Pope Leo’s Olive Branch to Estranged Churches

Pope Leo xiv made a historic concession when he joined Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Protestant leaders in Iznik, Turkey, on November 28.

• The meeting commemorated the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council, the momentous meeting in A.D. 325 that established governmental involvement in Christian doctrine and changed the Western world forever.

In a landmark development, the heads of 27 churches recited the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in English. They did not include the “Filioque clause” added by the Roman Catholic Church in 1014. This seemingly small linguistic change could herald the beginning of a major religious revolution.

• It took two councils—the First Council of Nicaea (a.d. 325) and the First Council of Constantinople (a.d. 381)—for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches to agree that they believed “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. In one holy, Catholic and apostolic church.”
• Yet centuries later, Pope Benedict viii added the Filioque clause to the creed, a Latin phrase meaning “and the Son.” This addition was meant to emphasize the Roman Catholic belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds jointly from the Father and the Son, rather than from the Father alone.
• The Eastern Orthodox rejected this addition, and it was a major contributing factor to the Great Schism of 1054.

The fact that the current leader of the Catholic Church is willing to recite the creed without this clause is a major olive branch to the Eastern Orthodox churches.

• In a letter published just before he visited Turkey, Pope Leo wrote, “Truly, what unites us is much greater than what divides us!” It appears that he does not want to focus on the “Filioque clause” but rather on the original Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
• While in Turkey, Leo warned about the resurgence of old heresies, saying, “There is a new Arianism” in today’s culture where people admire Jesus merely on a human level. He also doubled down on the Vatican’s insistence on a two-state solution in Israel.

The pope knows that the Catholic Church cannot be a major political player as long as it remains divided, so he is glossing over doctrinal differences, such as the “Filioque clause,” to bring Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants together under Rome’s overall authority.

A prophecy in Isaiah 47 speaks of a “daughter of Babylon” who says, “I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children” (verse 8). As the late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote, this passage describes a church that has protesting daughter churches. This church wants to bring these daughter churches back under its authority. To do this, the church revives its illicit relationship with the emperor of a revived Roman Empire.

Ultimately, the pope won’t be able to unify Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants until he finds a new Emperor Constantine to enforce his decisions. But in the meantime, he is pushing to bring together all trinitarians into a politically powerful church that can stamp out the “old heresies.”