The Joint International Commission on Theological Dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and the Orthodox Church has published a common statement on the word Filioque [“and the Son”] in the Nicene Creed’s statement on the procession of the Holy Spirit.
“We know that the Filioque was inserted in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin Church in response to the heresy of Arianism centuries after the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed’s composition,” the commission said in its joint statement, dated May 27 and released July 30.
“Valuing this old and most venerable ecumenical Christian text, we suggest that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions between our communities.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its teaching on Filioque (246-248), notes that “the use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries).
The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.”