persons of the Holy Trinity in Holy Scripture, which first tells about God the Father and secretly about God the Son, then about God the Son and secretly about the Holy Spirit can be perceived by rational theological thought as a justification for that unequal kind of trinity being of the Holy Spirit, which was established in the West with the adoption of the filioque.
The Holy Spirit in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is distinguished, according to V. Lossky, by “characteristic namelessness”. According to Thomas Aquinas, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity does not have its own name, and the name “Holy Spirit” is given to it in accordance with the custom of Holy Scripture. The name of the Holy Spirit indicates the features of being, applicable, to a certain extent, both to the Father and to the Son, in which both the spiritual nature and holiness are inherent. Thus, the signs that determine the existence of the Holy Spirit can more express the content of the entire trinity life than the own hypostatic existence of the Third Person or, according to V. Lossky, “the name “Holy Spirit” as such could also be attributed not to personal distinction, but to the common nature of the Three." With a certain degree of confidence, we can say that the thought of Blessed Augustine developed in the same vein, when he spoke to the Holy Spirit as “about the very communion of the Father and the Son and, ... that very divinity, by which is meant ... mutual love among themselves One and the other." In this case, we again see an indication of the personal, hypostatic property of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, correlated with the existence of the first two Persons and the Holy Spirit becomes, as it were, a dependent, service Person of the Holy Trinity, His own hypostatic being is oppressed.

A similar uncertainty characterizes our human conception of the way of gaining
by the Holy Spirit of His Trinity being, for "the term 'proceeding' can be taken as an expression referring not only to the Third Person." It does not have that power of consubstantiality with the Father, which the birth of the Son presupposes.

The temptation of the filioque consists, first of all, in the fact that a division is introduced into the single First Cause of the existence of the persons of the Holy Trinity, which is God the Father. Two sources of trinity life appear, a hint of a duality: the Father, giving birth to the Son, and the Father, together with the Son, bringing forth the Holy Spirit. It becomes incomprehensible how one can think of God the Father as the Single cause of the visible and invisible world, if there is a co-cause next to Him, even if in the person of the Son.

The doctrine of the descent of the Holy Spirit “and from the Son” strengthens the predominance of the omnipotent principle in the trinity nature, “the superiority of natural unity over personal trinity.” It is only possible to preserve the hypostatic distinction of the Persons of the Holy Trinity within the framework of Orthodox theology, which strengthens this distinction by two special ways of origin - the birth of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit, in no way diminished in comparison with Him.

Taking into account the difficulties of the theological comprehension of the image of the trinitarian being of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Orthodox consciousness in any case cannot agree with the fact of an arbitrary change in the conciliarly approved Creed, which served as the main reason for the Great Schism and undoubtedly remains on the conscience of the spiritual leaders of the West.

Bibliography

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