East-West Schism

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The Second Ecumenical Council whose contributions to the Nicene Creed lay at the heart of the famous theological disputes underlying the East-West Schism. (Illustration, 879-882 AD, from manuscript, Homilies of Gregory Nazianzus, Bibliothèque nationale de France)

The East-West Schism, or Great Schism, divided early Medieval Christianity by Diocletian into Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches, which later became the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church respectively. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between Latin and Greek Christendom. The primary causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority—Pope Leo IX claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs— (see also Pentarchy) and over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Western Church. Eastern Orthodox today state that the 28th Canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council explicitly proclaimed the equality of the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople. The Orthodox also state that the Bishop of Rome has authority only over his own diocese and does not have any authority outside his diocese. There were other less significant catalysts for the Schism however, including variance over liturgical practices and conflicting claims of jurisdiction.

The Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographic lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed. It might be alleged that the two churches actually reunited in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), 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. Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies have failed.

[edit] Origins

Since the earliest days of the Byzantium or Eastern Rome Greek Empire, the Church recognized the unique positions of five bishops, who were known as patriarchs: the Bishop of Constantinople, the Bishop of Jerusalem, the Bishop of Alexandria, the Bishop of Antioch, and the Bishop of Rome. All were confirmed as patriarchates by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 (see Pentarchy). The patriarchs held precedence over fellow bishops in the Church.

Disunion in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunion in the Church. Theodosius the Great, who died in 395, was the last Emperor to rule over a united Roman Empire; after his death, his territory was divided into western and eastern halves, each under its own Emperor. By the end of the 5th 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.

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.

[edit] Great East-West Schism

[edit] Catalysts

There were many catalysts which caused tensions.

• Emperor Leo III the Isaurian outlawed the veneration of icons in the 8th century. This policy, which came to be called Iconoclasm, was rejected by the West.
• The insertion of the Filioque clause into the Nicene Creed.
• Disputes in the Balkans, Southern Italy, and Sicily over whether the Western or Eastern church had jurisdiction.
• The designation of the Patriarch of Constantinople as ecumenical patriarch, which was understood by Rome as universal patriarch and therefore disputed as Rome wanted to be considered the primary power.
• Disputes over whether the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope, should be considered a higher authority than the other Patriarchs.
• The concept of Caesaropapism, a tying together in some way of the ultimate political and religious authorities, which was much stronger in Constantinople, where the emperor lived, than in Rome which was geographically distant and at a certain stage ceased to be subject to the emperor's power.
• Following the rise of Islam, the relative weakening of the influence of the patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, leading to internal church politics increasingly being seen as Rome versus Constantinople.
• Certain liturgical practices in the West that the East believed represented innovation: the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, for example.
• Celibacy among Western priests (both monastic and parish), as opposed to the Eastern discipline whereby parish priests could be married men whose marriage had taken place when they were still laymen, before their ordination to the diaconate.

[edit] Preliminary schisms

Some scholars^[1] have argued that the Schism between East and West has very ancient roots, and that sporadic schisms in the common unions took place under Victor (second century),Stephen (third century) and Damasus (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 I of Constantinople).

[edit] Excommunications and final break

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, Archbishop of Ochrid, leader of the Bulgarian church, to write a letter to the bishop of Trani, John, an Easterner, in which he attacked the "Judaistic" practices of the West. 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, Frederick of Lorraine, 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.^[2]

When Pope Leo died on April 19, 1054, the legates' authority legally ceased, but they did not seem to notice.^[3] 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 (1054) 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 Kallistos (formerly Timothy Ware) 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 the word "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 original Nicene Creed.

[edit] Early attempts at reconciliation

"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" (Ware, 67).

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 on their way eastward sacked Constantinople itself and defiled the Hagia Sophia. The ensuing period of chaotic rule over the sacked and looted lands of the Byzantine Empire is still known among Eastern Christians as Fragkokratia. After that, the break became permanent. Later attempts at reconciliation, such as the Second Council of Lyon, met with little or no success.

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• Western Christianity
• Eastern Christianity
• Western Rite Orthodoxy

[edit] External links

• Byzantium: The Great Schism by Bp. Kallistos Ware
• Catholic Encyclopedia article, representing a Roman Catholic view
• BBC In Our Time page
• OrthodoxWiki: Great Schism

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