When the East-West Schism happened in 1054, a big issue was that the Pope inserted “and the Son” into the creed. Today, we pray that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This is sometimes called the Filoque controversy from the Latin word for “And the Son.” A large part of this issue was slightly different connotations of the word we translate “proceed.” In Latin, “and the Son” made a whole lot more sense than in Greek.

A recent survey on this in Russia found that 69% now believe that “and the Son” is right. (Note: I don’t understand Russian. I originally used Google translate then slightly modified it at the suggestion of a redditor.)

In the course of the All-Russian study, Orthodox respondents were asked a question pertaining to the Orthodox understanding of the dogma of the Holy Trinity. Which of the statements do you think is right: “Does the Holy Spirit come from the Father and the Son” or “does the Holy Spirit come only from the Father”? From the Father and the Son [69%] Only from the Father [10%] None of these statements [3%] Difficult to answer [18%] We have been conducting studies of Orthodox religiosity in Russia for a number of years, and our working hypothesis was that most of the respondents would choose the option “I do not know”. But it turned out to be wrong: the respondents did not “find it difficult” when answering the question about Filioque. 69% of Orthodox Russians agreed with the statement that ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son.’ One is inclined to be silent for a minute to grasp this fact in its entirety.