Note 25 — Chapter IX

In the course of the ninth century a very serious dispute raged between the Eastern and Western Church. The Greeks had often before protested against the pretensions of the Popes of Rome, and now they complained that the Latins had introduced the word “Filioque,” meaning “and the Son,” into the article of the Creed respecting the procession of the Holy Ghost. The Nicene Creed, as drawn up in the original Greek, contains only these words, “proceeding from the Father.” The Latin Church added “and the Son,” without the authority of a General Council. And though the contest seems to have been about words, rather than any difference of doctrine, at last, after a dispute of many years, it ended in the schism between the Church of Constantinople and the Church of Rome—between the East and the West—which has never been healed.