Position · 867

Procession from the Father Alone

The teaching that the Holy Spirit takes his eternal origin from the Father alone, who is the single source of the Son and the Spirit within the Trinity.

The creed of the Council of Constantinople (381) says the Spirit proceeds from the Father, with no addition. When the Western Filioque became an issue, Patriarch Photius of Constantinople argued in the 860s that the Father alone is the cause of the Spirit, and that a council-approved creed could not be altered unilaterally.

Eastern Orthodox theologians generally accept that the Spirit is sent into the world through the Son, but distinguish that mission from the Spirit’s eternal origin. The question remained a main point of division at and after the Great Schism.