WHILE visiting Rome in 1014, German Emperor Henry II requested filioque in the Creed, a Frankish custom, and ever after Rome was seized by the zeal of the convert. But not the Easterners. Scripture told them that the Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father’,* is given by the Son,* and bears witness to the Son;* but nowhere did they read that he proceeds from the Son as from the Father. Of that Rome could not persuade them.
Talks at Lyon in 1274 collapsed, soured by the Crusaders’ bloodthirsty rampage in the capital seventy years before.* But in 1439, with the Turks poised to strike Constantinople and Rome promising military assistance, the Greeks finally capitulated – all except for Mark, bishop of Ephesus – wearily agreeing that the Spirit proceeds from the Son ‘just like the Father’.*
On May 28th, 1453, the Greeks added filioque to the Creed for a subdued reunion celebration in Agia Sophia. On May 29th, Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmed.* No military assistance ever came.
See John 15:26.
Christ sends the Spirit on his Apostles from the Father (John 16:26), but not until he has died and risen again (John 16:7); or the Father does so in his name (John 14:16; 14:26).
The work of the Spirit is to bear witness to the Son (John 15:26) and to make us in the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:17). Hence the Spirit in the life of the Church is called the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9; 1 Peter 1:11; Philippians 1:19), the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6), or the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17).
The shortlived Union of Lyons was nonetheless rigorously enforced. See Image of Joy.
In the Bull of Reunion ‘Laetentur caeli’ it was enacted: ‘The Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the holy Spirit, just like the Father.’
See our post The Fall of Constantinople. This was the second attempt to hold such a liturgy, the first, in December 1452, having been boycotted by almost the entire city. The delay in enacting the reunion agreed in 1439 was in part owing to the sudden death of Joseph II, Patriarch of Constantinople, during the Council. At his side was a clumsy forgery declaring his complete support for the ‘filioque’ and the Pope’s claims of supreme authority over all the Church.