THE CONFERENCE AT BONN.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPROTATOILI
SIR,—There is one :pse in "R. J. W.'s" letter in your last im- pression which, if left to stand alone, is not unlikply to mislead your readers. It is no doubt quite true that the principal theologians, both Greek and Latin, have agreed that there is no difference " as to doctrine in the matter of the Double Procession, but only as to .expression," and this was admitted on all hands at the Council of Florence. But the Greek and Russian members of the Bonn Con- ferenee were so far from accepting this view of the matter, that they, one and all, strenuously 'maintained the contrary. They argued from first to last that the question involved in the Filioque is a strictly doctrinal one ; that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father •alone, and in no sense whatever from the Son, except by way of temporal mission, which is of course a direct contravention of the Latin doctrine; and they expressly refused to accept the Latin explanation that He proceeds from the. Father and the Son tan quani ab Uno Rrincipio. The Arch-priest ,Jong- schen, who throughout. took the lead among his co-religionists, repeatedly called the Latin doctrine a heresy. And through their adroit manipulation, the stammering formula ultimately agreed upon bears unmistakable traces of this view. It was indeed im- possible not to be struck with the unflagging persistency and acuteness of these Eastern divines, who in everything that con- cerned the peculiarities of their own Church showed themselves at once as stiff as pokers and as sharp as needles. What grounds "R. J. W." may have for saying that 'the -statements agreed on are confessedly not articles of faith to be permanently retained, but only articles of agreement drawn up with a view to further deliberation,' he does not tell us, but I :sincerely hope:he is right. No such announcement, however, was made at the Conference (for a rambling.manifesto read by Bishop Kerfoot at the close convinced nobody but himself); nor did any one seem to know what was to be done with these same articles, though a sort of impression prevailed—which may or may not have been correct—that they were meant to be submitted to the 'Old-Catholic Synod. Considering the vagueness of some, the worse than vagueness of others, and the questionable English of most of them—I don't know who is responsible for the translation —they are certainly ill adapted to be 'retained as articles of faith.'
P.S.—Let me add, Sir, that I fully agree with you as to the 4' pathetic " incongruity of a Conference which• could only " agree to differ" about the Procession of the Holy Ghost, refusing to tolerate any difference at all about the sinful conception of the Blessed Mother of God. And considering that authorised Eastern liturgies and rituals literally bristle with expressions about her which would make the hair of many Roman Catholics, to say nothing of Protestants, stand on end, and which find no parallel in any Latin office-books—a string of examples is given in the appendix to Dr. Newman's letter on the " Eirenicon "—it is alittle odd to see Eastern divines electing to pose in the Protestant attitude of virtuous opponents of "Mariolatry " and the Immacu-
late Conception !
Previous page
