Anticimenon: On the Unity of the Faith and the Controversies with the Greeks (Cistercian Studies) by Anselm Of Havelberg

Author:Anselm Of Havelberg [Havelberg, Anselm Of]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780879079611
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2010-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

On agreement on this question, and on removing this

obstacle between the two peoples through the authority of the Roman pontiff in a general council.

Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, answered: “Let us give thanks to the Holy Spirit, who has willed that we put an end to this question in brotherly peace and acknowledgment of agreement in the presence of many men who share our view. Nothing remains now but that you teach and write without reservation even as you believe, that the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son, and that you maintain this agreement concerning the faith with the holy Roman Church, mother of all the churches, which also teaches and writes this truth. For he who does not love the unity of the church does not love God. He who is opposed to that unity, according to the blessed Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, is surely a heretic.99 And whoever buttresses himself with presumption and obstinacy sins without the mitigation of ignorance, so the more gravely, when reason and authority overcome him.100 Your holiness and my humility require, since we are bishops, not only that we teach wisely what we know, but also that we patiently learn those things about which we may perhaps be ignorant.”

Nicetas, archbishop of Nicomedia, replied: “I embrace your humility, beloved brother, and I acknowledge with admiration your devotion to the truth of faith. I cannot but be moved when you speak. I assent to everything you have said and I affirm it with all my mind and body. But we cannot suddenly present these words, ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son,’ to be taught or written openly without scandal among the ordinary folk or to those less informed, since up to this point such words have not been heard openly in the Greek churches. We must rather celebrate a general council of the western and eastern churches by the authority of the holy Roman pontiff and with the approval of our devout emperors.101 At such a council these and several other essential matters concerning God might be set forth such that neither we nor you lack understanding. Thereafter all of us in the Christian east might, in unity with the holy Roman Church and with the other churches in the west, freely accept, preach, teach, and write that ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son’ with common will and equal agreement, without any scandal on our part. We might then introduce it in the public singing of the Eastern church.”

Anselm, bishop of Havelberg, then responded: “Would that I witness this, that I be found worthy to take part in so holy a council, where Peter as prince of apostles through his vicar, the Roman pontiff, might take his seat in the universal church entrusted to him by God and gathered together as one. There that Holy Spirit of whom we have treated might come down upon us all to teach the whole truth at that moment and forever to the end of the

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