The historical and theological dimensions of the filioque controversy

The deepest division within Christianity occurred nearly one thousand years ago between the Orthodox Churces of the East and the Catholic Church of the West. The schism of 1054 was the result of various factors including points in ecclesiology and liturgical practices coupled with the inevitable estrangement between the Latin and the Greek world Yet the critical difference between the Eastern and Western halves of Christiandom was in the area of dogma, specifically, the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In the great medieval attempt to reunite East and West, the Council of Florence, this was the major obstacle to union. Today, in the eyes of many Orthodox theologians the doctrine of the procession is still "the sole dogmatic grounds for the separation of East and West." 1