Fr. Hopko saddens me. His heart seems to be in the right place, but his head seems to working over time to make up for it. Linus was the first bishop of Rome? Surely an Orthodox mind isn't so desperate for rationalizations for division that he's bought into the fundamentalist argument that Peter actually did go to the long abandonned ghost city of Babylon instead of Rome?
And then there's statements like this:
>> If Rome would say it was not there originally, that the way it was explained was not right, we now can agree on certain aspects – I think the Orthodox would have to say, “OK, let them keep it” rather than insist that every last church in Portugal drop the “filioque” before we can have unity. <<
I don't think Rome DOES say it was the Filioque was there originally; if it does it means the entire content of the argument that I've ever heard was 100% Orthodox-created straw man. But what does he mean that Rome would have to acknowledge it "isn't right," for the Orthodox to permit churches in Portugal to keep it? That churches in Portugal can profess it to be truth, as long as the Vatican professes it to be a lie?
And who in Rome ever said that the Eastern Orthodox would have to have unleavened bread, communion in one kind, a celibate clergy, or communion from a reserved sacrament? Other Catholic rites don't have these? Could the Orthodox priest possibly be that ignorant to not know that? Or does he make an issue out of the differing practices to suggest that Rome must become subordinate to Constantinople? "Last among equals," if you will.
He's saying that "Rome" would have to concede that the manner in which the Filioque was first explained to the East was not right. That is, that when we introduced it, we failed to accurately communicate to the East what we meant by it. That may even be true.