The bloom starts in the seed

If Photios is correct and the Filioque is as serious a matter as he claims, then what can we say about Western society, which is historically based on the theology which produced the Filioque?
Philip Zymaris

Apropos to the feast of St. Photius the Great

…you, who bring forth the fathers as being pridefully against the dogmas of the Master, recall the violence of the ecumenical councils which proclaimed godly doctrine throughout the whole world, are you neither troubled nor humbled by the threat? You make these your fathers without living the life in yourselves; you neither reverence the incorporeal nature, not hold the common devotion to the Master. This allows no occasion of appeal, because the earthly is included in the same anathema. You call Ambrose, Augustine and other good men your fathers. But does this make it any more tolerable, since you suppose them to be armed against the Master’s teacher, to draw the condemnation on yourselves and also on these men? For you certainly assign your own evil reward to the fathers. But it is only the offspring of this novelty which is evil. Your anathema will not pass through you into those blessed men, because not one of your godless and senseless sophism will be found with them. You presume that they partake in your ungodliness. With bright works, however, and with their whole voice they cry against the anathema which you would bring upon them.

But I do not affirm that all the things that you assert are taught by those blessed men. Even so, if any among them has fallen into something unseemly – for they were all men and human, and no one composed of dust and ephemeral nature can avoid some step of defilement – then I would imitate the sons of Noah. I would cover up the shame of my father with silence and gratitude, instead of garments. I would not have followed Ham as you do. Indeed, you follow him with even more shamelessness and impudence that he himself, because you expose the shame of those whom you call your fathers. Ham is cursed: not because he uncovered, but because he did not cover, his father. You, however expose your fathers and glory in your vanity. Ham exposes the secret to his brothers; you tell yours not to one or two brothers, but in your rash and reckless abandon, proclaim it to the whole world, as if it were your theater. You behave lewdly toward the shame of their nakedness and with luxury toward their dishonor, violently pursuing them, and rejoicing when you expose their nakedness to the light!
St. Photius the Great

The Western hammer

Therefore, on account of this new expression (filioque), which is only your own opinion, you have charged the Savior which three calumnies: you have said what He did not say, made Him say what He did not say, and taught an idea that does not even follow from His words, but which, on the contrary, His teaching denies; and fourthly, you introduce dogmas in rivalry with Him. What shall we take first? On the one hand, He Himself said, ‘He will receive from that which is mine’ but not ‘from me’; then, on the other hand, you rely on Him to teach the very thing that the phrase ‘from me’ means, implying that He indeed taught it. So, on the one hand, as you indeed prescribe, you murder the persons by hammering them together – indeed, something which He never affirmed. He taught the disciples by means of His words, declaring His mind, which is not at all knowable through the immaculate dialectic of processions. And He taught us that the concrete, personal procession of the Spirit is from the Father, so that if, as you say, the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the first Person, at least make your theology applicable to all the persons, so as not to slight the Lord. But the Lord Himself did just this by means of the second phrase. He who finds in the grace of theology nothing reliable or consistent will soon discover that grace is insane.

St. Photios