Anglicans and the double procession of the Holy Spirit.
by Martin Davie:
The traditional Anglican acceptance of the double procession
There can be no doubt that the Anglican tradition has historically affirmed what is known as the ‘double procession’ of the Holy Spirit. That it is to say, it has held that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only ‘from the Father,’ but ‘from the Father and the Son.’
The first Council of the English church, the Council of Hatfield held in 680, produced a confession of faith which affirmed the double procession. This confession declares:
‘…we glorify God the Father, who is without beginning, and His only-begotten Son, begotten of the Father before all worlds, and the Holy Spirit ineffably proceeding from the Father and the Son, as proclaimed by all the holy Apostles, prophets, and teachers whom we have already mentioned.’ [1]
The language of this confession of faith echoes the Western version of the Nicene Creed which declares that the Holy Spirit ‘proeedeth from the Father and the Son’ and it is this version of the Nicene Creed which the Church of England has traditionally used.
In addition, the Church of England has traditionally also used the Athanasian Creed, verse 23 of which declares that the Holy Spirit ‘is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.’ In this verse ‘of’ and ‘proceeding’ have the same meaning. What the Athanasian Creed is saying, in line with the Western version of the Nicene Creed, is that the Holy Spirit proceeds ‘of’ (i.e. from) both the Father and the Son.
At the Reformation, the Church of England continued to use the Western version of the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. It also re-affirmed its belief in the double procession in Article V of the Thirty Nine Articles, which talks about ‘The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son’ and in the Homily ‘Concerning the coming down of the Holy Ghost and the manifold gifts of the same’ in the Second Book of Homilies, which states that ‘The Holy Ghost is a spiritual and divine substance, distinct from the Father and the Son, and yet proceeding from them both.’[2]
When the churches of what was to become the Anglican Communion began to come into existence from the sixteenth century onwards as a result of a combination of colonisation and missionary endeavour they followed the lead of the Church of England by accepting the double procession of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Ireland and the Scottish Episcopal Church stand outside this historical pattern of colonisation and missionary endeavour, but as part of the Western Christian tradition they too have historically accepted the double procession.
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