07 — The Filioque and the Two Traditions
“Whether we like it or not, the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit has been the sole dogmatic grounds for the separation of East and West.” With that sentence Lossky opened the essay that, together with chapter 3 of the Mystical Theology, set the terms of the modern Orthodox treatment of the Filioque: not a verbal misunderstanding to be dissolved by better translation, but two established doctrines, two triadologies, with consequences reaching into ecclesiology and the spiritual life.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration)
What This Section Covers
The first file follows the argument itself: the monarchy of the Father; relations of opposition versus relations of diversity; the charge that Filioquist triadology entails “an ontological primacy of the essence over the hypostases”; and Lossky’s explicit refusal of the view that the difference is verbal — together with the concessions he was nonetheless willing to make.
The second file follows the consequences he drew: the derivation of a Christomonist ecclesiology and papal centralism from a Trinitarian premise, the two economies of Son and Spirit, and the resulting portrait of two theological civilizations. It also gives the counter-positions in full, including the 2003 North American Orthodox–Catholic agreed statement, whose more conciliatory approach the repository’s hub file already records.
Where the confessional standpoint falls. Per METHODOLOGY §4.1, the Filioque is not a both-sides question for this repository: the Orthodox Church confesses the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, has never received the addition to the Creed, and this collection confesses that with her (see The Filioque). What is a §4.2 question, and is treated as one, is Lossky’s further historical-interpretive thesis: that the Filioque generated a systematically different Western theology of God, Church and spiritual life. That thesis is his, it is contested, and Section 08 sets out the contest.
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Filioque Thesis | The 1948 essay and chapter 3: the monarchy of the Father, relations of opposition, the antinomy, and the refusal of the “merely verbal” reading |
| Two Triadologies and Their Consequences | The ecclesiological and spiritual consequences Lossky drew; the two economies; the counter-positions and the 2003 agreed statement |
See Also
- The Filioque — the repository’s dogmatic treatment, where Lossky’s thesis is cited
- The Critique — the challenge to the East–West frame
- St. Photius the Great — the patristic source of the Orthodox case
- The Great Schism — the historical setting