Difference between revisions of "Great Schism"

From OrthodoxWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(Undo revision 78120 by ASDamick (Talk))
m (link)
 
(71 intermediate revisions by 11 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
−
{{incomplete}}
+
:''This article concerns the [[schism]] between what is now called Catholicism and Orthodoxy.  For the schism between Rome and Avignon, see the Wikipedia article, '[[w:Western Schism|Western Schism]]'.''
  
−
The '''Great Schism''' is the historic sundering of Eucharistic relations between the [[Church of Rome|See of Rome]] (now the [[Roman Catholic Church]]) and the other Christian patriarchates.  This division is the subject of many talks between Western and Eastern Christians.
+
{{cleanup}}
 +
 
 +
==Introduction==
 +
 
 +
The '''East-West Schism''', or the '''Great Schism''', is the historic sundering of eucharistic relations between the [[Church of Rome|See of Rome]] (now the [[Roman Catholic Church]]) and the sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem (now the Orthodox Church). It divided medieval Mediterranean Christendom into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]] and the [[Roman Catholic Church]], respectively. Relations between East and West had long been embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes.<ref name="Cross">Cross, F. L., ed. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church''. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, s.v. "Great Schism"</ref> Pope [[Leo IX]] and [[Patriarch of Constantinople]] [[Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople|Michael Cerularius]] heightened the conflict by suppressing Greek and Latin in their respective domains. In 1054, Roman legates traveled to Cerularius to deny him the title [[Ecumenical Patriarch]] and to insist that he recognize the Church of Rome's claim to be the head and mother of the churches.<ref name="Cross"/> Cerularius refused. The leader of the Latin contingent [[Excommunication|excommunicated]] Cerularius, while Cerularius in return excommunicated the legates.<ref name="Cross"/>
 +
 
 +
The Western legate's acts are of doubtful validity because Leo had died, while Cerularius's excommunication applied only to the legates personally.<ref name="Cross"/> Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. Western cruelty during the Crusades, the capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the imposition of Latin Patriarchs made reconciliation more difficult.<ref name="Cross"/>This included the taking of many precious religious artifacts and the destruction of the Library of Constantinople. On paper, the two churches actually reunited in 1274 (by the [[Councils of Lyons|Second Council of Lyon]]) and in 1439 (by the [[Council of Florence]]), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, on the grounds that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to reunification. In 1484, 31 years after the [[Fall of Constantinople]] to the [[Ottoman empire|Ottoman Turks]], a Synod of Constantinople repudiated the [[Eastern_Catholic_Churches#Historical_background|Union of Florence]], making the breach between the Patriarchate of the West and the Patriarchate of Constantinople final.<ref name="Cross"/> In 1965, the Pope of Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople nullified the anathemas of 1054.<ref name="Cross"/> Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies are ongoing.
 +
 
 +
A [[schism]] is a break in the Church's authority structure and communion and is different from a [[heresy]], which means false doctrine. Church authorities have long recognized that even if their minister is in schism, the sacraments, except the power to ordain, are valid. There have been many other schisms, from the second century until today, but none as significant as the one between East and West.
 +
 
 +
== Dating the schism ==
 +
 
 +
The Great Schism was a gradual estrangement to which no specific date can be assigned, although it has been conventionally dated to the year 1054.  This date is misleading since it seems to imply that there was peace and unity before 1054, animosity and division afterward. 
 +
 
 +
The schism actually took centuries to crystalize. Some place the split in the time of Saint [[Photios the Great|Photios]], for example &mdash; or even earlier &mdash; or 1204, with the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, or even 1453, the fall of Constantinople, when the Latins gave no help to prevent it.
  
 
== Terminology ==
 
== Terminology ==
−
In Western circles, the term ''Great Schism'' is often used to refer to the 14th century schism involving the Avignon [[Papacy]] (an event also sometimes called the "Western Schism" or "Papal Schism" or "Babylonian Captivity").
+
 
 +
In Western circles, the term ''Great Schism'' is often used to refer to the fourteenth century schism involving the Avignon [[Papacy]] (an event also sometimes called the 'Western Schism', 'Papal Schism' or 'Babylonian Captivity').
  
 
To distinguish from that event, some historians prefer the term ''Great Ecumenical Schism'' to explain succinctly what happened and to capture the complexity of the event itself.  
 
To distinguish from that event, some historians prefer the term ''Great Ecumenical Schism'' to explain succinctly what happened and to capture the complexity of the event itself.  
  
−
Other more recent historians prefer the term "East West Schism", because 'Ecumenical' properly means of Constantinople or of the Eastern Roman Empire. The schism involved more than just Constantinople, or the Byzantine Empire. It included both East and West, and was between East and West.
+
Other more recent historians prefer the term ''East-West Schism'', because 'Ecumenical' properly means of Constantinople or of the Eastern Roman Empire. The schism involved more than just Constantinople, or the Byzantine Empire. It included both East and West Mediterranean, and was between East and West Mediterranean.
  
−
== Doctrinal issues: the ''Filioque'' ==
+
==Origins==
−
: ''Main article: [[Filioque]]''
 
  
−
While there were many other factors at work in the split, the conventional view has been that the central cause of the separation was [[dogma]]tic.  It is asserted by many Orthodox that as soon as Rome endorsed the idea of the [[Filioque]], there was a split between the true faith and a schismatic faith.  Further, as long as Rome continues to make this its official [[dogma]], there is still a schism.
+
Leading to the Great Schism, Eastern and Western Mediterranean Christians had a history of differences and disagreements dating back to the second century.
  
−
''Filioque'' is a word that changes the Latin version of [[Nicene Creed]] to include the wording ''[Spiritus Sanctus] qui ex Patre '''Filioque''' procedit'' or "[Holy Spirit] who proceeds from the Father '''and the Son'''." 
+
===Rise of Rome===
  
−
The first appearance of this insertion into the Creed happened in Toledo, Spain, where Latin theologians were trying to refute a brand of the [[Arianism|Arian]] [[heresy]]. Those theologians had better access to the writings of Latin theologians, particularly of St. [[Augustine of Hippo]], than to Greek theologians. Augustine used the teaching from [[Gospel of John|John]] 16:7 to emphasize that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that neither is subordinate to the other.
+
John Binns writes that, after the fall and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the natural leading centres of the Church were Antioch and Alexandria. Alexandria had been assisted by Mark <ref>John Binns, ''An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p144</ref>, one of the [[Seventy Apostles]]. Antioch had attracted Peter and Paul and Barnabas, plus others of the Seventy. Antioch was the base from which Paul made his missionary journeys to the pagans. <ref>Acts 11:19-26, Acts 12:24-25, Acts 13:1-3, Acts 14:24-28, Acts 15:1-2, Acts 15:22-40,  Acts 18:22-23, Acts 19:21-22, Gal 2:11-14</ref>. The [[Church of Antioch]] sent the apostles Peter and Paul to Rome to assist the fledgling church there in its growth, and because Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire. Antioch regarded Peter as its first bishop <ref>John Binns, ''An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p144</ref>.
 +
 
 +
Will Durant writes that, after Jerusalem, the church of Rome naturally became the primary church, the capital of Christianity.<ref name="CC">Durant, Will. ''Caesar and Christ''. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972</ref> Rome had an early and significant Christian population.<ref name="CC"/> It was closely identified with the [[Apostle Paul|Paul of Tarsus]], who preached and was [[martyr]]ed there, and the [[Apostle Peter]], who was a martyr there as well. The Eastern Orthodox liturgy calls Peter and Paul "the wisest Apostles and their princes" and "the radiant ornaments of Rome".<ref>[http://www.anastasis.org.uk/29_june.htm Great Vespers of 29 June]</ref><ref>[http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/menaia.htm#_Toc102863625 Menaion, 29 June]</ref> Peter is seen as founder of the Church in Rome,<ref>[http://www.pittsburgh.goarch.org/illuminator/illum-2004-dec.pdf The Illuminator, The Newspaper of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh, Oct.-Dec. 2004, p.7]</ref> and the bishops of Rome as his successors.<ref>[http://www.orthodox.net/saints/70apostles.html "Linus was bishop of Rome after the holy apostle Peter"]</ref><ref>Pope [[Benedict XVI]] is "the 265th successor of the St Peter" ([http://www.archons.org/pdf/2007/2007_Annual_Archon_Report.pdf Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, 2007 Annual Report to His All Holiness Bartholomew]</ref> While the Eastern cities of Alexandria and Antioch produced theological works, the bishops of Rome focused on what Romans admittedly did best: administration.<ref name="CC"/>
 +
 
 +
Leading Orthodox theologian, Father [[Thomas Hopko]] has written: "The church of Rome held a special place of honor among the earliest Christian churches. It was first among the communities that recognized each other as catholic churches holding the orthodox faith concerning God's Gospel in Jesus. According to St Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch who died a martyr's death in Rome around the year 110, 'the church which presides in the territories of the Romans' was 'a church worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of felicitation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and presiding in love, maintaining the law of Christ, bearer of the Father's name.' The Roman church held this place of honor and exercised a 'presidency in love' among the first Christian churches for two reasons. It was founded on the teaching and blood of the foremost Christian apostles Peter and Paul. And it was the church of the capital city of the Roman empire that then constituted the 'civilized world (oikoumene)'."<ref>[http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/HopkoPope.php Roman Presidency and Christian Unity in our Time]</ref>
  
−
So the Creed was changed by the local [[synod]] of [[bishop]]s at Toledo with the justification that it asserts the divinity of Christ (refuting Arianism), and asserts the unity of the [[Holy Trinity|Trinity]] and the equality of each [[hypostasis]] of the Trinity.
+
Saint Thomas went east, and was said to be instrumental in establishing the Church in the Persian Empire and satellite kingdoms, although Addai and Mari, two of the Seventy Apostles were credited with most of the work of establishment in Persia itself.  The [[Persian Church]] was larger than the Mediterranean Church for some centuries, especially in the sixth to eighth centuries with its highly successful movement into India, Mongolia, China, Tibet, [Korea, and Japan <ref>John Binns, ''An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, esp pp 28-29</ref>.  
  
−
== Ecclesiological issues: The Papacy ==
+
In the fourth century when the Roman emperors were trying to control the Church, theological questions were running rampant throughout the Roman Empire<ref>John Binns, ''An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, pp 162-164</ref>.  The influence of Greek speculative thought on Christian thinking led to all sorts of divergent and conflicting opinions <ref>John Binns, ''An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches'', Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p68</ref>.  Christ's commandment to love others as He loved, seemed to have been lost in the intellectual abstractions of the time. Theology was also used as a weapon against opponent bishops, since being branded a heretic was the only sure way for a bishop to be removed by other bishops.  Incompetence was not sufficient grounds for removal.
−
Additionally offensive to the Orthodox was that the Creed was changed without agreement of the whole Christian Church. The Creed had been agreed upon at an [[Ecumenical Council]] and revised at another, bearing universal authority within the Church.
 
  
−
For the Pope of Rome to change the Creed unilaterally without reference to an Ecumenical Council was highly offensive to the other four patriarchates and to all the Eastern bishops, as it undermined the collegiality of the episcopacy.
+
In the early church up until the ecumenical councils, Rome was regarded as an important centre of Christianity, especially since it was the capital of the Roman Empire. The eastern and southern Mediterranean bishops generally recognized a persuasive leadership and authority of the Bishop of Rome, because the teaching of the bishop of Rome was almost invariably correct. But the Mediterrtanean Church did not regard the Bishop of Rome as any sort of infallible source, nor did they acknowledge any juridical authority of Rome.
−
It demeaned all the other bishops.
 
  
−
<!--- == Other doctrinal issues ==
+
After the sole emperor of all the Roman Empire [[Constantine the Great]] built the new imperial capital on the Bosphorous, the centre of gravity in the empire was fully recognised to have completely shifted to the eastern Mediterranean.  Rome lost the senate to Byzantium and lost its status and gravitas as imperial capital. 
  
−
== Extra-ecclesial factors == --->
+
The patriarchs of [[Constantinople]] often tried to adopt an imperious position over the other patriarchs. In the case of [[Nestorius]], whose actual teaching is now recognised to be not overtly heretical, although it is clearly deficient, (Saint Cyril called it 'slippery'), <ref>John McGuckin, ''Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy'', SVS Press, NY, 2004, p173</ref>, other patriarchs were able to make the charge of heresy stick and successfully had him deposed. This was probably more because his [[christology]] was delivered with a heavy sarcastic arrogance which matched his high-handed personality <ref>John McGuckin, ''Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy'', SVS Press, NY, 2004, p173</ref>.
  
−
== Dating the schism ==
+
The opinion of the Bishop of Rome was often sought, especially when the patriarchs of the Eastern Mediterranean were locked in fractious dispute.  The bishops of Rome never obviously belonged to either the Antiochian or the Alexandrian schools of theology, and usually managed to steer a middle course between whatever extremes were being propounded by theologians of either school. Because Rome was remote from the centres of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean, it was frequently hoped its bishop would be more impartial. For instance, in 431, Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, appealed to Pope [[Celestine I]], as well as the other patriarchs, charging Nestorius with heresy, which was dealt with at the [[Third Ecumenical Council|Council of Ephesus]].  
−
The Great Schism was a gradual estrangement to which no specific date can be assigned although it has been conventionally dated to the year 1054. This date is misleading since it seems to imply that there was peace and unity before 1054,  animosity and division afterward.
 
  
−
The schism actually took centuries to crystalize.  Some place the split in the time of Saint Photios, for example&mdash;or even earlier&mdash;or 1204, with the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, or even 1453, the fall of Constantinople, when the Latins gave no help to prevent it.
+
The opinion of the bishop of Rome was always canvassed, and was often longed for. However, the Bishop of Rome's opinion was by no means automatically right. For instance, the [[Tome of Leo]] of Rome was highly regarded, and formed the basis for the ecumenical council's formulation. But it was not universally accepted and was even called "impious" and "blasphemous" by some.<ref>[http://www.archive.org/download/p2selectletterss02seveuoft/p2selectletterss02seveuoft.pdf The Sixth Book of the Select Letters of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, vol. II, p. 254]</ref> The next ecumenical council corrected a possible imbalance in Pope Leo's presentation. Although the Bishop of Rome was well-respected even at this early date, the concept of [[papal infallibility]] was developed much later.
  
 +
Following the Sack of Rome by invading European Goths, Rome slid into the Dark Ages which afflicted most parts of Western Europe, and became increasingly isolated and irrelevant to the wider Mediterranean Church. This was a situation which suited and pleased a lot of the Eastern Mediterranean patriarchs and bishops <ref>Aristeides Papadakis The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, SVS Press, NY, 1994 esp p14</ref>.
  
−
== An In Depth Account of the Great Schism ==
+
It was not until the rise of [[Charlemagne]] and his successors that the Church of Rome arose out of obscurity on the back of the military successes of the western Mediterranean adventurers.
−
One summer afternoon in the year 1054, as a service was about to begin in the Church of the Holy Wisdom' (Hagia Sophia) at Constantinople, Cardinal Humbert and two other legates of the Pope entered the building and made their way up to the sanctuary. They had not come to pray. They placed a Bull of Excommunication upon the altar and marched out once more. As he passed through the western door, the Cardinal shook the dust from his feet with the words: 'Let God look and judge.' A deacon ran out after him in great distress and begged him to take back the Bull. Humbert refused; and it was dropped in the street.
 
  
−
It is this incident which has conventionally been taken to mark the beginning of the great schism between the Orthodox east and the Latin west. But the schism, as historians now generally recognize, is not really an event whose beginning can be exactly dated. It was something that came about gradually, as the result of a long and complicated process, starting well before the eleventh century and not completed until some time after.
+
===New Rome===
  
−
In this long and complicated process, many different influences were at work. The schism was conditioned by cultural, political, and economic factors; yet its fundamental cause was not secular but theological. In the last resort it was over matters of doctrine that east and west quarrelled - two matters in particular: the Papal claims and the Filioque. But before we look more closely at these two major differences, and before we consider the actual course of the schism, something must be said about the wider background. Long before there was an open and formal schism between east and west, the two sides had become strangers to one another; and in attempting to understand how and why the communion of Christendom was broken, we must start with this fact of increasing estrangement.
+
When the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great embraced Christianity, he summoned the [[First Ecumenical Council]] at [[Nicea]] in 325 to resolve a number of issues which troubled the Church. The bishops at the council confirmed the position of the metropolitan [[see]]s of Rome and Alexandria as having authority outside their own province, and also the existing privileges of the churches in Antioch and the other provinces.<ref>"Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges" (First Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.vii.vi.viii.html Canon VI]).</ref> These sees were later called [[Patriarchate]]s and were given an order of precedence: Rome, as capital of the empire was naturally given first place, then came Alexandria and Antioch. In a separate canon the Council also approved the special honor given to Jerusalem over other sees subject to the same metropolitan.<ref>"Since custom and ancient tradition have prevailed that the Bishop of Ælia [i.e., Jerusalem] should be honored, let him, saving its due dignity to the Metropolis, have the next place of honor" (First Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.vii.vi.x.html Canon VII]</ref>
  
−
When Paul and the other Apostles travelled around the Mediterranean world, they moved within a closely knit political and cultural unity: the Roman Empire. This Empire embraced many different national groups, often with languages and dialects of their own. But all these groups were governed by the same Emperor; there was a broad Greco-Roman civilization in which educated people throughout the Empire shared; either Greek or Latin was understood almost everywhere in the Empire, and many could speak both languages. These facts greatly assisted the early Church in its missionary work.
+
===Five patriarchs===
  
−
But in the centuries that followed, the unity of the Mediterranean world gradually disappeared. The political unity was the first to go. From the end of the third century the Empire, while still theoretically one, was usually divided into two parts, an eastern and a western, each under its own Emperor. Constantine furthered this process of separation by founding a second imperial capital in the east, alongside Old Rome in Italy. Then came the barbarian invasions at the start of the fifth century: apart from Italy, much of which remained within the Empire for some time longer, the west was carved up among barbarian chiefs. The Byzantines never forgot the ideals of Rome under Augustus and Trajan, and still regarded their Empire as in theory universal; but Justinian was the last Emperor who seriously attempted to bridge the gulf between theory and fact, and his conquests in the west were soon abandoned. The political unity of the Greek east and the Latin west was destroyed by the barbarian invasions, and never permanently restored.
+
Soon, Constantine erected a new capital at [[Byzantium]], a strategically-placed city on the Bosporus. He renamed his new capital ''Nova Roma'' ("New Rome"), but the city would become known as [[Constantinople]]. The [[Second Ecumenical Council]], held at the new capital in 381, now elevated the see of Constantinople itself, to a position ahead of the other chief metropolitan sees, except that of Rome.<ref>"The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome" (Second Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.viii.iv.html Canon III])</ref> Mentioning in particular the provinces of Asia, Pontus and Thrace, it decreed that the synod of each province should manage the ecclesiastical affairs of that province alone, except for the privileges already recognized for Alexandria and Antioch.<ref>"Let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone, the privileges of the Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nice, being preserved; and let the bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the Asian affairs only; and the Pontic bishops only Pontic matters; and the Thracian bishops only Thracian affairs" (Second Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.viii.iii.html Canon II])</ref>
  
−
During the late sixth and the seventh centuries, east and west were further isolated from each other by the Avar and Slav invasions of the Balkan peninsula; lllyricum, which used to serve as a bridge, became in this way a barrier between Byzantium and the Latin world. The severance was carried a stage further by the rise of Islam: the Mediterranean, which the Romans once called mare nostrum, 'our sea', now passed largely into Arab control. Cultural and economic contacts between the eastern and western Mediterranean never entirely ceased, but they became far more difficult.
+
The [[Fourth Ecumenical Council]] at [[Chalcedon]] in 451, confirming the authority already held by Constantinople, granted its archbishop jurisdiction over the three provinces mentioned by the First Council of Constantinople:
  
−
The Iconoclast controversy contributed still further to the division between Byzantium and the west. The Popes were firm supporters of the Iconodule standpoint, and so for many decades they found themselves out of communion with the Iconoclast Emperor and Patriarch at Constantinople. Cut off from Byzantium and in need of help, in 754 Pope Stephen turned northwards and visited the Frankish ruler, Pepin. This marked the first step in a decisive change of orientation so far as the Papacy was concerned. Hitherto Rome had continued in many ways to be part of the Byzantine world, but now it passed increasingly under Frankish influence, although the effects of this reorientation did not become fully apparent until the middle of the eleventh century.
+
<blockquote>
 +
[T]he Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops [i.e., the Second Ecumenical Council], actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges (ἴσα πρεσβεῖα) to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the Asian, and the Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople.<ref>Fourth Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.xviii.xxviii.html Canon XXVIII]</ref>
 +
</blockquote>
  
−
Pope Stephen's visit to Pepin was followed half a century later by a much more dramatic event. On Christmas Day in the year 800 Pope Leo III crowned Charles the Great, King of the Franks, as Emperor. Charlemagne sought recognition from the ruler at Byzantium, but without success; for the Byzantines, still adhering to the principle of imperial unity, regarded Charlemagne as an intruder and the Papal coronation as an act of schism within the Empire. The creation of a Holy Roman Empire in the west, instead of drawing Europe closer together, only served to alienate east and west more than before.
+
The council also ratified an agreement between Antioch and Jerusalem, whereby Jerusalem held jurisdiction over three provinces,<ref>Fourth Ecumenical Council, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.xi.xv.html Decree on the Jurisdiction of Jerusalem and Antioch]</ref> numbering it among the five great sees.<ref>[[Timothy Ware|Bishop Kallistos (Ware)]] (1963), ''The Orthodox Church'' (Penguin Books, London, ISBN 0-14-020592-6), p. 34</ref> There were now five patriarchs presiding over the Church within the Byzantine Empire, in the following order of precedence: the [[List of Popes of Rome|Patriarch of Rome]], the [[Patriarch of Constantinople]], the [[Patriarch of Alexandria]], the [[List of Patriarchs of Antioch|Patriarch of Antioch]] and the [[Patriarch of Jerusalem]] (see [[Pentarchy]]).
  
−
The cultural unity lingered on, but in a greatly attenuated form. Both in east and west, people of learning still lived within the classical tradition which the Church had taken over and made its own; but as time went on they began to interpret this tradition in increasingly divergent ways. Matters were made more difficult by problems of language. The days when educated people were bilingual were over. By the year 450 there were very few in western Europe who could read Greek, and after 600, although Byzantium still called itself the Roman Empire, it was rare for a Byzantine to speak Latin, the language of the Romans. Photius, the greatest scholar in ninth-century Constantinople, could not read Latin; and in 864 a 'Roman' Emperor at Byzantium, Michael III, even called the language in which Virgil once wrote 'a barbarian and Scythic tongue'. If Greeks wished to read Latin works or vice versa, they could do so only in translation, and usually they did not trouble to do even that: Psellus, an eminent Greek savant of the eleventh century, had so sketchy a knowledge of Latin literature that he confused Caesar with Cicero. Because they no longer drew upon the same sources nor read the same books, Greek east and Latin west drifted more and more apart.
+
===Empires East and West===
  
−
It was an ominous but significant precedent that the cultural renaissance in Charlemagne's Court should have been marked at its outset by a strong anti-Greek prejudice. In fourth-century Europe there had been one Christian civilization, in thirteenth century Europe there were two. Perhaps it is in the reign of Charlemagne that the schism of civilizations first becomes clearly apparent. The Byzantines for their part remained enclosed in their own world of ideas, and did little to meet the west half way. Alike in the ninth and in later centuries they usually failed to take western learning as seriously as it deserved. They dismissed all Franks as barbarians and nothing more.
+
Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. [[Theodosius I|Theodosius the Great]], who established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, died in 395 and was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; following his death, the Empire was divided into western and eastern halves, each under its own Emperor. By the end of the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire had been overrun by the Germanic tribes, while the Eastern Roman Empire (known also as the [[Byzantine Empire]]) continued to thrive. Thus, the political unity of the Roman Empire was the first to fall.
  
−
These political and cultural factors could not but affect the life of the Church, and make it harder to maintain religious unity. Cultural and political estrangement can lead only too easily to ecclesiastical disputes, as may be seen from the case of Charlemagne. Refused recognition in the political sphere by the Byzantine Emperor, he was quick to retaliate with a charge of heresy against the Byzantine Church: he denounced the Greeks for not using the Filioque in the Creed (of this we shall say more in a moment) and he declined to accept the decisions of the seventh Ecumenical Council. It is true that Charlemagne only knew of these decisions through a faulty translation which seriously distorted their true meaning; but he seems in any case to have been semi-lconoclast in his views.
+
In the West, the collapse of civil government left the Church practically in charge in many areas, and bishops took to administering secular cities and domains.<ref name="CC">Durant, Will. ''Caesar and Christ''. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972</ref> When royal and imperial rule reestablished itself, it had to contend with power wielded independently by the Church. In the East, however, imperial and, later, Islamic rule dominated the Eastern bishops.<ref name="CC"/>
  
−
The different political situations in east and west made the Church assume different outward forms, so that people came gradually to think of Church order in conflicting ways. From the start there had been a certain difference of emphasis here between east and west. In the east there were many Churches whose foundation went back to the Apostles; there was a strong sense of the equality of all bishops, of the collegial and conciliar nature of the Church. The east acknowledged the Pope as the first bishop in the Church, but saw him as the first among equals. In the west, on the other hand, there was only one great see claiming Apostolic foundation - Rome - so that Rome came to be regarded as the Apostolic see. The west, while it accepted the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils, did not play a very active part in the Councils themselves; the Church was seen less as a college and more as a monarchy- the monarchy of the Pope.
+
===Language===
  
−
This initial divergence in outlook was made more acute by political developments. As was only natural, the barbarian invasions and the consequent breakdown of the Empire in the west served greatly to strengthen the autocratic structure of the western Church. In the east there was a strong secular head, the Emperor, to uphold the civilized order and to enforce law. In the west, after the advent of the barbarians, there was only a plurality of warring chiefs, all more or less usurpers. For the most part it was the Papacy alone which could act as a centre of unity, as an element of continuity and stability in the spiritual and political life of western Europe. By force of circumstances, the Pope assumed a part which the Greek Patriarchs were not called to play, issuing commands not only to his ecclesiastical subordinates but to secular rulers as well. The western Church gradually became centralized to a degree unknown anywhere in the four Patriarchates of the east (except possibly in Egypt). Monarchy in the west; in the east collegiality.  
+
Many other factors caused the East and West to drift further apart. The dominant language of the West was Latin, whilst that of the East was Greek. Soon after the fall of the Western Empire, the number of individuals who spoke both Latin and Greek began to dwindle, and communication between East and West grew much more difficult. With linguistic unity gone, cultural unity began to crumble as well. The two halves of the Church were naturally divided along similar lines; they developed different [[rite]]s and had different approaches to religious doctrines. Although the Great Schism was still centuries away, its outlines were already perceptible.<ref>http://www.orthodox.org.ph/content/view/211/50/</ref>
  
−
Nor was this the only effect which the barbarian invasions had upon the life of the Church. In Byzantium there were many educated laymen who took an active interest in theology. The 'lay theologian' has always been an accepted figure in Orthodoxy: some of the most learned Byzantine Patriarch Photius, for example - were laymen before their appointment to the Patriarchate. But in the west the only effective education which survived through the Dark Ages was provided by the Church for its clergy. Theology became the preserve of the priests, since most of the laity could not even read, much less comprehend the technicalities of theological discussion. Orthodoxy, while assigning to the episcopate a special teaching office, has never known this sharp division between clergy and laity which arose in the western Middle Ages.
+
An example is the defective translation of the Canones of the [[Seventh Ecumenical Council]] from Greek to Latin. It caused Charlemage to task his frankish theologians with the wording of a refutation ("Libri Carolini").
  
−
Relations between eastern and western Christendom were also made more difficult by the lack of a common language. Because the two sides could no longer communicate easily with one another, and each could no longer read what the other wrote, misunderstandings arose much more easily. The shared 'universe of discourse' was progressively lost.
+
===Papal Supremacy and Pentarchy===
  
−
East and west were becoming strangers to one another, and this was something from which both were likely to suffer. In the early Church there had been unity in the faith, but a diversity of theological schools. From the start Greeks and Latins had each approached the Christian Mystery in their own way. At the risk of some oversimplification, it can be said that the Latin approach was more practical, the Greek more speculative; Latin thought was influenced by juridical ideas, by the concepts of Roman law, while the Greeks understood theology in the context of worship and in the light of the Holy Liturgy. When thinking about the Trinity, Latins started with the unity of the Godhead, Greeks with the threeness of the persons; when reflecting on the Crucifixion, Latins thought primarily of Christ the Victim, Greeks of Christ the Victor; Latins talked more of redemption, Greeks of deification; and so on. Like the schools of Antioch and Alexandria within the east, these two distinctive approaches were not in themselves contradictory; each served to supplement the other, and each had its place in the fullness of Catholic tradition. But now that the two sides were becoming strangers to one another - with no political and little cultural unity, with no common language - there was a danger that each side would follow its own approach in isolation and push it to extremes, forgetting the value in the other point of view.
+
Compounding the dogmatic issue was that the Creed was changed without agreement of the whole Christian Church. The Creed had been agreed upon at an [[Ecumenical Council]] and revised at another, bearing universal authority within the Church.
  
−
We have spoken of the different doctrinal approaches in east and west; but there were two points of doctrine where the two sides no longer supplemented one another, but entered into direct conflict - the Papal claims and the Filioque. The factors which we have mentioned in previous paragraphs were sufficient in themselves to place a serious strain upon the unity of Christendom. Yet for all that, unity might still have been maintained, had there not been these two further points of difficulty. To them we must now turn. It was not until the middle of the ninth century that the full extent of the disagreement first came properly into the open, but the two differences themselves date back considerably earlier.
+
For the Pope of Rome to change the Creed unilaterally without reference to an Ecumenical Council was considered by the Eastern bishops to be offensive to other bishops, as it undermined the collegiality and right of the episcopacy.
  
−
We have already had occasion to mention the Papacy when speaking of the different political situations in east and west; and we have seen how the centralized and monarchical structure of the western Church was reinforced by the barbarian invasions. Now so long as the Pope claimed an absolute power only in the west, Byzantium raised no objections. The Byzantines did not mind if the western Church was centralized, so long as the Papacy did not interfere in the east. The Pope, however, believed his immediate power of jurisdiction to extend to the east as well as to the west; and as soon as he tried to enforce this claim within the eastern Patriarchates, trouble was bound to arise. The Greeks assigned to the Pope a primacy of honour, but not the universal supremacy which he regarded as his due. The Pope viewed infallibility as his own prerogative; the Greeks held that in matters of the faith the final decision rested not with the Pope alone, but with a Council representing all the bishops of the Church. Here we have two different conceptions of the visible organization of the Church.
+
This led to the primary causes of the Schism - the disputes over conflicting claims of jurisdiction, in particular over papal authority. Pope [[Leo IX]] claimed he held authority over the four Eastern [[patriarch]]s (see also [[Pentarchy]]).
  
−
The Orthodox attitude to the Papacy is admirably expressed by a twelfth-century writer, Nicetas, Archbishop of Nicomedia:
+
Pope Leo IX allowed the insertion of the [[Filioque]] into the [[Nicene Creed]] in the West in 1014 <ref>Aristeides Papadakis The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, SVS Press, NY, 1994 p14)</ref>. Eastern Orthodox today state that the 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon explicitly proclaimed the equality of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople, and that it established the highest court of ecclesiastical appeal in Constantinople.
  
−
My dearest brother, we do not deny to the Roman Church the primacy amongst the five sister Patriarchates; and we recognize her right to the most honourable seat at an Ecumenical Council. But she has separated herself from us by her own deeds, when through pride she assumed a monarchy which does not belong to her office ... How shall we accept decrees from her that have been issued without consulting us and even without our knowledge? If the Roman Pontiff, seated on the lofty throne of his glory wishes to thunder at us and, so to speak, hurl his mandates at us from on high, and if he wishes to judge us and even to rule us and our Churches, not by taking counsel with us but at his own arbitrary pleasure, what kind of brotherhood, or even what kind of parenthood can this be? We should be the slaves, not the sons, of such a Church, and the Roman See would not be the pious mother of sons but a hard and imperious mistress of slaves.'
+
The seventh canon of the [[Third Ecumenical Council|Council of Ephesus]] declared:
 +
:It is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicea. But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the [[clergy]]; and if they be laymen, they shall be [[Anathema|anathematized]]<ref>([http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3810.htm Extracts from the Acts of the Council of Ephesus]). The creed quoted in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (the Third Ecumenical Council) is that of the first Ecumenical Council]], not the creed as modified by the Second Ecumenical Council, and so does not have additions such as "who proceeds from the Father" (''ibidem'').</ref>
  
−
That was how an Orthodox felt in the twelfth century, when the whole question had come out into the open. In earlier centuries the Greek attitude to the Papacy was basically the same, although not yet sharpened by controversy. Up to 850, Rome and the east avoided an open conflict over the Papal claims, but the divergence of views was not the less serious for being partially concealed.
+
Eastern Orthodox today state that this Canon of the Council of Ephesus explicitly prohibited modification of the Nicene Creed drawn up by the First Ecumenical Council in 325, the wording of which but, it is claimed, not the substance, had been modified by the [[Second Ecumenical Council|First Council of Constantinople]], making additions such as "who proceeds from the Father".
  
−
The second great difficulty was the Filioque. The dispute involved the words about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed. Originally the Creed ran: 'I believe ... in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.' This, the original form, is recited unchanged by the east to this day. But the west inserted an extra phrase 'and from the Son' (in Latin, Filioque), so that the Creed now reads 'who proceeds from the Father and the Son'. It is not certain when and where this addition was first made, but it seems to have originated in Spain, as a safeguard against Arianism. At any rate the Spanish Church interpolated the Filioque at the third Council of Toledo (589), if not before. From Spain the addition spread to France and thence to Germany, where it was welcomed by Charlemagne and adopted at the semi-lconoclast Council of Frankfort (794). It was writers at Charlemagne's court who first made the Filioque into an issue of controversy, accusing the Greeks of heresy because they recited the Creed in its original form. But Rome, with typical conservatism, continued to use the Creed without the Filioque until the start of the eleventh century. In 808 Pope Leo 111 wrote in a letter to Charlemagne that, although he himself believed the Filioque to be doctrinally sound, yet he considered it a mistake to tamper with the wording of the Creed. Leo deliberately had the Creed, without the Filioque, inscribed on silver plaques and set up in St Peter's. For the time being Rome acted as a mediator between the Franks and Byzantium.
+
In the Orthodox view, the Bishop of Rome (i.e. the Pope) would have universal primacy in a reunited Christendom, as ''[[primus inter pares]]'' without power of jurisdiction.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article8523.asp|title=Papal primacy|accessdate=2008-10-16|author=Emmanuel Clapsis|publisher=Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America|quote=The regional primacy can be conceived not as power or jurisdiction but only as an expression of the unity and unanimity of all the bishops, and consequently of all the churches, of an area.  
  
−
It was not until 860 that the Greeks paid much attention to the Filioque, but once they did so, their reaction was sharply critical. The Orthodox objected (and still object) to this addition to the Creed, for two reasons. First, the Creed is the common possession of the whole Church, and if any change is to be made in it, this can only be done by an Ecumenical Council. The west, in altering the Creed without consulting the east, is guilty (as Khomiakov put it) of moral fratricide, of a sin against the unity of the Church. In the second place, most Orthodox believe the Filioque to be theologically untrue. They hold that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and consider it a heresy to say that He proceeds from the Son as well. There are, however, some Orthodox who consider that the Filioque is not in itself heretical,. and is indeed admissible as a theological opinion - not a dogma - provided that it is properly explained. But even those who take this more moderate view still regard it as an unauthorized addition.
+
We must understand the universal primacy of the Roman Church similarly. Based on Christian Tradition, it is possible to affirm the validity of the church of Rome's claims of universal primacy. [...] Orthodoxy does not reject Roman primacy as such, but simply the particular way of understanding that primacy which has become Roman dogma in the last two centuries. Within a reintegrated Christendom the bishop of Rome would be considered ''primus inter pares'' serving the unity of God's Church in love. He cannot be accepted as ''set over'' the Church as a ruler whose ''diakonia'' is conceived through legalistic categories of power of jurisdiction.}}</ref>
  
−
Besides these two major issues, the Papacy and the Filioque, there were certain lesser matters of Church worship and discipline which caused trouble between east and west: the Greeks allowed married clergy, the Latins insisted on priestly celibacy; the two sides had different rules of fasting; the Greeks used leavened bread in the Eucharist, the Latins unleavened bread Around 850 east and west were still in full communion with one another and still formed one Church. Cultural and political divisions had combined to bring about an increasing estrangement, but there was no open schism. The to sides had different conceptions of Papal authority and recited the Creed in different forms, but these questions had not yet been brought fully into the open.
+
===Filioque===
  
−
But in 1190 Theodore Balsamon, Patriarch of Antioch and a great authority on Canon Law, looked at matters very differently:
+
''Filioque'' is a word that changes the Latin version of the [[Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]] to include the wording ''[Spiritus Sanctus] qui ex Patre '''Filioque''' procedit'' or "[[Holy Spirit]] who proceeds from the Father '''and the Son'''." 
  
−
For many years [he does not say how many] the western Church has been divided in spiritual communion from the other four Patriarchates and has become alien to the Orthodox ... So no Latin should be given communion unless he first declares that he will abstain from the doctrines and customs that separate him from us, and that he will be subject to the Canons of the Church, in union with the Orthodox.'
+
The first appearance of this insertion into the Creed happened in Toledo, Spain, where Latin theologians were trying to refute a brand of the [[Arianism|Arian]] [[heresy]].  Those theologians had better access to the writings of Latin theologians, particularly of St. [[Augustine of Hippo]], than to Greek theologians. Augustine used the teaching from [[Gospel of John|John]] 16:7 to emphasize that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that neither is subordinate to the other.
  
−
In Balsamon's eyes, communion had been broken; there was a definite schism between east and west. The two no longer formed one visible Church. In this transition from estrangement to schism, four incidents are of particular importance: the quarrel between Photius and Pope Nicolas I (usually known as the 'Photian schism': the east would prefer to call it the 'schism of Nicolas'); the incident of the Diptychs in 1009; the attempt at reconciliation in 1053-4 and its disastrous sequel; and the Crusades.
+
So the Creed was changed by the local [[synod]] of [[bishop]]s at Toledo with the justification that it asserts the divinity of Christ (refuting Arianism), and asserts the unity of the [[Holy Trinity|Trinity]] and the equality of each [[hypostasis]] of the Trinity.
  
−
From Estrangement to Schism (858-1204)
+
It should also be noted that St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome, and many other pre-schism Popes disagreed with the decision of the Toledo Council, one even going so far as to engraving the Creed without the Filioque on the doors of St. Peter's Basilica.
−
In 858, fifteen years after the triumph of icons under Theodora, a new Patriarch of Constantinople was appointed - Photius, known to the Orthodox Church as St Photius the Great. He has been termed 'the most distinguished thinker, the most outstanding politician, and the most skillful diplomat ever to hold office as Patriarch of Constantinople.' Soon after his accession he became involved in a dispute with Pope Nicolas I (858-67). The previous Patriarch, St Ignatius, had been exiled by the Emperor and while in exile had resigned under pressure. The supporters of Ignatius, declining to regard this resignation as valid, considered Photius a usurper. When Photius sent a letter to the Pope announcing his accession, Nicolas decided that before recognizing Photius he would look further Into the quarrel between the new Patriarch and the Ignatian party. Accordingly in 861 he sent legates to Constantinople.
 
  
−
Photius had no desire to start a dispute with the Papacy. He treated the legates with great deference, inviting them to preside at a council in Constantinople, which was to settle the issue between Ignatius and himself. The legates agreed, and together with the rest of the council they decided that Photius was the legitimate Patriarch. But when his legates returned to Rome, Nicolas declared that they had exceeded their powers, and he disowned their decision. He then proceeded to retry the case himself at Rome: a council held under his presidency In 863 recognized Ignatius as Patriarch, and proclaimed Photius to be deposed from all priestly dignity. The Byzantines took no notice of this condemnation, and sent no answer to the Pope's letters. Thus an open breach existed between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople.
+
There were other less significant catalysts for the Schism however, including variance over [[liturgy|liturgical]] practices.
  
−
The dispute clearly involved the Papal claims. Nicolas was a great reforming Pope, with an exalted idea of the prerogatives of his see, and he had already done much to establish an absolute power over all bishops in the west. But he believed this absolute power to extend to the east also: as he put it in a letter of 865, the Pope is endowed with authority 'over all the earth, that is, over every Church'. This was precisely what the Byzantines were not prepared to grant. Confronted with the dispute between Photius and Ignatius, Nicolas thought that he saw a golden opportunity to enforce his claim to universal jurisdiction: he would make both parties submit to his arbitration. But he realized that Photius had submitted voluntarily to the inquiry by the Papal legates, and that his action could not be taken as a recognition of Papal supremacy. This (among other reasons) was why Nicolas had cancelled his legates' decisions. The Byzantines for their part were willing to allow appeals to Rome, but only under the specific conditions laid down on of the Council of Sardica (343). This Canon states that a bishop, if under sentence of condemnation, can appeal to Rome, and the Pope, if he sees cause, can order a retrial; this retrial, however, is not to be conducted by the Pope himself at Rome, but by the bishops of the provinces adjacent to that of the condemned bishop. Nicolas, so the Byzantines felt, in reversing the decisions of his legates and demanding a retrial at Rome itself, was going far beyond the terms of this Canon. They regarded his behaviour as an unwarrantable and uncanonical interference in the affairs of another Patriarchate.
+
===Other points of conflict===
  
−
Soon not only the Papal claims but the Filioque became involved in the dispute. Byzantium and the west (chiefly the Germans) were both launching great missionary ventures among the Slavs.' The two lines of missionary advance, from the east and from the west, soon converged; and when Greek and German missionaries found themselves at work in the same land, it was difficult to avoid a conflict, since the two missions were run on widely different principles. The clash naturally brought to the fore the question of the Filioque, used by the Germans in the Creed, but not used by the Greeks. The chief point of trouble was Bulgaria, a country which Rome and Constantinople alike were anxious to add to their sphere of jurisdiction. The Khan Boris was at first inclined to ask the German missionaries for baptism: threatened, however, with a Byzantine invasion, he changed his policy and around 865 accepted baptism from Greek clergy. But Boris wanted the Church in Bulgaria to be independent, and when Constantinople refused to grant autonomy, he turned to the west in hope of better terms. Given a free hand in Bulgaria, the Latin missionaries promptly launched a violent attack on the Greeks, singling out the points where Byzantine practice differed from their own: married clergy, rules of fasting, and above all the Filioque. At Rome itself the Filioque was still not in use, but Nicolas gave full support to the Germans when they insisted upon its insertion in Bulgaria. The Papacy, which in 808 had mediated between the Franks and the Greeks, was now neutral no longer.
+
Many other issues increased tensions.
 +
* Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian]] outlawed the veneration of icons in the eighth century. This policy, which came to be called [[Iconoclasm]], was rejected by the West.
 +
* The Western Church's insertion of "[[Filioque]]" into the Latin version of the [[Nicene Creed]]. 
 +
* Disputes in the Balkans, Southern Italy, and Sicily over whether Rome or Constantinople had ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
 +
* In the East, endorsement of [[Caesaropapism]], subordination of the church to the religious claims of the dominant political order, was most fully evident in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the first millennium,<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573998/Church_and_State.html#p3 Church and State in the Byzantine Empire]</ref> while in the West, where the decline of imperial authority left the Church relatively independent,<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761573998/Church_and_State.html#p4 Church and State in Western Europe]</ref> there was growth of the power of the [[Papacy]].  
 +
* As a result of the Muslim conquests of the territories of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, only two rival powerful centres of ecclesiastical authority, Constantinople and Rome, remained.<ref>"During the decade following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, his followers captured three of the five 'patriarchates' of the early church — Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — leaving only Rome and Constantinople, located at opposite ends of the Mediterranean and, eventually, also at opposite ends of the Schism of 1054" ([http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/507284/Roman-Catholicism/257669 Encyclopaedia Britannica]).</ref>
 +
* Certain [[liturgy|liturgical]] practices in the West that the East believed represented illegitimate innovation such as the use of [[Azymes|unleavened bread]] for the [[Eucharist]].
 +
*Clerical [[celibacy]] of Western priests (both monastic and parish), as opposed to the Eastern discipline whereby parish priests could be married men.
  
−
Photius was naturally alarmed by the extension of German influence in the Balkans, on the very borders of the Byzantine Empire; but he was much more alarmed by the question of the Filioque, now brought forcibly to his attention. In 867 he took action. He wrote an Encyclical Letter to the other Patriarchs of the east, denouncing the Filioque at length and charging those who used it with heresy. Photius has often been blamed for writing this letter: even the great Roman Catholic historian Francis Dvornik who is in general highly sympathetic to Photius, calls his action on this occasion a futile attack, and says 'the lapse was inconsiderate, hasty, and big with fatal consequences'. But if Photius really considered the Filioque heretical, what else could he do except speak his mind? It must also be remembered that it was not Photius who first made the Filioque a matter of controversy, but Charlernagne and his scholars seventy years before: the west was the original aggressor, not the east. Photius followed up his letter by summoning a council to Constantinople, which declared Pope Nicolas excommunicate, terming him 'a heretic who ravages the vineyard of the Lord'.
+
===Previous schisms===
  
−
At this critical point in the dispute, the whole situation suddenly changed. In this same year (867) Photius was deposed from the Patriarchate by the Emperor. Ignatius became Patriarch once more, and communion with Rome was restored. In 869-70 another council was held at Constantinople, known as the 'Anti-Photian Council', which condemned and anathematized Photius, reversing the decisions of 867. This council, later reckoned in the west as the eighth Ecumenical Council, opened with the unimpressive total of 12 bishops, although numbers at subsequent sessions rose to 103.
+
Some scholars<ref>Cleenewerck, Laurent ''His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the [[Roman Catholic Church|Catholic]]and Eastern Orthodox Churches''. Washington, DC: EUC Press (2008) pp. 145-155</ref> have argued that the Schism between East and West has very ancient roots, and that sporadic schisms in the common unions took place under Pope [[Victor I of Rome|Victor I]] (second century), Pope [[Stephen I of Rome|Stephen I]] (third century) and Pope [[Damasus I of Rome|Damasus I]] (fourth and fifth century). Later on, disputes about theological and other questions led to schisms between the Churches in Rome and Constantinople for 37 years from 482 to 519 (the [[Acacian Schism]]), and for 13 years from 866-879 (see Patriarch [[Photios the Great]]).
  
−
But there were further changes to come. The 869-70 council requested the Emperor to resolve the status of the Bulgarian Church, and not surprisingly he decided that it should be assigned to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Realizing that Rome would allow him less independence than Byzantium, Boris accepted this decision. From 870, then, the German missionaries were expelled and the Filioque was heard no more in the confines of Bulgaria. Nor was this all. At Constantinople, Ignatius and Photius were reconciled to one another, and when Ignatius died in 877, Photius once more succeeded him as Patriarch. In 879 yet another council was held in Constantinople, attended by 383 bishops - a notable contrast with the meagre total at the anti-Photian gathering ten years previously. The council of 869 was anathematized and all condemnations of Photius were withdrawn; these decisions were accepted without protest at Rome. So Photius ended victorious, recognized by Rome and ecclesiastically master of Bulgaria. Until recently it was thought -hat there was a second 'Photian schism', but Dr Dvornik has proved with devastating conclusiveness that this second schism is a myth: in Photius' later period of office (877-86) communion between Constantinople and the Papacy remained unbroken. The Pope at this time, John VIII (872-82), was no friend to the Franks and did not press the question of the Filioque, nor did he attempt to enforce the Papal claims in the east. Perhaps he recognized how seriously the policy of Nicolas had endangered the unity of Christendom.
+
==Mutual excommunication of 1054==
  
−
Thus the schism was outwardly healed, but no real solution had been reached concerning the two great points of difference which the dispute between Nicolas and Photius had forced into the open. Matters had been patched up, and that was all.
+
Most of the direct causes of the Great Schism, however, are far less grandiose than the famous ''filioque''. The relations between the papacy and the Byzantine court were good in the years leading up to 1054. The emperor [[Constantine IX]] and the Pope [[Leo IX]] were allied through the mediation of the Lombard catepan of Italy, Argyrus, who had spent years in Constantinople, originally as a political prisoner. Leo and Argyrus led armies against the ravaging Normans, but the papal forces were defeated at the Battle of Civitate in 1053, which resulted in the pope being imprisoned at Benevento, where he took it upon himself to learn Greek. Argyrus had not arrived at Civitate and his absence caused a rift in papal-imperial relations.
  
−
Photius, always honoured in the east as a saint, a leader of the Church, and a theologian, has in the past been regarded by the west with less enthusiasm, as the author of a schism and little else. His good qualities are now more widely appreciated. 'If I am right in my conclusions,' so Dr Dvornik ends his monumental study, 'we shall be free once more to recognize in Photius a great Churchman, a learned humanist, and a genuine Christian, generous enough to forgive his enemies, and to take the first step towards reconciliation.  
+
Meanwhile, the Normans were busy imposing Latin customs, including the unleavened bread&mdash;with papal approval. Patriarch [[Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople|Michael I]] then ordered [[Leo of Ochrid]], to write a letter to the [[bishop of Trani]], John, an Easterner, in which he attacked the "[[Judaizers|Judaistic]]" practices of the West, namely the use of unleavened bread. The letter was to be sent by John to all the bishops of the West, Pope included. John promptly complied and the letter was passed to one [[Humbert of Silva Candida|Humbert of Mourmoutiers]], the cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida, who was then in John's diocese. Humbert translated the letter into Latin and brought it to the pope, who ordered a reply to be made to each charge and a defence of papal supremacy to be laid out in a response.
  
−
At the beginning of the eleventh century there was fresh trouble over the Filioque. The Papacy at last adopted the addition: at the coronation of Emperor Henry 11 at Rome in 1014, the Creed was sung in its interpolated form. Five years earlier, in 1009, the newly-elected Pope Sergius IV sent a letter to Constantinople which may have contained the Filioque, although this is not certain. Whatever the reason, the Patriarch of Constantinople, also called Sergius, did not include the new Pope's name in the Diptychs: these are lists, kept by each Patriarch, which contain the names of the other Patriarchs, living and departed, whom he recognizes as orthodox. The Diptychs are a visible sign of the unity of the Church, and deliberately to omit a person's name from them is tantamount to a declaration that one is not in communion with him. After 1009 the Pope's name did not appear again in the Diptychs of Constantinople; technically, therefore, the Churches of Rome and Constantinople were out of communion from that date. But it would be unwise to press this technicality too far. Diptychs were frequently incomplete, and so do not form an infallible guide to Church relations. The Constantinopolitan lists before 1009 often lacked the Pope's name, simply because new Popes at their accession failed to notify the east. The omission in 1009 aroused no comment at Rome, and even at Constantinople people quickly forgot why and when the Pope's name had first been dropped from the Diptychs.
+
Although he was hot-headed, Michael was convinced, probably by the Emperor and the bishop of Trani, to cool the debate and prevent the impending breach. However, Humbert and the pope made no concessions and the former was sent with legatine powers to the imperial capital to solve the questions raised once and for all. Humbert, Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, later Pope Stephen IX, and Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi, set out in early spring and arrived in April 1054. Their welcome was not to their liking, however, and they stormed out of the palace, leaving the papal response with Michael, whose anger exceeded even theirs. The seals on the letter had been tampered with and the legates had published, in Greek, an earlier, far less civil, draft of the letter for the entire populace to read. The patriarch determined that the legates were worse than mere barbarous Westerners, they were liars and crooks. He refused to recognise their authority or, practically, their existence.<ref>[[John Julius Norwich|Norwich, John Julius]]. ''The Normans in the South 1016-1130''. (1967) pg 102.</ref> 
  
−
As the eleventh century proceeded, new factors brought relations between the Papacy and the eastern Patriarchates to a further crisis. The previous century had been a period of grave instability and confusion for the see of Rome, a century which Cardinal Baronius justly termed an age of iron and lead in the history of the Papacy. But under German influence Rome now reformed itself, and through the rule of men such as Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII) it gained a position of power in the west such as it had never before achieved. The reformed Papacy naturally revived the claims to universal jurisdiction which Nicolas had made. The Byzantines on their side had grown accustomed to dealing with a Papacy that was for the most part weak and disorganized, and so they found it difficult to adapt themselves to the new situation. Matters were made worse by political factors, such as the military aggression of the Normans in Byzantine Italy, and the commercial encroachments of the Italian maritime cities in the eastern Mediterranean during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
+
When Pope Leo died on [[April 19]], 1054, the legates' authority legally ceased, but they did not seem to notice.<ref>Norwich, John Julius ''Byzantium, The Apogee''. New York: Alfred A. Knoff (1992) p.320</ref>  The patriarch's refusal to address the issues at hand drove the legatine mission to extremes: on [[July 16]], the three legates entered the church of the [[Hagia Sophia (Constantinople)|Hagia Sophia]] during the divine liturgy on a Saturday afternoon and placed a papal bull of [[excommunication]] on the altar. The legates left for Rome two days later, leaving behind a city near riots. The patriarch had the immense support of the people against the Emperor, who had supported the legates to his own detriment, and Argyrus, who was seen still as a papal ally. To assuage popular anger, Argyrus' family in Constantinople was arrested, the bull was burnt, and the legates were [[anathema]]tised&mdash;the Great Schism had begun.
  
−
In 1054 there was a severe quarrel. The Normans had been forcing the Greeks in Byzantine Italy to conform to Latin usages; the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, in return demanded that the Latin churches at Constantinople should adopt Greek practices, and in 1052, when they refused, he closed them. This was perhaps harsh, but as Patriarch he was fully entitled to act in this manner. Among the practices to which Michael and his supporters particularly objected was the Latin use of 'azymes' or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, an issue which had not figured in the dispute of the ninth century. In 1053, however, Cerularius took up a more conciliatory attitude and wrote to Pope Leo IX, offering to restore the Pope's name to the Diptychs. In response to this offer, and to settle the disputed questions of Greek and Latin usages, Leo in 1054 sent three legates to Constantinople, the chief of them being Humbert, Bishop of Silva Candida. The choice of Cardinal Humbert was unfortunate, for both he and Cerularius were men of stiff and intransigent temper, whose mutual encounter was not likely to promote good will among Christians. The legates, when they called on Cerularius, did not create a favourable impression. Thrusting a letter from the Pope at him, they retired without giving the usual salutations; the letter itself, although signed by Leo, had in fact been drafted by Humbert, and was distinctly unfriendly in tone. After this the Patriarch refused to have further dealings with the legates. Eventually Humbert lost patience, and laid a Bull of Excommunication against Cerularius on the altar of the Church of the Holy Wisdom: among other ill-founded charges in this document, Humbert accused the Greeks of omitting the Filioque from the Creed! Humbert promptly left Constantinople without offering any further explanation of his act, and on returning to Italy he represented the whole incident as a great victory for the see of Rome. Cerularius and his synod retaliated by anathematizing Humbert (but not the Roman Church as such). The attempt at reconciliation left matters worse than before.
+
Orthodox bishop [[Metropolitan]] [[Timothy Ware|Kallistos]] writes, that the choice of cardinal Humbert was unfortunate, for both he and Patriarch Michael I were men of stiff and intransigent temper... . After [an initial, unfriendly encounter] the patriarch refused to have further dealings with the legates. Eventually Humbert lost patience, and laid a bull of excommunication against Patriarch Michael I on the altar of the Church of the Holy Wisdom... . Michael and his synod retaliated by anathematizing Humbert.  
  
−
But even after 1054 friendly relations between east and west continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them, and people on both sides still hoped that the misunderstandings could be cleared up without too much difficulty. The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in east and west were largely unaware. It was the Crusades which made the schism definitive: they introduced a new spirit of hatred and bitterness, and they brought the whole issue down to the popular level.
+
''The New Catholic Encyclopedia'' says, "The consummation of the schism is generally dated from the year 1054, when this unfortunate sequence of events took place. This conclusion, however, is not correct, because in the bull composed by Humbert, only Patriarch Michael I was excommunicated. The validity of the bull is questioned because Pope Leo IX was already dead at that time. On the other side, the Byzantine synod excommunicated only the legates.
  
−
From the military point of view, however, the Crusades began with great éclat. Antioch was captured from the Turks in 1098, Jerusalem in 1099: the first Crusade was a brilliant, if bloody,' success. At both Antioch and Jerusalem the Crusaders proceeded to set up Latin Patriarchs. At Jerusalem this was reasonable, since the see was vacant at the time; and although in the years that followed there existed a succession of Greek Patriarchs of Jerusalem, living exiled in Cyprus, yet within Palestine itself the whole population, Greek as well as Latin, at first accepted the Latin Patriarch as their head. A Russian pilgrim at Jerusalem in 1106-7, Abbot Daniel of Tchernigov, found Greeks and Latins worshipping together in harmony at the Holy Places, though he noted with satisfaction that at the ceremony of the Holy Fire the Greek lamps were lit miraculously while the Latin had to be lit from the Greek. But at Antioch the Crusaders found a Greek Patriarch actually in residence: shortly afterwards, it is true, he withdrew to Constantinople, but the local Greek population was unwilling to recognize the Latin Patriarch whom the Crusaders set up in his place. Thus from 11000 there existed in effect a local schism at Antioch. After I 187, when Saladin captured Jerusalem, the situation in the Holy land deteriorated: two rivals, resident within Palestine itself, now divided the Christian population between them - a Latin Patriarch at Acre, a Greek at Jerusalem. These local schisms at Antioch and Jerusalem were a sinister development. Rome was very far away, and if Rome and Constantinople quarrelled, what practical difference did it make to the average Christian in Syria or Palestine? But when two rival bishops claimed the same throne and two hostile congregations existed in the same city, the division became an immediate reality in which simple believers were directly implicated. It was the Crusades that turned the dispute into something that involved whole Christian congregations, and not just church leaders; the Crusaders brought the schism down to the local level.
+
It should be noted that the bull of excommunication issued against Patriarch Michael stated as one of its reasons for the excommunication the Eastern Church's deletion of "filioque" from the original Nicene Creed. It is now common knowledge that the Eastern Church did not delete anything, it was the Western Church that added this word to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.
  
−
But worse was to follow in 1204, with the taking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. The Crusaders were originally bound for Egypt, but were persuaded by Alexius, son of Isaac Angelus, the dispossessed Emperor of Byzantium, to turn aside to Constantinople in order to restore him and his father to the throne. This western intervention in Byzantine politics did not go happily, and eventually the Crusaders, disgusted by what they regarded as Greek duplicity, lost patience and sacked the city. Eastern Christendom has never forgotten those three appalling days of pillage. 'Even the Saracens are merciful and kind,' protested Nicetas Choniates, 'compared with these men who bear the Cross of Christ on their shoulders.' In the words of Sir Steven Runciman, 'The Crusaders brought not peace but a sword; and the sword was to sever Christendom. The long-standing doctrinal disagreements were now reinforced on the Greek side by an intense national hatred, by a feeling of resentment and indignation against western aggression and sacrilege. After 1204 there can be no doubt that Christian east and Christian west were divided into two.
+
==East and West since 1054==
  
−
Orthodoxy and Rome each believes itself to have been right and its opponent wrong upon the points of doctrine that arose between them; and so Rome and Orthodoxy since the schism have each claimed to be the true Church. Yet each, while believing in the rightness of its own cause, must look back at the past with sorrow and repentance. Both sides must in honesty acknowledge that they could and should have done more to prevent the schism. Both sides were guilty of mistakes on the human level. Orthodox, for example, must blame themselves for the pride and contempt with which during the Byzantine period they regarded the west; they must blame themselves for incidents such as the riot of 1182, when many Latin residents at Constantinople were massacred by the Byzantine populace. (None the less there is no action on the Byzantine side which can be compared to the sack of 1204.) And each side, while claiming to be the one true Church, must admit that on the human level it has been grievously impoverished by the separation. The Greek east and the Latin west needed and still need one another. For both parties the great schism has proved a great tragedy.
+
"Even after 1054 friendly relations between East and West continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them. … The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in East and West were largely unaware".<ref>Bishop Kallistos (Ware), ''op. cit.'', p. 67</ref>
  
−
This article was taken from www.orthodoxinfo.com
+
There was no single event that marked the breakdown. Rather, the two churches slid into and out of schism over a period of several centuries, punctuated with temporary reconciliations. During the [[Fourth Crusade]], however, Latin crusaders and Venetian merchants sacked Constantinople itself, looting The Church of Holy Wisdom and various other Orthodox Holy sites. This event and the final treaty established the Latin Empire of the East and the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople (with various other Crusader states). This period of chaotic rule over the sacked and looted lands of the Byzantine Empire is still known among Eastern Christians as Frangokratia. Later attempts at reconciliation, such as the [[Councils of Lyons|Second Council of Lyon]], met with little or no success until the middle of the Twentieth Century.
−
 
 
−
 
  
 +
In 1965, the Catholic Pope Paul VI and Patriarch [[Athenagoras I (Spyrou) of Constantinople|Athenagoras I]] of Constantinople lifted the mutual excommunications dating from the eleventh century.<ref>Joint Declaration [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration_en.html]</ref>. In 1995 (Jun 29), Pope John Paul II and Patriarch [[Bartholomew I (Archontonis) of Constantinople|Bartholomew I]] of Constantinople again withdrew the previous 11th century excommunications.
  
 +
In May 1999, John Paul II was the first pope since the Great Schism to visit an Eastern Orthodox country: Romania. Upon greeting John Paul II, the Romanian Patriarch [[Teoctist (Arapasu) of Romania|Teoctist]] stated: "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."
  
 +
Pope John Paul II visited other heavily Orthodox areas such as Ukraine, despite lack of welcome at times, and he said that healing the divisions between Western and Eastern Christianity was one of his fondest wishes.
  
 +
==Extant disputes==
  
 +
===Ecclesiological issues===
  
 +
A lot of the issues that currently separate the two churches are ecclesiological. Principal among them is the content of papal primacy within any future unified church.  The Orthodox insist that it should be a "primacy of honor", as in the ancient church and not a "primacy of authority", whereas the Catholics wish to maintain the pontiff's role as has been recently developed.  Celibacy of the clergy is also a dividing point, although the Catholic church does allow married men to be ordained in its Eastern Rite particular churches.  Finally there is disagreement on [[divorce]]: the Catholic church forbids it, whereas the Orthodox permits it, though allowing remarriage only in penitential form. 
  
 +
A major sticking point is the style of church government.  The Orthodox Church has always maintained the original position of [[collegiality]] of the bishops.
  
 +
The Orthodox Church has also emphasized 'economia', or a certain amount of flexibility in the rules depending upon the exigencies of a particular situation. 
  
 +
Some of the Orthodox Churches unofficially acknowledge [[Apostolic succession]] within the Catholic Church and admit the validity of its episcopal ordination. The relationship between the Antiochian Orthodox and the Maronite Catholic bishops is a case in point. Some Orthodox Churches do not require baptism in the case of a convert already baptized in the Catholic Church, Most Orthodox Churches allow marriages between members of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church allows its clergy to administer the sacraments of [[Penance]], the Eucharist and Anointing of the Sick to members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if these spontaneously ask for the sacraments and are properly disposed.<ref>[http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/general-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19930325_directory_en.html ''Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism'', 125]; cf. [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P2S.HTM ''Code of Canon Law'', canon 844 §3] and [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PIN.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 671 §3]</ref> It also allows Catholics who cannot approach a Catholic minister to receive these three sacraments from clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided.<ref>[http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/general-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_19930325_directory_en.html ''Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism'', 123]; cf. [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P2S.HTM ''Code of Canon Law'', canon 844 §2] and [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PIN.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 671 §2]</ref> Catholic canon law allows marriage between a Catholic and an Orthodox only if permission is obtained from the Catholic bishop.<ref>[http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PML.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 813] and [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P40.HTM ''Code of Canon Law'', canon 1124]</ref> The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches authorizes the local Catholic bishop to permit a Catholic priest, of whatever rite, to bless the marriage of Orthodox faithful who being unable without great difficulty to approach a priest of their own Church, ask for this spontaneously.<ref>[http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PN5.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 833]</ref> In exceptional circumstances Catholics may, in the absence of an authorized priest, marry before witnesses. If a priest who is not authorized for the celebration of the marriage is available, he should be called in, although the marriage is valid even without his presence.<ref>[http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0017/_P3Z.HTM ''Code of Canon Law'', canon 1116] and [http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PN4.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 832]</ref> The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches specifies that, in those exceptional circumstances, even a "non-Catholic" priest (and so not necessarily one belonging to an Eastern Church) may be called in.<ref>[http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG1199/_PN4.HTM ''Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches'', canon 832]</ref>
  
 +
===Divergent theologies===
  
 +
There are a number of divergent theological issues.
  
 +
The two Churches have different approaches to understanding the Trinity.  The influence of St [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] and by extension [[Thomas Aquinas]] in the western Mediterranean on this issue is not generally accepted in the Orthodox Church.<ref>A basic characteristic of the Frankish scholastic method, mislead by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism, had been its naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the Franks substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a fascination for metaphysics. They did not suspect that such speculations had foundations neither in created nor in spiritual reality. FRANKS, ROMANS, FEUDALISM, AND DOCTRINE — [ Part 2 ] EMPIRICAL THEOLOGY VERSUS SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY-Empirical Theology- [[John S. Romanides]] [http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.03.en.franks_romans_feudalism_and_doctrine.02.htm]</ref>
  
−
<!--- == Attempts at reconciliation and continuing divergence ==
+
The ''Filioque'' clause first introduced by the Council of Toledo (589)<ref>[http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/orthhtrdx/e_P05.htm Russian Orthodox Church of St John the Baptist]</ref><ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3818/is_/ai_n9000216 Anglican Theological Review,  Summer 2001]</ref> under the influence of the teaching of St Augustine of Hippo. <ref>The pretext of the Filioque controversy was the Frankish acceptance of Augustine as the key to understanding the theology of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods.[[John S. Romanides]] Filioque [http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/romanides_filioque.html]</ref><ref>During the ensuing centuries long course of the controversy, the Franks not only forced the Patristic tradition into an Augustinian mold, but they confused Augustine's Trinitarian terminology with that of the Father's of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods. This is nowhere so evident as in the Latin handling of Maximos the Confessor's description, composed in 650, of the West Roman Orthodox Filioque at the Council of Florence (1438-42). The East Romans hesitated to present Maximos' letter to Marinos about this West Roman Orthodox Filioque because the letter did not survive in its complete form. John S. Romanides Filioque [http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/romanides_filioque.html]</ref>
  
−
== Current situation == --->
+
However the Roman Catholic Church recently has shown some flexibility on the ''Filioque'' issue.  In accordance with the Roman Catholic Church's practice of including the clause when reciting the Creed in Latin,<ref>Missale Romanum 2002 (Roman Missal in Latin), p. 513</ref> but not when reciting the Creed in Greek,<ref>Ρωμαϊκό Λειτουργικό 2006 (Roman Missal in Greek), vol. 1, p. 347</ref> Popes [[John Paul II]] and [[Benedict XVI]] have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs [[Demetrius I (Papadopoulos) of Constantinople|Demetrius I]] and Bartholomew I in Greek without the ''Filioque'' clause.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MFg8FBOHDg Video recording of joint recitation]</ref><ref>[http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2004/documents/ns_lit_doc_20040629_rite_en.html programme of the celebration]</ref><ref>[http://www.ana-mpa.gr/anaweb/user/showplain?maindoc=6588051&maindocimg=6587712&service=10 Pope, Patriarch appeal for unity]</ref><ref>[http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=12632 Asia News]</ref><ref>[http://www.roacamerica.org/art-kiss-demetrios-latest.shtml Demetrius I]</ref><ref>[http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0803436.htm CNS]</ref> The action of these Patriarchs in reciting the Creed together with the Popes has been strongly criticized by some elements of Eastern Orthodoxy, such as the Metropolitan of Kalavryta, Greece in November 2008<ref>[http://www.mkka.blogspot.com/ The Metropolitan's own blog], reported also by  [http://www.romfea.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1932 this Religious News Agency]</ref> and the [http://www.roacamerica.org/art-kiss-demetrios-latest.shtml Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church in America.]
  
−
== An alternate view ==
+
== Quotes ==
  
−
'If one wishes to find a villain on the Orthodox side for the development of the schism, [Absentee Greek Patriarch of Antioch] Balsamon is a far stronger candidate than either [Patriarchs of Constantinople] Photius or Cerularius. Hitherto the chief asset of the Orthodox in the controversy had been their doctrine of Economy, the charity that enabled them to overlook and even to condone divergences in the interest of peace and goodwill.  But Balsamon was a lawyer; and lawyers like things to be cut and dried.  Charity is not one of their characteristics.'
+
'If one wishes to find a villain on the Orthodox side for the development of the schism, Absentee Greek Patriarch of Antioch Balsamon is a far stronger candidate than either Patriarchs of Constantinople Photius or Cerularius. Hitherto the chief asset of the Orthodox in the controversy had been their doctrine of Economy, the charity that enabled them to overlook and even to condone divergences in the interest of peace and goodwill.  But Balsamon was a lawyer; and lawyers like things to be cut and dried.  Charity is not one of their characteristics.' &mdash; Steven Runciman, ''The Eastern Schism'', Wipf & Stock, Oregon, 3/3/2005, p138
  
−
[[Steven Runciman]], ''The Eastern Schism'', Wipf & Stock, Oregon, 3/3/2005, p138
+
== Sources ==
  
−
== See also ==
+
*Joseph P. Farrell. ''[http://dialectic.wordpress.com/ghd/ God, History, & Dialectic: The Theological Foundations of the Two Europes and Their Cultural Consequences]''. Bound edition 1997. Electronic edition 2008.
−
*[[Filioque]]
+
*Aidan Nichols.  [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0814650198 ''Rome and the Eastern Churches:  a Study in Schism''].  1992
−
*[[Photius the Great]]
+
*Laurent Cleenewerck, ''His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches'' (Lulu.com, 2008 ISBN 978-0615183619)
−
*[[Michael Cerularius]]
+
*[[Vladimir Lossky]], ''The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church'' (SVS Press, 1997 ISBN 978-0913836316)
 +
*[[John Meyendorff]], ''Living Tradition: Orthodox Witness in the Contemporary World'' esp. pp. 64-71 (SVS Press, 1997 ISBN 978-0913836484)
 +
*[[Aristeides Papadakis]] ''The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy'' (SVS Press, 1994 ISBN 978-0881410570)
 +
*[[Philip Sherrard]], ''Church, Papacy and Schism: A Theological Inquiry'' (Harvey & Co., 1978 ISBN 978-9607120113)
 +
*[[Timothy Ware]], ''The Orthodox Church'', 2nd ed. (Penguin, 1993 ISBN 0140146563)
  
−
== References ==
+
==References==
−
*[[Laurent Cleenewerck]], ''His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches''
+
<div class="small"><references/></div>
−
*[[Vladimir Lossky]], ''The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church''
 
−
*[[John Meyendorff]], ''Living Tradition'' esp pp64-71 (1978 SVS Press)
 
−
*[[Aristeides Papadakis]] ''The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy'' (1994 SVS Press)
 
−
*[[Philip Sherrard]], ''Church, Papacy and Schism''
 
−
*[[Timothy Ware]], ''The Orthodox Church''
 
  
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
−
*[http://www.orthodox.org.ph/content/view/211/50/ The East-West Schism]
+
*[http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_1.htm#n4 Byzantium: The Great Schism, by Bp. Kallistos Ware]
 +
*[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13535a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia: ''The Eastern Schism'']
 +
*[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/587056/Schism-of-1054 Encyclopaedia Britannica: ''Schism of 1054'']
 +
*[http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration_en.html Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, 7 December 1965]
 +
*[http://www.greatschism.org/Great-Eastern-Schism.html Great Schism of 1054]
 +
==Notes==
  
 
[[Category:Church History]]
 
[[Category:Church History]]
 +
[[Category: Schisms]]
 
[[Category:Creeds]]
 
[[Category:Creeds]]
 
[[Category:Heresies]]
 
[[Category:Heresies]]
−
[[Category:Inter-Christian]]
 
  
−
[[el:Σχίσμα του 1054]]
+
 
 +
[[el:Μέγα Σχίσμα του 1054]]
 
[[es:Gran Cisma]]
 
[[es:Gran Cisma]]
 +
[[ro:Marea Schismă]]

Latest revision as of 02:21, February 21, 2013

This article concerns the schism between what is now called Catholicism and Orthodoxy. For the schism between Rome and Avignon, see the Wikipedia article, 'Western Schism'.


This article or section needs a cleanup to bring it to a higher standard of quality. Recommendation:
See talk page.
More detailed comments may be noted on the talk page. You can help OrthodoxWiki by editing it, especially to conform to the Style Manual and the suggestions in How to write a great article.

Introduction

The East-West Schism, or the Great Schism, is the historic sundering of eucharistic relations between the See of Rome (now the Roman Catholic Church) and the sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem (now the Orthodox Church). It divided medieval Mediterranean Christendom into Eastern and Western branches, which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, respectively. Relations between East and West had long been embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes.[1] Pope Leo IX and Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius heightened the conflict by suppressing Greek and Latin in their respective domains. In 1054, Roman legates traveled to Cerularius to deny him the title Ecumenical Patriarch and to insist that he recognize the Church of Rome's claim to be the head and mother of the churches.[1] Cerularius refused. The leader of the Latin contingent excommunicated Cerularius, while Cerularius in return excommunicated the legates.[1]

The Western legate's acts are of doubtful validity because Leo had died, while Cerularius's excommunication applied only to the legates personally.[1] Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. Western cruelty during the Crusades, the capture and sack of Constantinople in 1204, and the imposition of Latin Patriarchs made reconciliation more difficult.[1]This included the taking of many precious religious artifacts and the destruction of the Library of Constantinople. On paper, the two churches actually reunited in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Florence), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, on the grounds that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to reunification. In 1484, 31 years after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, a Synod of Constantinople repudiated the Union of Florence, making the breach between the Patriarchate of the West and the Patriarchate of Constantinople final.[1] In 1965, the Pope of Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople nullified the anathemas of 1054.[1] Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies are ongoing.

A schism is a break in the Church's authority structure and communion and is different from a heresy, which means false doctrine. Church authorities have long recognized that even if their minister is in schism, the sacraments, except the power to ordain, are valid. There have been many other schisms, from the second century until today, but none as significant as the one between East and West.

Dating the schism

The Great Schism was a gradual estrangement to which no specific date can be assigned, although it has been conventionally dated to the year 1054. This date is misleading since it seems to imply that there was peace and unity before 1054, animosity and division afterward.

The schism actually took centuries to crystalize. Some place the split in the time of Saint Photios, for example — or even earlier — or 1204, with the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, or even 1453, the fall of Constantinople, when the Latins gave no help to prevent it.

Terminology

In Western circles, the term Great Schism is often used to refer to the fourteenth century schism involving the Avignon Papacy (an event also sometimes called the 'Western Schism', 'Papal Schism' or 'Babylonian Captivity').

To distinguish from that event, some historians prefer the term Great Ecumenical Schism to explain succinctly what happened and to capture the complexity of the event itself.

Other more recent historians prefer the term East-West Schism, because 'Ecumenical' properly means of Constantinople or of the Eastern Roman Empire. The schism involved more than just Constantinople, or the Byzantine Empire. It included both East and West Mediterranean, and was between East and West Mediterranean.

Origins

Leading to the Great Schism, Eastern and Western Mediterranean Christians had a history of differences and disagreements dating back to the second century.

Rise of Rome

John Binns writes that, after the fall and destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the natural leading centres of the Church were Antioch and Alexandria. Alexandria had been assisted by Mark [2], one of the Seventy Apostles. Antioch had attracted Peter and Paul and Barnabas, plus others of the Seventy. Antioch was the base from which Paul made his missionary journeys to the pagans. [3]. The Church of Antioch sent the apostles Peter and Paul to Rome to assist the fledgling church there in its growth, and because Rome was the capital of the Roman Empire. Antioch regarded Peter as its first bishop [4].

Will Durant writes that, after Jerusalem, the church of Rome naturally became the primary church, the capital of Christianity.[5] Rome had an early and significant Christian population.[5] It was closely identified with the Paul of Tarsus, who preached and was martyred there, and the Apostle Peter, who was a martyr there as well. The Eastern Orthodox liturgy calls Peter and Paul "the wisest Apostles and their princes" and "the radiant ornaments of Rome".[6][7] Peter is seen as founder of the Church in Rome,[8] and the bishops of Rome as his successors.[9][10] While the Eastern cities of Alexandria and Antioch produced theological works, the bishops of Rome focused on what Romans admittedly did best: administration.[5]

Leading Orthodox theologian, Father Thomas Hopko has written: "The church of Rome held a special place of honor among the earliest Christian churches. It was first among the communities that recognized each other as catholic churches holding the orthodox faith concerning God's Gospel in Jesus. According to St Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch who died a martyr's death in Rome around the year 110, 'the church which presides in the territories of the Romans' was 'a church worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of felicitation, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and presiding in love, maintaining the law of Christ, bearer of the Father's name.' The Roman church held this place of honor and exercised a 'presidency in love' among the first Christian churches for two reasons. It was founded on the teaching and blood of the foremost Christian apostles Peter and Paul. And it was the church of the capital city of the Roman empire that then constituted the 'civilized world (oikoumene)'."[11]

Saint Thomas went east, and was said to be instrumental in establishing the Church in the Persian Empire and satellite kingdoms, although Addai and Mari, two of the Seventy Apostles were credited with most of the work of establishment in Persia itself. The Persian Church was larger than the Mediterranean Church for some centuries, especially in the sixth to eighth centuries with its highly successful movement into India, Mongolia, China, Tibet, [Korea, and Japan [12].

In the fourth century when the Roman emperors were trying to control the Church, theological questions were running rampant throughout the Roman Empire[13]. The influence of Greek speculative thought on Christian thinking led to all sorts of divergent and conflicting opinions [14]. Christ's commandment to love others as He loved, seemed to have been lost in the intellectual abstractions of the time. Theology was also used as a weapon against opponent bishops, since being branded a heretic was the only sure way for a bishop to be removed by other bishops. Incompetence was not sufficient grounds for removal.

In the early church up until the ecumenical councils, Rome was regarded as an important centre of Christianity, especially since it was the capital of the Roman Empire. The eastern and southern Mediterranean bishops generally recognized a persuasive leadership and authority of the Bishop of Rome, because the teaching of the bishop of Rome was almost invariably correct. But the Mediterrtanean Church did not regard the Bishop of Rome as any sort of infallible source, nor did they acknowledge any juridical authority of Rome.

After the sole emperor of all the Roman Empire Constantine the Great built the new imperial capital on the Bosphorous, the centre of gravity in the empire was fully recognised to have completely shifted to the eastern Mediterranean. Rome lost the senate to Byzantium and lost its status and gravitas as imperial capital.

The patriarchs of Constantinople often tried to adopt an imperious position over the other patriarchs. In the case of Nestorius, whose actual teaching is now recognised to be not overtly heretical, although it is clearly deficient, (Saint Cyril called it 'slippery'), [15], other patriarchs were able to make the charge of heresy stick and successfully had him deposed. This was probably more because his christology was delivered with a heavy sarcastic arrogance which matched his high-handed personality [16].

The opinion of the Bishop of Rome was often sought, especially when the patriarchs of the Eastern Mediterranean were locked in fractious dispute. The bishops of Rome never obviously belonged to either the Antiochian or the Alexandrian schools of theology, and usually managed to steer a middle course between whatever extremes were being propounded by theologians of either school. Because Rome was remote from the centres of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean, it was frequently hoped its bishop would be more impartial. For instance, in 431, Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, appealed to Pope Celestine I, as well as the other patriarchs, charging Nestorius with heresy, which was dealt with at the Council of Ephesus.

The opinion of the bishop of Rome was always canvassed, and was often longed for. However, the Bishop of Rome's opinion was by no means automatically right. For instance, the Tome of Leo of Rome was highly regarded, and formed the basis for the ecumenical council's formulation. But it was not universally accepted and was even called "impious" and "blasphemous" by some.[17] The next ecumenical council corrected a possible imbalance in Pope Leo's presentation. Although the Bishop of Rome was well-respected even at this early date, the concept of papal infallibility was developed much later.

Following the Sack of Rome by invading European Goths, Rome slid into the Dark Ages which afflicted most parts of Western Europe, and became increasingly isolated and irrelevant to the wider Mediterranean Church. This was a situation which suited and pleased a lot of the Eastern Mediterranean patriarchs and bishops [18].

It was not until the rise of Charlemagne and his successors that the Church of Rome arose out of obscurity on the back of the military successes of the western Mediterranean adventurers.

New Rome

When the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great embraced Christianity, he summoned the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 325 to resolve a number of issues which troubled the Church. The bishops at the council confirmed the position of the metropolitan sees of Rome and Alexandria as having authority outside their own province, and also the existing privileges of the churches in Antioch and the other provinces.[19] These sees were later called Patriarchates and were given an order of precedence: Rome, as capital of the empire was naturally given first place, then came Alexandria and Antioch. In a separate canon the Council also approved the special honor given to Jerusalem over other sees subject to the same metropolitan.[20]

Five patriarchs

Soon, Constantine erected a new capital at Byzantium, a strategically-placed city on the Bosporus. He renamed his new capital Nova Roma ("New Rome"), but the city would become known as Constantinople. The Second Ecumenical Council, held at the new capital in 381, now elevated the see of Constantinople itself, to a position ahead of the other chief metropolitan sees, except that of Rome.[21] Mentioning in particular the provinces of Asia, Pontus and Thrace, it decreed that the synod of each province should manage the ecclesiastical affairs of that province alone, except for the privileges already recognized for Alexandria and Antioch.[22]

The Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451, confirming the authority already held by Constantinople, granted its archbishop jurisdiction over the three provinces mentioned by the First Council of Constantinople:

[T]he Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops [i.e., the Second Ecumenical Council], actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges (ἴσα πρεσβεῖα) to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the Asian, and the Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople.[23]

The council also ratified an agreement between Antioch and Jerusalem, whereby Jerusalem held jurisdiction over three provinces,[24] numbering it among the five great sees.[25] There were now five patriarchs presiding over the Church within the Byzantine Empire, in the following order of precedence: the Patriarch of Rome, the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Patriarch of Alexandria, the Patriarch of Antioch and the Patriarch of Jerusalem (see Pentarchy).

Empires East and West

Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. Theodosius the Great, who established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, died in 395 and was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; following his death, the Empire was divided into western and eastern halves, each under its own Emperor. By the end of the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire had been overrun by the Germanic tribes, while the Eastern Roman Empire (known also as the Byzantine Empire) continued to thrive. Thus, the political unity of the Roman Empire was the first to fall.

In the West, the collapse of civil government left the Church practically in charge in many areas, and bishops took to administering secular cities and domains.[5] When royal and imperial rule reestablished itself, it had to contend with power wielded independently by the Church. In the East, however, imperial and, later, Islamic rule dominated the Eastern bishops.[5]

Language

Many other factors caused the East and West to drift further apart. The dominant language of the West was Latin, whilst that of the East was Greek. Soon after the fall of the Western Empire, the number of individuals who spoke both Latin and Greek began to dwindle, and communication between East and West grew much more difficult. With linguistic unity gone, cultural unity began to crumble as well. The two halves of the Church were naturally divided along similar lines; they developed different rites and had different approaches to religious doctrines. Although the Great Schism was still centuries away, its outlines were already perceptible.[26]

An example is the defective translation of the Canones of the Seventh Ecumenical Council from Greek to Latin. It caused Charlemage to task his frankish theologians with the wording of a refutation ("Libri Carolini").

Papal Supremacy and Pentarchy

Compounding the dogmatic issue was that the Creed was changed without agreement of the whole Christian Church. The Creed had been agreed upon at an Ecumenical Council and revised at another, bearing universal authority within the Church.

For the Pope of Rome to change the Creed unilaterally without reference to an Ecumenical Council was considered by the Eastern bishops to be offensive to other bishops, as it undermined the collegiality and right of the episcopacy.

This led to the primary causes of the Schism - the disputes over conflicting claims of jurisdiction, in particular over papal authority. Pope Leo IX claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs (see also Pentarchy).

Pope Leo IX allowed the insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed in the West in 1014 [27]. Eastern Orthodox today state that the 28th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon explicitly proclaimed the equality of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople, and that it established the highest court of ecclesiastical appeal in Constantinople.

The seventh canon of the Council of Ephesus declared:

It is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different (ἑτέραν) Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicea. But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the clergy; and if they be laymen, they shall be anathematized[28]

Eastern Orthodox today state that this Canon of the Council of Ephesus explicitly prohibited modification of the Nicene Creed drawn up by the First Ecumenical Council in 325, the wording of which but, it is claimed, not the substance, had been modified by the First Council of Constantinople, making additions such as "who proceeds from the Father".

In the Orthodox view, the Bishop of Rome (i.e. the Pope) would have universal primacy in a reunited Christendom, as primus inter pares without power of jurisdiction.[29]

Filioque

Filioque is a word that changes the Latin version of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to include the wording [Spiritus Sanctus] qui ex Patre Filioque procedit or "Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son."

The first appearance of this insertion into the Creed happened in Toledo, Spain, where Latin theologians were trying to refute a brand of the Arian heresy. Those theologians had better access to the writings of Latin theologians, particularly of St. Augustine of Hippo, than to Greek theologians. Augustine used the teaching from John 16:7 to emphasize that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and that neither is subordinate to the other.

So the Creed was changed by the local synod of bishops at Toledo with the justification that it asserts the divinity of Christ (refuting Arianism), and asserts the unity of the Trinity and the equality of each hypostasis of the Trinity.

It should also be noted that St. Leo the Great, Pope of Rome, and many other pre-schism Popes disagreed with the decision of the Toledo Council, one even going so far as to engraving the Creed without the Filioque on the doors of St. Peter's Basilica.

There were other less significant catalysts for the Schism however, including variance over liturgical practices.

Other points of conflict

Many other issues increased tensions.

  • Emperor Leo III the Isaurian outlawed the veneration of icons in the eighth century. This policy, which came to be called Iconoclasm, was rejected by the West.
  • The Western Church's insertion of "Filioque" into the Latin version of the Nicene Creed.
  • Disputes in the Balkans, Southern Italy, and Sicily over whether Rome or Constantinople had ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
  • In the East, endorsement of Caesaropapism, subordination of the church to the religious claims of the dominant political order, was most fully evident in the Byzantine Empire at the end of the first millennium,[30] while in the West, where the decline of imperial authority left the Church relatively independent,[31] there was growth of the power of the Papacy.
  • As a result of the Muslim conquests of the territories of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, only two rival powerful centres of ecclesiastical authority, Constantinople and Rome, remained.[32]
  • Certain liturgical practices in the West that the East believed represented illegitimate innovation such as the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist.
  • Clerical celibacy of Western priests (both monastic and parish), as opposed to the Eastern discipline whereby parish priests could be married men.

Previous schisms

Some scholars[33] have argued that the Schism between East and West has very ancient roots, and that sporadic schisms in the common unions took place under Pope Victor I (second century), Pope Stephen I (third century) and Pope Damasus I (fourth and fifth century). Later on, disputes about theological and other questions led to schisms between the Churches in Rome and Constantinople for 37 years from 482 to 519 (the Acacian Schism), and for 13 years from 866-879 (see Patriarch Photios the Great).

Mutual excommunication of 1054

Most of the direct causes of the Great Schism, however, are far less grandiose than the famous filioque. The relations between the papacy and the Byzantine court were good in the years leading up to 1054. The emperor Constantine IX and the Pope Leo IX were allied through the mediation of the Lombard catepan of Italy, Argyrus, who had spent years in Constantinople, originally as a political prisoner. Leo and Argyrus led armies against the ravaging Normans, but the papal forces were defeated at the Battle of Civitate in 1053, which resulted in the pope being imprisoned at Benevento, where he took it upon himself to learn Greek. Argyrus had not arrived at Civitate and his absence caused a rift in papal-imperial relations.

Meanwhile, the Normans were busy imposing Latin customs, including the unleavened bread—with papal approval. Patriarch Michael I then ordered Leo of Ochrid, to write a letter to the bishop of Trani, John, an Easterner, in which he attacked the "Judaistic" practices of the West, namely the use of unleavened bread. The letter was to be sent by John to all the bishops of the West, Pope included. John promptly complied and the letter was passed to one Humbert of Mourmoutiers, the cardinal-bishop of Silva Candida, who was then in John's diocese. Humbert translated the letter into Latin and brought it to the pope, who ordered a reply to be made to each charge and a defence of papal supremacy to be laid out in a response.

Although he was hot-headed, Michael was convinced, probably by the Emperor and the bishop of Trani, to cool the debate and prevent the impending breach. However, Humbert and the pope made no concessions and the former was sent with legatine powers to the imperial capital to solve the questions raised once and for all. Humbert, Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, later Pope Stephen IX, and Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi, set out in early spring and arrived in April 1054. Their welcome was not to their liking, however, and they stormed out of the palace, leaving the papal response with Michael, whose anger exceeded even theirs. The seals on the letter had been tampered with and the legates had published, in Greek, an earlier, far less civil, draft of the letter for the entire populace to read. The patriarch determined that the legates were worse than mere barbarous Westerners, they were liars and crooks. He refused to recognise their authority or, practically, their existence.[34]

When Pope Leo died on April 19, 1054, the legates' authority legally ceased, but they did not seem to notice.[35] The patriarch's refusal to address the issues at hand drove the legatine mission to extremes: on July 16, the three legates entered the church of the Hagia Sophia during the divine liturgy on a Saturday afternoon and placed a papal bull of excommunication on the altar. The legates left for Rome two days later, leaving behind a city near riots. The patriarch had the immense support of the people against the Emperor, who had supported the legates to his own detriment, and Argyrus, who was seen still as a papal ally. To assuage popular anger, Argyrus' family in Constantinople was arrested, the bull was burnt, and the legates were anathematised—the Great Schism had begun.

Orthodox bishop Metropolitan Kallistos writes, that the choice of cardinal Humbert was unfortunate, for both he and Patriarch Michael I were men of stiff and intransigent temper... . After [an initial, unfriendly encounter] the patriarch refused to have further dealings with the legates. Eventually Humbert lost patience, and laid a bull of excommunication against Patriarch Michael I on the altar of the Church of the Holy Wisdom... . Michael and his synod retaliated by anathematizing Humbert.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia says, "The consummation of the schism is generally dated from the year 1054, when this unfortunate sequence of events took place. This conclusion, however, is not correct, because in the bull composed by Humbert, only Patriarch Michael I was excommunicated. The validity of the bull is questioned because Pope Leo IX was already dead at that time. On the other side, the Byzantine synod excommunicated only the legates.

It should be noted that the bull of excommunication issued against Patriarch Michael stated as one of its reasons for the excommunication the Eastern Church's deletion of "filioque" from the original Nicene Creed. It is now common knowledge that the Eastern Church did not delete anything, it was the Western Church that added this word to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

East and West since 1054

"Even after 1054 friendly relations between East and West continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them. … The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in East and West were largely unaware".[36]

There was no single event that marked the breakdown. Rather, the two churches slid into and out of schism over a period of several centuries, punctuated with temporary reconciliations. During the Fourth Crusade, however, Latin crusaders and Venetian merchants sacked Constantinople itself, looting The Church of Holy Wisdom and various other Orthodox Holy sites. This event and the final treaty established the Latin Empire of the East and the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople (with various other Crusader states). This period of chaotic rule over the sacked and looted lands of the Byzantine Empire is still known among Eastern Christians as Frangokratia. Later attempts at reconciliation, such as the Second Council of Lyon, met with little or no success until the middle of the Twentieth Century.

In 1965, the Catholic Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople lifted the mutual excommunications dating from the eleventh century.[37]. In 1995 (Jun 29), Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople again withdrew the previous 11th century excommunications.

In May 1999, John Paul II was the first pope since the Great Schism to visit an Eastern Orthodox country: Romania. Upon greeting John Paul II, the Romanian Patriarch Teoctist stated: "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity."

Pope John Paul II visited other heavily Orthodox areas such as Ukraine, despite lack of welcome at times, and he said that healing the divisions between Western and Eastern Christianity was one of his fondest wishes.

Extant disputes

Ecclesiological issues

A lot of the issues that currently separate the two churches are ecclesiological. Principal among them is the content of papal primacy within any future unified church. The Orthodox insist that it should be a "primacy of honor", as in the ancient church and not a "primacy of authority", whereas the Catholics wish to maintain the pontiff's role as has been recently developed. Celibacy of the clergy is also a dividing point, although the Catholic church does allow married men to be ordained in its Eastern Rite particular churches. Finally there is disagreement on divorce: the Catholic church forbids it, whereas the Orthodox permits it, though allowing remarriage only in penitential form.

A major sticking point is the style of church government. The Orthodox Church has always maintained the original position of collegiality of the bishops.

The Orthodox Church has also emphasized 'economia', or a certain amount of flexibility in the rules depending upon the exigencies of a particular situation.

Some of the Orthodox Churches unofficially acknowledge Apostolic succession within the Catholic Church and admit the validity of its episcopal ordination. The relationship between the Antiochian Orthodox and the Maronite Catholic bishops is a case in point. Some Orthodox Churches do not require baptism in the case of a convert already baptized in the Catholic Church, Most Orthodox Churches allow marriages between members of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church allows its clergy to administer the sacraments of Penance, the Eucharist and Anointing of the Sick to members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if these spontaneously ask for the sacraments and are properly disposed.[38] It also allows Catholics who cannot approach a Catholic minister to receive these three sacraments from clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it, and provided the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided.[39] Catholic canon law allows marriage between a Catholic and an Orthodox only if permission is obtained from the Catholic bishop.[40] The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches authorizes the local Catholic bishop to permit a Catholic priest, of whatever rite, to bless the marriage of Orthodox faithful who being unable without great difficulty to approach a priest of their own Church, ask for this spontaneously.[41] In exceptional circumstances Catholics may, in the absence of an authorized priest, marry before witnesses. If a priest who is not authorized for the celebration of the marriage is available, he should be called in, although the marriage is valid even without his presence.[42] The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches specifies that, in those exceptional circumstances, even a "non-Catholic" priest (and so not necessarily one belonging to an Eastern Church) may be called in.[43]

Divergent theologies

There are a number of divergent theological issues.

The two Churches have different approaches to understanding the Trinity. The influence of St Augustine and by extension Thomas Aquinas in the western Mediterranean on this issue is not generally accepted in the Orthodox Church.[44]

The Filioque clause first introduced by the Council of Toledo (589)[45][46] under the influence of the teaching of St Augustine of Hippo. [47][48]

However the Roman Catholic Church recently has shown some flexibility on the Filioque issue. In accordance with the Roman Catholic Church's practice of including the clause when reciting the Creed in Latin,[49] but not when reciting the Creed in Greek,[50] Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have recited the Nicene Creed jointly with Patriarchs Demetrius I and Bartholomew I in Greek without the Filioque clause.[51][52][53][54][55][56] The action of these Patriarchs in reciting the Creed together with the Popes has been strongly criticized by some elements of Eastern Orthodoxy, such as the Metropolitan of Kalavryta, Greece in November 2008[57] and the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church in America.

Quotes

'If one wishes to find a villain on the Orthodox side for the development of the schism, Absentee Greek Patriarch of Antioch Balsamon is a far stronger candidate than either Patriarchs of Constantinople Photius or Cerularius. Hitherto the chief asset of the Orthodox in the controversy had been their doctrine of Economy, the charity that enabled them to overlook and even to condone divergences in the interest of peace and goodwill. But Balsamon was a lawyer; and lawyers like things to be cut and dried. Charity is not one of their characteristics.' — Steven Runciman, The Eastern Schism, Wipf & Stock, Oregon, 3/3/2005, p138

Sources

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005, s.v. "Great Schism"
  2. ↑ John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p144
  3. ↑ Acts 11:19-26, Acts 12:24-25, Acts 13:1-3, Acts 14:24-28, Acts 15:1-2, Acts 15:22-40, Acts 18:22-23, Acts 19:21-22, Gal 2:11-14
  4. ↑ John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p144
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972
  6. ↑ Great Vespers of 29 June
  7. ↑ Menaion, 29 June
  8. ↑ The Illuminator, The Newspaper of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh, Oct.-Dec. 2004, p.7
  9. ↑ "Linus was bishop of Rome after the holy apostle Peter"
  10. ↑ Pope Benedict XVI is "the 265th successor of the St Peter" (Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, 2007 Annual Report to His All Holiness Bartholomew
  11. ↑ Roman Presidency and Christian Unity in our Time
  12. ↑ John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, esp pp 28-29
  13. ↑ John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, pp 162-164
  14. ↑ John Binns, An Introduction to the Christian Orthodox Churches, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2002, p68
  15. ↑ John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, SVS Press, NY, 2004, p173
  16. ↑ John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological Controversy, SVS Press, NY, 2004, p173
  17. ↑ The Sixth Book of the Select Letters of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch, vol. II, p. 254
  18. ↑ Aristeides Papadakis The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, SVS Press, NY, 1994 esp p14
  19. ↑ "Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges" (First Ecumenical Council, Canon VI).
  20. ↑ "Since custom and ancient tradition have prevailed that the Bishop of Ælia [i.e., Jerusalem] should be honored, let him, saving its due dignity to the Metropolis, have the next place of honor" (First Ecumenical Council, Canon VII
  21. ↑ "The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome" (Second Ecumenical Council, Canon III)
  22. ↑ "Let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East manage the East alone, the privileges of the Church in Antioch, which are mentioned in the canons of Nice, being preserved; and let the bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the Asian affairs only; and the Pontic bishops only Pontic matters; and the Thracian bishops only Thracian affairs" (Second Ecumenical Council, Canon II)
  23. ↑ Fourth Ecumenical Council, Canon XXVIII
  24. ↑ Fourth Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Jurisdiction of Jerusalem and Antioch
  25. ↑ Bishop Kallistos (Ware) (1963), The Orthodox Church (Penguin Books, London, ISBN 0-14-020592-6), p. 34
  26. ↑ http://www.orthodox.org.ph/content/view/211/50/
  27. ↑ Aristeides Papadakis The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, SVS Press, NY, 1994 p14)
  28. ↑ (Extracts from the Acts of the Council of Ephesus). The creed quoted in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (the Third Ecumenical Council) is that of the first Ecumenical Council]], not the creed as modified by the Second Ecumenical Council, and so does not have additions such as "who proceeds from the Father" (ibidem).
  29. ↑ Template:Cite web
  30. ↑ Church and State in the Byzantine Empire
  31. ↑ Church and State in Western Europe
  32. ↑ "During the decade following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, his followers captured three of the five 'patriarchates' of the early church — Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — leaving only Rome and Constantinople, located at opposite ends of the Mediterranean and, eventually, also at opposite ends of the Schism of 1054" (Encyclopaedia Britannica).
  33. ↑ Cleenewerck, Laurent His Broken Body: Understanding and Healing the Schism between the Catholicand Eastern Orthodox Churches. Washington, DC: EUC Press (2008) pp. 145-155
  34. ↑ Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. (1967) pg 102.
  35. ↑ Norwich, John Julius Byzantium, The Apogee. New York: Alfred A. Knoff (1992) p.320
  36. ↑ Bishop Kallistos (Ware), op. cit., p. 67
  37. ↑ Joint Declaration [1]
  38. ↑ Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, 125; cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844 §3 and Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 671 §3
  39. ↑ Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism, 123; cf. Code of Canon Law, canon 844 §2 and Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 671 §2
  40. ↑ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 813 and Code of Canon Law, canon 1124
  41. ↑ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 833
  42. ↑ Code of Canon Law, canon 1116 and Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 832
  43. ↑ Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, canon 832
  44. ↑ A basic characteristic of the Frankish scholastic method, mislead by Augustinian Platonism and Thomistic Aristotelianism, had been its naive confidence in the objective existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the Franks substituted the patristic concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a fascination for metaphysics. They did not suspect that such speculations had foundations neither in created nor in spiritual reality. FRANKS, ROMANS, FEUDALISM, AND DOCTRINE — [ Part 2 ] EMPIRICAL THEOLOGY VERSUS SPECULATIVE THEOLOGY-Empirical Theology- John S. Romanides [2]
  45. ↑ Russian Orthodox Church of St John the Baptist
  46. ↑ Anglican Theological Review, Summer 2001
  47. ↑ The pretext of the Filioque controversy was the Frankish acceptance of Augustine as the key to understanding the theology of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods.John S. Romanides Filioque [3]
  48. ↑ During the ensuing centuries long course of the controversy, the Franks not only forced the Patristic tradition into an Augustinian mold, but they confused Augustine's Trinitarian terminology with that of the Father's of the First and Second Ecumenical Synods. This is nowhere so evident as in the Latin handling of Maximos the Confessor's description, composed in 650, of the West Roman Orthodox Filioque at the Council of Florence (1438-42). The East Romans hesitated to present Maximos' letter to Marinos about this West Roman Orthodox Filioque because the letter did not survive in its complete form. John S. Romanides Filioque [4]
  49. ↑ Missale Romanum 2002 (Roman Missal in Latin), p. 513
  50. ↑ Ρωμαϊκό Λειτουργικό 2006 (Roman Missal in Greek), vol. 1, p. 347
  51. ↑ Video recording of joint recitation
  52. ↑ programme of the celebration
  53. ↑ Pope, Patriarch appeal for unity
  54. ↑ Asia News
  55. ↑ Demetrius I
  56. ↑ CNS
  57. ↑ The Metropolitan's own blog, reported also by this Religious News Agency

External links

Notes

Retrieved from "https://en.orthodoxwiki.org/index.php?title=Great_Schism&oldid=114754"