The last dogmatic conundrum: transmitting and innovating patristic theology on the Holy Spirit

The procession of the Spirit is the last (and ever-lasting) conundrum of the universal Church. Since there is not an ecumenical council that has ever decided on the origin of the Spirit, the Byzantine theologians tried for centuries to build a theology (a pneumatology), transmitting, changing, remodelling, collecting, innovating the patristic writings exactly as the Fathers had done before them for example with the Christological discussions. The chapter will cover the period between the 9th and the 13th century (more or less until the death of John Bekkos, 1297) and will explain how the Byzantine Theologians tried to resolve on the basis of their patristic knowledge the conundrum of the Filioque and how they renewed and enriched the Fathers' pneumatology adding their own original point of view.