Go now to Kazik in Williamsburg, Virginia watching on YouTube but getting
in touch with us over the phone. Kazik, you are on with Tim Staples. Hello. Hello
Kazik! I just really want to say how much I appreciate you doing this,
especially with the conversation you had with Karen earlier about the Eucharist.
Coming from an Eastern Orthodox perspective, I just can't say how
much I appreciate that. All right, brother. But while I agree with you on those
things, there are a couple things I object to in my Eastern Orthodoxy,
one of them being the filioque. Yes. And I would just like you to comment on that,
if you can. Sure, sure. Yeah Kazik, I actually wrote an article for Catholic
Answers Magazine, you can find it online at Catholic.com, called "The Filioque
Controversy." You might want to check that out at Catholic.com, I go into great
detail there. But basically, Kazik, I find the filioque to be absolutely
Biblical. Yes, as you know, Jesus Christ taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father, you and I agree when it comes to that; but we also find, for
example--and I give you many biblical texts in my article, but for example in
Revelation 22:1 & 2, we have an image where Saint John is
looking at Heaven, and what does he see? He sees the Father and the lamb
sitting on the throne, and a river of life proceeds from the Father and the
lamb, giving life to everything around it. And of course that water is a symbol of
the Holy Spirit, as we know in John chapter 7--the same John who wrote the
Gospel of John wrote the book of Revelation--and Jesus talks about the
Holy Spirit as being a river of living water that comes out of the belly
of those who believe in Jesus. So there's that and many other reasons we could
look at. Jesus Himself also says, "I will send the Holy Spirit from the Father," which
indicates both Father and Son are involved in the sending of the
Holy Spirit. Now, there's a lot of theology that goes into that, but I think
number one, Kazik, in my study of this many years ago--in fact, I considered
Orthodoxy, Kazik, before I became Catholic-- but I found the Catholic position to be
absolutely Biblical. And then as a matter of history, we see, you know, this was
taught East and West; you have St. Clement of Alexandria, you have the
Alexandrian school of theology that taught the filioque, and that's
Eastern Christians. St. Didymus the blind, for example, who was one of St. Jerome's
teachers, I mean, in some sense you could say that perhaps St.
Didymus taught St. Jerome the filioque, right, in that sense. But, you know, you
have Eastern fathers who clearly taught it, you have Pope Leo the Great who
taught it dogmatically in 447 AD; that's very significant because that's before
even the Creed of 381 was received and approved by the Vatican, as you may know--
or by the Bishop of Rome I should say-- Kazik, as you may know, the Council of
Constantinople was not originally approved by Pope Damasus because of some
of the machinations that went on at the council, with the patriarch of
Constantinople attempting to kind of leapfrog over the bishops of Antioch and
Alexandria to make himself number two, and I always find that interesting, Kazik,
that at Constantinople there was no question who was number one. That was not
even a question. It was a question of who was going to be number two, and because of
the fact that Constantinople did not have an apostolic origin, it came later,
Pope Damasus said "No," and so that kept Constantinople from being approved as a
council, and the symbol or the Creed of Constantinople of being approved either,
even through the Council of Ephesus up until the Council of Chalcedon.
And an interesting point, Kazik, I found when I studied this,
is that if you go to the documents of Chalcedon after Chalcedon, and of course Pope
Leo's tome was read, and the matter of Monophysitism was was put to rest, you
know, and the council fathers erupt and say, "Peter has spoken through Leo, the
matter is at an end," it was the patriarch of Constantinople,
Kazik, who writes to the Bishop of Rome, begging him to approve not only Chalcedon,
but also Constantinople. Seventy years they had been waiting, and of course Pope
Leo famously ratifies both, allows Constantinople to be leapfrogged up to
the number two position. But the--see, Kazik, I mean, we could talk forever about this,
but the bottom line is, when when I first read this history and I read the
councils, I'm finding just this--the Bishop of Rome and his authority sticks
out like a sore thumb. And, you know, I've talked to Orthodox folks about this and
I did back then, and to me, Kazik, it is airtight. Now it is true, there was a big
blowup over the filioque, some in the East did not understand. I believe a lot
of it was semantics; in fact, some few Orthodox bishops, even today--in fact, in
my article I quote one of them who acknowledges that we're dealing with,
really in essence, semantics here. But the filioque really does not change in one
bit. It develops our understanding of the Trinity, but it does not contradict the
fact that the Father is the first principle of life in the Trinity. I mean
there were some in the East, Kazik, as you know, who were saying "Roman
Catholics' baptisms are invalid because they're saying there's more than one God,
because there's two principles, two, you know, first causes," and all of that is
mythical. A lot of that was because of poor communication between a Latin-speaking
West and a Greek-speaking East, and really that stuff has been cleared
up. We're not denying that the Father is the first principle of life in the
Trinity. We're simply saying--I like the way my friend Dave Armstrong explains it
so simply. I always use a communication between two
persons, but I like the way Dave Armstrong explains the filioque like
this: we're talking about--think of the Trinity as a game of catch, okay? The
Father is the first principle. He gets the ball, says, "Son, we're going to have a
game of catch." He throws the ball. He is the first principle of life in the
Trinity. But without the Son to catch the ball, you ain't got no game of catch. Okay?
The Holy Spirit IS the game of catch, that proceeds from the Father and the
Son. I love that. I've always used, you know, a dialogue between persons, and it
gets a little bit more fancy-schmancy, but I love Dave Armstrong's.
It's a real simple way to communicate the truth of the filioque. I hope that
helps, Kazik. Yeah, helps a lot. All right, I really appreciate your call my friend,
stay in touch because you'll find a lot of stuff on Catholic.com concerning
East-West relations. I personally have a great love for the Orthodox churches,
they are so close to us.