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The Holy Spirit

AT ITS meeting in Woking, England, in 2013, the Anglican–Oriental Orthodox
International Commission began its work on an agreed statement on the
theological understanding of the Holy Spirit. At its 2014 meeting at the St
Mark Centre in Cairo, Egypt, the Commission completed a preliminary
statement on the Holy Spirit. Part A on the procession of the Holy Spirit was
further amended and completed at its 2015 meeting at Gladstone's Library at
Hawarden, Wales.

Part A The procession of the Holy Spirit

1. We recognize that the original text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
of 381 does not include the clause referring to the procession of the Holy Spirit
as from the Father and the Son (Filioque), but only from the Father. We
acknowledge that the insertion of this clause was done unilaterally by the
Church in the Latin West, without the authority of an Ecumenical Council,
and inherited by the Anglican Tradition.
2. Though we understand the historical circumstances that led to the addition
of the Filioque, the Anglican Churches generally interpret this addition in the
sense of the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit, who is sent from the Father
through the Son and by the Son to the world.
3. We accept that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, based on the
Scriptures (Jn 15.26), is intended to imply the eternal procession of the Holy
Spirit. Therefore, the Oriental Orthodox Churches consider the addition of
Filioque to be an error since it breaks the order within the Trinity and puts into
question the Father’s role as source, cause, and principle of both the Son and
the Spirit. The Anglican Tradition, however, sees the Filioque clause as ‘an
interpolation, irregularly put in the text of the Creed and devoid of any
canonical authorization’. The Moscow Agreed Statement 1976 of the Anglican–
1
Orthodox Theological Dialogue and subsequent statements referred to the
inappropriateness of its insertion in the Creed: ‘The Filioque clause should not

1 H. M. Waddams (ed.), Anglo–Russian Theological Conference, Moscow, July 1956 (London: Faith Press,
1958), 93.

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