What it is about is that the eastern orthodox have in their creed that the holy spirit proceeds from the father only, whereas the western church includes in the apostles' creed that the holy spirit "proceeds from the father and the son". I don't pretend to understand what the fuss is about, but it seems to have caused a huge argument in the past and part of why the two split apart in 1054 CE.
In Orthodoxy, they believe that when saying the creed, it should only mention the Holy Spirit Proceeding From the Father, whereas in Catholicism, we mention that He Proceeds from the Son too.
I dint understand it either. If they're really all one God since God is a trinity. What does it really matter what person of God another person of God proceeds from if its really just one God.
The significance is that the foliage changes our understanding of the nature of the Holy Trinity.
Instead of three co-equal persons, the foliage has the effect (unintended I'm sure) of diminishing the person of the Holy Spirit.
The Gospels are fairly clear on this point as well:
John 15:26
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me:
i.e. There is not mention of proceeding from the Son also.
From the other perspective, ALL of the ancient Churches (Antioch, Rome, Constantinople, Ephesus, etc.) participated in the writing of the Creed during the 1st and 2ND Ecumenical Councils of Nicea and Constantinople. And at each subsequent council (there were seven in all) they all affirmed that the Creed was good and not to be changed.
When just one branch (Rome) under the influence of a political entity (Charlemagne if I am not mistaken) changed the creed for political expediency and without due agreement with the other ancient Churches... it changed the nature of the universal Church from conciliar (with the Bishop of Rome as "first amongst equals") to one Bishop (Rome) attempting to make decisions for all of the others.
At the time there was a strong resentment against the popes by Eastern Christians. There was a General Counsel of the Church called by the pope (a meeting of all the bishops of the world in union with the bishop of Rome.). There was a great debate whether certain words should be included in the Creed. Including the words meant that something was to be expressed in a very specific definitive way. Excluding the words meant that the definition was less specific. The General Counsel overwhelming voted for the specific definition. That does not mean that the general definition was wrong, but that by the rules of faith that the Holy Spirit was guiding the Christian community to follow the dictates of the General Counsel. Under the rules of the Church Cannons the members of the Church are not bound by the findings of the Counsel until the Pope promulgates the findings. The pope at that time decided not to promulgate the wording used by the General Counsel in order to assert the pope's authority. Orthodox Christians followed the lead of the Counsel, and the others followed the lead of the pope. What the pope did here was very imprudent. Although he may have been technically correct, the world Christianity was probably not ready for an assertion of Papal authority.
It was more style over content. The real difference was political, the Pope claimed superiority over all the church patriarchs while the Patriarch of Constantinople claimed equal seniority.
The last Emperor of Constantinople tried to negotiate away the differences over the foliage in an attempt at union between the 2 churches and aid against the Turks. Too little, too late unfortunately.
It was just a disagreement in ideology concerning the creed. The Church in Rome wanted the creed to say the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. What is now the Eastern Orthodox Church didn't particularly like the creed being changed, and they wanted it to remain "who proceeds from the Father". It wasn't a real big deal at first, but Photius made it such in 864, affirming that it was contrary to the teaching of the Fathers.
You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque_clause
If there is any significance at all it is the question of weather the Catholic Nicene Creed sought to Equate Christ with God for some political gain, as I said earlier these two churches do not view the Canon with the same state of mind, it is Questionable if they serve the same God, and the Catholic assertion that Jesus is God in the Flesh or worse yet separate but equal to God is regarded by some as Heresy. The Latin transliteration of the original Greek text has altered some meaning by virtue of linguistic values alone, but the complete addition of ideas or formula from later perspective is common place in Catholicism but not present at all consciously in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This idea is the source of constant fighting by people that have no idea where the quibble even started, I have met people with a 90 IQ that are ready to get violent based on their view of what exactly trinity is, One really has to resort to Kabala and God as The Ain Soph Aur to begin understanding why these viewpoints conflict. The Name YHVH or Yod He' Vau' He' correspond to the Elemantal Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, Where Christ is actually a product of a Trinity that preceded him, Where Yod is the Ain, the first He' is the Soph and the Vau is the Aur, the 2nd He' is the Christ. In ancient Egypt we see this same pattern in Kepher the Creator thought to be Ptah or an earlier manifestation of Methris of Syria. It says
Neb djer djedef, Kheperee Kheher Kheperoo, Kheper kooie em Kheper oo en Khepree, Kheper en sep tepi, Kheper kooie em kheperoo em khepree Kheper oo,Kheper kheper oo po. En pea en ee yoo oea oot yoo it en ee, Pea en ee em pea oot yoo. Pea eren ee yoo essen it ee pea oot pea oot yoo.
Translated it says in English
( The Master of the Universe declears, When I manifested myself into existence, existence existed. I came into existence in the form of the Existent, which came into existence in the first time.Coming into existence according to the mode of existence of the Existant. I therefore Existed, I was anterior to the Two Anteriors that I made, For I had priority over the two anteriors that I made,for my name was anterior to theirs, for I made them thus anterior, the two Anteriors.
It is a rendttion of using similiar words in all three tenses, the vowells are added so it can be pronounced, while the meaning is clear the original pronuncian is lost.
This depicts the oldest known form of a triune God head and can be established to 3800 Bce, but is thought to predate even this antiquity.
Where the New testament never has Jesus as Saying he is part of the Trinity, and the Sophia, or Soph, in this case is Mary, formerly Isis, Kali, Athenia, Many other forms is not held with any regard.
These Ideas are ancient and unknown to many that argue about the subject of Christs equality with God, but they none the less are present and the general idea is that God is either 1 or He is 3 butit has yet to be said that he was 4, so then comes the argument that the Aur manifested itself and remains seperate from the Ain who is unreachable, and alternates with the Soph or Holy Spirit who was sent on the day of Penticost to fill the Place of the Aur Jesus Christ who was flesh and part of the Godhead but not God Ain who is Seperate from the other 2.
It is a very hard puzzle, and it is not easy to say if those that fight over the answer even really understand the question.
Filioque, Latin for "and (from) the Son", was added in Western Christianity to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This insertion emphasizes that Jesus, the Son, is of equal divinity with God, the Father.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, ET wavefront: quid ex Patre Filioque proceeded.
(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.)
The doctrine expressed by this phrase, as inserted into the Creed, is accepted by the Catholic Church, by Anglicanism and by Protestant churches in general. Christians of these groups generally include it when reciting the Nicene Creed. Nonetheless, these groups recognize that Filioque is not part of the original text established at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and they do not demand that others too should use it when saying the Creed. Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church does not add the phrase corresponding to Filioque (??? ??? ????) to the Greek text of the Creed, even in the liturgy for Latin Rite Catholics. Pope John Paul II recited the Nicene Creed several times with patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greek according to the original text.
While the Eastern Orthodox Church has never formally declared the "Filioque" phrase to be heretical, some of its saints have so qualified it as, including Photios I of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, Gregory Palamas, who have been called the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy.
The Filioque became a point of contention between the Eastern and Western Churches in 867, when Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople declared it heretical. The controversy over the phrase contributed to the East-West Schism of 1054 and, despite agreements among participants at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439), reunion has not been achieved. A Greek Orthodox theologian has pointed to the 1054 schism as the most striking example of how practice, rather than theological differences, causes schisms: "The local Churches coexisted for centuries with the 'Filioque' before Church events brought the problem to a head in the period of Photios the Great, but there was no schism, and in the 1054 period the 'Filioque' was dormant. It came back and was intensified after this to justify it and make it fixed."
What is the significance of the "filioque controversy" between the Roman Catholic and
