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The East-West Schism, known also as the Great Schism (though this latter term sometimes refers to the later Western Schism), was the event that divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two Churches. The primary causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority—the Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs, while Eastern Orthodox today claim that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome was only honorary, and thus he had authority only over Western Christians—and over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed. There were other, less significant catalysts for the Schism, 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 Lyons) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), but in each case the councils were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, given that the hierarchs had overstepped their authority in consenting to these so-called "unions". Further attempts to reconcile the two bodies have failed; however, several ecclesiastical communities that originally sided with the East changed their loyalties, and are now called Eastern Rite Catholic Churches. For the most part, however, the Western and the Eastern Churches are separate. Each takes the view that it is the "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church", implying that the other group left the true church during the Schism.
Origins
Since its earliest days, the Church recognized the special positions of three bishops, who were known as patriarchs: the Bishop of Rome, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the Bishop of Antioch. They were joined by the Bishop of Constantinople and by the Bishop of Jerusalem, both confirmed as patriarchates by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 (see Pentarchy). The patriarchs held both authority and precedence over fellow bishops in the Church. Among them, the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople were deemed to hold a higher status; Rome, because of its imperial status (or, for some, because it was regarded as the seat of St. Peter), and Constantinople by virtue of its importance as the "New Rome" and capital of the Roman Empire.
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 destroyed by the barbarians, 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.
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 used different rites and had different approaches to religious doctrines. Although the Great Schism was still centuries away, its outlines were already perceptible.
Great Schism
Catalysts
There are many catalysts which caused tensions.
- The insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed.
- Disputes in the Balkans 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).
- 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 were physically separated much earlier when the capital of the empire was moved from Rome to Constantinople. There is controversy over just how much this so-called "caesaropapism" actually existed and how much was a fanciful invention, centuries later, by western European historians.
- Following the rise of Islam, the relative weakening of the influence of the patiarchs 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.
Excommunications and Final Break
The Norman conquest of southern Italy helped touch off the Great Schism between Eastern and Western Christendom. When the Catholic Normans took over the Byzantine-Rite Greek colonies in southern Italy, they compelled the Greek communities there to adopt the Latin-Rite custom of using unleavened bread for the Eucharist. This angered the Greek Catholics, because it went against their ancient custom of using leavened bread.
In response, Patriarch Cerularius ordered all of the Latin-Rite communities in Constantinople to conform to the Eastern practice of using leavened bread. An uproar ensued. The Latins refused, so the patriarch closed their churches and sent a hostile letter to Pope Leo IX.
What followed next was a tragedy of errors. In an attempt to quell the disturbance, the pope sent a three-man delegation, led by Cardinal Humbert of Mourmoutiers, to visit Patriarch Cerularius, but matters worsened. The legates presented the patriarch with the pope’s reply to his charges. Both sides managed to infuriate each other over diplomatic courtesies, and when the smoke cleared, a serious rift had developed. This was not, however, the actual break between the two communions. It’s a popular myth that the schism dates to the year 1054 and that the pope and the patriarch excommunicated each other at that time, but they did not.
Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware (formerly Timothy Ware) writes, "The choice of Cardinal Humbert was unfortunate, for both he and Cerularius were men of stiff and intransigent temper. . . . After 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. . . . Cerularius and his synod retaliated by anathematizing Humbert (but not the Roman Church as such)" (The Orthodox Church, 67).
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 Cerularius 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 and abstained from any attack on the pope or the Latin Church."
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 break, but rather a sliding into and out of schism during a period of several centuries, punctuated with temporary reconciliations. During the Fourth Crusade, Latin crusaders sacked Constantinople on their way eastward, defiling the Hagia Sophia itself. Still, the East’s final break with Rome did not come for several centuries.
The Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453, completing the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. Under pressure from their new Muslim rulers, most of the Eastern churches repudiated their union with Rome, and this is the split that persists to this day. The current Eastern Orthodox communion dates from the 1450s, making it a mere six decades older than the Protestant Reformation.
Reconciliation
During the 12th century the Maronite Church in Lebanon and Syria reconciled with the Church of Rome, while preserving most of its own Syriac liturgy. During the next centuries up to the 20th century many Eastern, and even Oriental, Orthodox converted or, rather, entered into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, thereby establishing the Eastern Catholic Church under control of, but also liturgically and hierarchically separate from, the Holy See.
The Catholic-Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965 was read out on 7 December 1965 simultaneously at a public meeting of the Second Vatican Council in Rome and at a special ceremony in Constantinople. It addressed an exchange of excommunications between prominent ecclesiastics in the Roman see and the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1054. It did not end the East-West Schism but showed a desire for greater reconciliation between the two churches, represented by Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I.
May 7-May 9, 1999: invited by Teoctist, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Pope John Paul II visited Romania. It was the first visit of a Pope to an Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism. After the mass officiated in Izvor Park, Bucharest, the crowd (both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) chanted "Unity!". Despite Pope John Paul II didn't participate as officiant, but only assisted to the Orthodox liturgy officiated by the Romanian Patriarch, the Greek monks in Mount Athos refused to admit Romanian priests and hieromonks as co-officiants to their liturgies for a few years afterwards.
October 7-October 14, 2002: invited by Pope John Paul II, Teoctist, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, visited Vatican City.
On November 27, 2004, in an attempt to "promote Christian unity", Pope John Paul II returned the bones (relics) of Patriarchs John Chrysostom and Gregory the Theologian to Istanbul. Chrysostom's remains were taken as war booty from Constantinople by Crusaders in 1204, and many believe that Nazianzen's were taken then as well.
On May 29, 2005 in Bari, Italy, Pope Benedict XVI cited reconciliation as a commitment of his papacy, saying, "I want to repeat my willingness to assume as a fundamental commitment working to reconstitute the full and visible unity of all the followers of Christ, with all my energy."
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, together with other heads of self-governed Eastern Churches, were present at the funeral of Pope John Paul II on April 8, 2005. This is the first time for many centuries that an Ecumenical Patriarch has attended the funeral of a Pope and is considered by many a serious sign that dialogue towards reconciliation might have started.
Notes
See also
External links
- Byzantium: The Great Schism By Bp. Kallistos Ware
- Catholic Encyclopedia article, representing a Roman Catholic view
- In Our Time page with link to online talk
- OrthodoxWiki: Great Schism
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