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The inclusion of the word in the Creed is a violation of the [[canons]] of the [[Third Ecumenical Council]] in 431, which forbade and [[anathema]]tized any additions to the Creed, a prohibition which was reiterated at the [[Eighth Ecumenical Council]] in 879-880.
The term itself has been interpreted in both an Orthodox fashion and a heterodox fashion. It may be read as saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through (''dia'') the Son. This was the position of St [[Maximus the Confessor]], among others. [citation needed] On this reading, the Son is not an eternal cause (''aition'') of the Spirit. The heterodox reading taught by some Roman Catholics sees the Son, along with the Father, as an eternal cause of the Spirit. Most in the [[Orthodox Church]] consider this latter reading to be a [[heresy]].
The description of the ''filioque'' as a heresy was iterated most clearly and definitively by the great [[Church Fathers|Father]] and [[Pillars of Orthodoxy|Pillar]] of the Church, St. [[Photius the Great]], in his ''On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit''. Some in the West held an orthodox interpretation, and some in the East held the heterodox. Photius, addressing the arguments themselves, decries the heretical [[Triadology]] which strikes at the very heart of what the Church believes about God.
It is useful to note that a regional council in Persia in 410 introduced one of the earliest forms of the ''filioque'' in the Creed; the council specified that the Spirit proceeds from the Father "and from the Son." Coming from the rich theology of early East Syrian Christianity, this expression in this context is authentically Eastern. Therefore, the ''filioque'' cannot be attacked as a solely Western innovation, nor as something created by the Pope.
In the West, St. [[Augustine of Hippo]] taught that the Spirit came from the Father ''and'' the Son, though subordinate to neither. His theology was dominant in the West until the Middle Ages. Other Latin fathers Fathers also spoke of the Spirit proceeding from both the Father and the Son. While familiar in the West, this way of speaking was virtually unknown in the Greek-speaking, Byzantine Empire.
Although the [[Second Ecumenical Council]] in 381 had expanded and completed the [[Nicene Creed]] begun at the [[First Ecumenical Council]], the [[Third Ecumenical Council]] (Ephesus, 431) had forbidden any further changes to the theology and/or wording of the Creed, except for by another [[Ecumenical Council]]. By this time, then, the text of the [[Nicene Creed]] had acquired a certain definitive authority, of ecumenical value and importance.
At the [[Council of Florence]] in 1439, Emperor [[John VIII Palaeologus]], Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople, and other bishops from the East travelled to northern Italy in hope of reconciliation with the West, mainly in order to solicit military assistance to fend off the encroaching Turkish invaders. After extensive discussion, in Ferrara, then in Florence, they acknowledged that some Latin Fathers spoke of the procession of the Spirit differently from the Greek Fathers. Since the general consensus of the Fathers was held to be reliable, as a witness to common faith, the Western usage was held not to be a heresy and not a barrier to restoration of full communion. All the Eastern patriarchs bishops present, but one, agreed and signed a decree of union between East and West, ''Laetentur Coeli'' in 1439. The one bishop who refused to sign and was later heralded as a Pillar of Orthodoxy by the Church was St. [[Mark of Ephesus]], who followed in the footsteps of the previous Pillar of Orthodoxy, St. [[Photius the Great]].
Officially and publicly, the Roman churches and the Orthodox Church churches were back in communion. However, the reconciliation achieved at Florence was soon destroyed, founded as it was on a compromise of faith. Numerous Orthodox faithful and bishops rejected the union, saying that the council's teachings were incorrect and therefore not ecumenical. Moreover, after the Turks [[Fall of Constantinople|conquered Constantinople in 1453]], they fostered separation from the West, which remained an adversary to Islamic political and military dominance. Furthermore, the patriarch, Gennadius, was also one of the bishops who had repudiated the reunion of Florence on his own initiative.
Undeniably, the ''filioque'' controversy was at least officially resolved, for both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians. However, because of the historical situation and because of the different ecclesiologies of the East and West, this resolution was neither fully received nor permanently sustained.