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'''''Filioque''''' is a Latin word meaning "and the Son" which was added to the [[Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]] by the [[Church of Rome]] in the 11th century, one of the major factors leading to the [[Great Schism]] between East and West. This inclusion in the Creedal article regarding the [[Holy Spirit]] thus states that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father '''''and the Son'''''."
Its inclusion 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. This word was not included by the [[First Ecumenical Council|Council of Nicea]] nor of [[Second Ecumenical Council|Constantinople]]. The term itself has been interpreted in both an Orthodox fashion and a heterodox fashion. It may be read as saying that the Son Spirit proceeds from the Father through (''dia'') the Son. This was the position of St [[Maximus the Confessor]]. On this reading, the Son is not an eternal cause (''aition'') of the Spirit. The heterodox reading 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''. He describes it as a heresy of [[Triadology]], striking at the very heart of what the Church believes about God.