East–West Schism

The Eastern Schism, or Great Schism (Greek: Σχίσμα Λατίνων, "Latin Schism"; Latin Schisma Graecorum, "Greek Schism"), is the name given to the schism between the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church.

The date of the schism is commonly given as 1054, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Schism of 1054, when the papal legation around Humbert de Silva Candida and the Eastern church leadership around Patriarch Michael I of Constantinople excommunicated each other after failed negotiations over the position of the pope within Christendom and the closure of the Latin Church of Constantinople. Mutual relations, however, proved by this time to have been broken for some time due to political and theological differences (which had their origin in a gradual estrangement since the second century). This explains why, especially in the Eastern Church, the idea spread that not only individual persons were affected by the mutual excommunication, but Eastern and Western Christianity as such, although only a small circle of persons had excommunicated each other.

The papacy's attempt to settle the dispute through military aid against the invading Seljuks was to prove futile. Emotionally, the relationship between Rome and Constantinople, 150 years after the excommunication of 1054, was damaged above all by the events of the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was captured by the Venetians and Franks in 1204, plundered and a Latin empire together with a Latin patriarch was established. This made reconciliation considerably more difficult. In 1274 - at the Second Council of Lyons - and in 1439 - at the Council of Florence - in the face of acute threats, resolutions of reunification were passed, but in both cases these were rejected in their entirety by the Orthodox side, since the hierarchs involved were accused of exceeding their authority. The Union of Florence was finally rejected in 1484 by a Constantinopolitan Synod, and the rupture between the Patriarchates of the West and Constantinople was thus finally sealed.

From the second half of the 20th century onwards there was a certain rapprochement between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, which finally resulted in the simultaneous lifting of the excommunication of 1054 during the Second Vatican Council in 1965, by Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athinagoras.

Despite the great approval for the act of reconciliation in both communities, the Orthodox Church leaders to this day explicitly reject Eucharistic communion with the Catholics. Moreover, powerful voices in the Orthodox Church hinder the further rapprochement of the two communities, and in the meantime even the canonical significance of the annulment of the ban of 1965 has again been called into question.

Alienation between East and West

The so-called schism of 1054 was, so to speak, the culmination of a centuries-long estrangement between the Eastern and Western Churches, the beginnings of which can already be traced back to the first Christian centuries and which must by no means be understood as a straightforward process.

The weighting of the different elements that contributed to the estrangement between the Eastern and Western Churches has partly turned out very differently in the course of the centuries. While priestly marriage was long considered unproblematic in the West, it became a major point of contention with the Eastern Church in the course of church reform. The reverse was also true for the use of unleavened bread at the Eucharist. The following is a list of some of the most essential points of contention that were responsible for the increasing estrangement of the churches and the rupture of 1054.

Language

At the beginning of the estrangement was simply the fact that in the course of the first centuries in Rome and in the West in general it became less and less common to know the Greek language, which for centuries had been lingua franca (lingua franca) all around the Mediterranean. Mass was said in Latin rather than Greek in the West from 380 onwards. Thus theological exchange also diminished in the Church. Already in the fourth century there were only a few Western church fathers who knew Greek, such as Ambrose of Milan and Jerome - but the leading church teacher among the Latin speakers, Augustine of Hippo, was not among them. The highly educated Gregory I the Great, ambassador to Constantinople in the 6th century, also spoke Greek poorly.

Conversely, the Greek patriarchs and emperors from the early Middle Ages onwards generally did not know Latin and also completely refused to learn what they saw as a "barbaric language". In reaction to the multiplication of such "invective on the Latin language" by the Greeks, Nicholas I wrote an angry letter to Michael III in 865, reminding the emperor "how ridiculous it is that you call yourself 'Roman Emperor' when you know nothing of the Roman language".

Culture

Cultural differences, as well as different intellectual values and attitudes, also contributed to the estrangement between East and West. The Greeks saw Romans as uneducated and barbaric, while the Romans saw Greeks as arrogant, stuck-up, and pointed.

Already the III Canon of the first Council of Nicaea at the beginning of the 4th century expressly forbade the cohabitation of a priest with a woman. In the East, however, this provision was again relativized by the Trullanic Synod, which again allowed Eastern priests to live with a woman in the late 7th century. In the West, on the other hand, these early Christian celibacy provisions were simply disregarded, losing their effect as a matter of common law. One confined oneself to punishing second and third marriages as well as marriages not in keeping with one's status. Thus it came about that at the beginning of the 11th century almost all priests in the West were married or living in concubinage. From the 10th century onwards, in the course of the Cluniac reform, voices were increasingly raised in the West calling for a "renewal" of celibacy, but the first measures were not taken until the beginning of the 11th century in the course of church reform.

Theology

In theology the two churches soon developed different emphases, which at first cross-fertilized each other, but then contributed to alienation because of less exchange.

In the East, generally valid decisions could as a rule only be made by an ecumenical council, which moreover had to find general approval among the people. In the West, on the other hand, the Bishop of Rome held a special position from early on. The Eastern Churches, which had long traditionally given precedence of honour to the Bishop of Rome, had no problem with this monarchical position as long as it was confined to the West, i.e. to the Roman Patriarchate. In the course of church reform, however, the Bishop of Rome came more and more to the view that his authority extended not only to the West, but to the entire Church as such, which inevitably had to lead to conflict with the Eastern Church.

At the beginning of the 11th century the Filioque addition was magisterially inserted into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The addition to the Great Creed had been in use in the Frankish Church since the early 9th century, and the idea that the Holy Spirit came from the Father and the Son was also found in the Athanasianum, yet as late as the end of the 9th century, in connection with the condemnations associated with the appointment of Photios as Patriarch of Constantinople, all changes to the Great Creed had been declared invalid by the Pope. The about-face of the West with regard to the handling of the Filioque around 1013 could no longer be interpreted as a mutual complement and was soon to lead to a bitterly fought conflict.

Besides this, there had been different developments in other matters as well. There were different regulations concerning fasting, and in the West from the 9th century onwards, as before in the Old Oriental Armenian churches, the use of unleavened bread as opposed to leavened bread at the Eucharist began to prevail. The reason for this is largely due to the view of the Franks that certain elements of the old covenant still held some validity after Christ fulfilled the law (Mt 5:17 EU). The use of unleavened bread by the Latins was long considered unproblematic by the Greeks. It was not until the 11th century that the different matter of sacrifice was stylized into a theological issue of contention for political reasons.

Political development

Due to the transfer of the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330 and especially due to the fall of Western Rome, very different political constellations arose. In the East there was the emperor as the political center of power and in the Church several patriarchs of similar rank.

In the West, on the other hand, there was for centuries no longer any central political power, but only quarrelling local princes and an ecclesiastical patriarch (the Roman pope), who was able to guarantee stability and continuity to a certain extent and thus in the course of time became a central authority - and who from this situation also had to engage himself politically vis-à-vis the local princes.

The political element in the understanding of office became even stronger when the Pope was made the secular ruler of the Papal States by the Frankish King Pippin and thus saw himself more and more in the role of a secular ruler.

In the West, when Pippin's son Charlemagne was crowned emperor by Leo III on December 25, 800, because both considered the Byzantine imperial throne vacant during Irene's reign, it was another break with the East. The Greeks, politicians and clerics as well as ordinary citizens, were appalled that the Roman bishop arbitrarily crowned a "barbarian prince" as Roman emperor, as if the Roman emperor no longer existed in Constantinople - in their view, this was treason against the state and the church.

Mosaic of the Ark of the Covenant from the Carolingian Theodulfs Chapel of Germigny-des-Prés from the early 9th century. It is an exceptional testimony to the spirit of the Franks at that time.

Development of the schism

The break of 1054

Previous story

Long before the rupture of 1054, there had already been repeated serious upheavals between the Eastern and Western Churches. The so-called Photios Schism, which lasted from 863 to 867, can be regarded as particularly drastic, which for the first time completely revealed the deep rift that had opened up in the course of the centuries between the Eastern and the Western Church. After the abolition of the schism, the points of contention, which were still present and basically completely unresolved, were again pushed into the background before they were brought to the fore again for political reasons in the 11th century.

From the 11th century onwards, the reform papacy made increasing efforts to assert its increased understanding of primacy vis-à-vis the emperor, but also vis-à-vis the Eastern Church. Pope Leo IX's renewed attempt to demand ecclesiastical supremacy over those Byzantine territories in southern Italy that had been lost to him in the 8th century in exchange for a joint anti-Norman military campaign with the Byzantine authorities of southern Italy should also be understood in this context.

In addition, there was now also an increasing tendency to emphasize the complete impossibility of a papal or Catholic error, and to regard those forces within the Eastern Church that rejected the Roman Church's claim to leadership no longer merely as schismatics, but even as heretics.

Among members of the high Byzantine clergy, the increased understanding of primacy of the reform papacy met with strong rejection quite early on. They also reacted sensitively to the alliance between the basileus and the pope to combat the "Norman plague", because they feared the consequences for church policy. At first, however, the Byzantine church leaders kept in the background and only tried to delay negotiations about further action in southern Italy and to bring them to a halt by accusations against the governor of southern Italy, until in 1052 or 1053 they decided to take a more offensive approach.

The Latin church of Constantinople was closed and Latin worship was forbidden. The pretext given for the closure was the use by the Latins of the wrong sacrificial material, namely unleavened bread instead of leavened. The Latins were accused of following "Mosaic relics," and in consequence even sometimes denied to be true Christians. The latter accusation even led Michael Kerularios, Patriarch of Constantinople, to the necessity of a new baptism of the Latins.

History of the rupture of 1054

Due to the preceding events, the climate between the Latin legation led by Hubert of Silva Candida, a convinced advocate of church reform, and the Byzantine church leaders was extremely tense when they arrived in Constantinople in the spring of 1054. The pope, having suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Normans, was in principle interested in an amicable solution to the conflict, but made an understanding conditional on the Greeks recognizing the Latin Eucharist as valid. However, the Greeks were not prepared to do this. Instead, at the convened synod, the legation was confronted with a list-like compilation of "Latin errors". Among other things, the Latins were accused of using the wrong sacrificial material and of improperly altering the Creed by inserting the "Filioque." Furthermore, the Greeks took offence at the beardlessness of the Latin priests, the depiction of the crucifixion in sculptural works and the prohibition of priestly marriage.

In response to the deadlocked negotiations, the envoys laid a bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia on July 16, 1054. In the banns, the Greek church leaders were reviled as heretics, accused of simony, and excommunicated as a result of the accusations. It also condemned the (ahistorical) "erasure of the Filioque" from the Greek Creed, the permitting of priestly marriages, and the rebaptism of Latins in the wake of the closure of the Latin Church of Constantinople. The accusation of allowing priestly marriages in particular proved to be less than diplomatic, since it "encouraged the solidarization of the Greek clergy with Kerularios".

On July 21, 1054, the counter-banishment of the Latin envoys by the Greek church leaders took place in the course of a synod convened especially for this purpose. The patriarch had previously succeeded in creating the impression among the people that the Latins had banned not only the church leaders, but all of Eastern Christendom. The pope was not excommunicated at the synod, since his death was apparently already known to the Greek church leaders.

Direct consequences of the so-called schism

The so-called "Schism of 1054" found little resonance throughout Christendom. The people of the Church took hardly any notice of it, and even most of the contemporary chroniclers, Greek as well as Latin, the event was worth only a marginal note in their works.

Nevertheless, as a result of the so-called schism, the church leadership in Constantinople became more and more convinced that from now on they would be "separated from each other". Already around 1089 there was apparently the view among the church leadership of the whole Eastern Church that there had been a real break in 1054, in which not only some individuals had excommunicated each other, but the Western and Eastern Church as such, general consensus. The Western Church did not share this view, but in the aftermath of the 1054 rupture made efforts to counteract the alienation from the Eastern Church and to dispel doubts about the unity with the Eastern Church, which, however, did not succeed due to a simultaneous intensified push for the recognition of the papal primacy.

In 1095, Pope Urban II attempted to bring about an ecclesiastical peace with the Eastern Church through Latin military aid against the Seljuks, who had invaded deep into the Byzantine heartland a few years earlier. Although the military action was a complete success, tensions between the Latins and the Greeks continued to increase as a result, as the leaders of what would later be called the "First Crusade" broke all of their previously made promises to the Byzantine Empire without exception after the military action ended.

The Deepening of the Trench - The Fourth Crusade

Causes and circumstances

At the beginning of the 13th century is the controversial and much debated among historians event of the 4th Crusade. A Frankish-Venetian crusade, which seems to have been originally directed against Egypt or Palestine, was diverted by its leaders to Constantinople due to lack of funds.

Under pressure from the Latins, the Byzantine prince Alexios, whom they supported and who had previously held out the prospect of rich material rewards and church union for their services, was proclaimed co-emperor in Constantinople in 1203.

The Greek clergy reacted to the plans of an ecclesiastical union, which of course would have required the recognition of the papal primacy, with strong rejection and contempt. Thus, in 1203, the bishop of Corfu sarcastically commented on the matter: "He knew of no other reason for the primacy [...] of the Roman episcopate except that it was Roman soldiers who crucified Christ."

Since the Greeks failed to pay the Crusaders for their services, the Latins stormed the city on April 12, 1204 and set fire to it. The morning after storming the city, they began looting the city's palaces and residences, as well as its churches and monasteries. After the city had been extensively looted and robbed of its relics and art treasures, the emperor of the newly founded "Latin Empire", Balduin I, was crowned in the Hagia Sophia on 16 May 1204.

Consequences of the Excess for the Relationship between Eastern and Western Churches

Shortly after the sack of Constantinople, Pope Innocent III, who had forbidden the Latins to raise their swords against Christians even before the sack of the city, remarked to Boniface of Montferrat, a leader of the 4th Crusade, "that the Church of the Greeks [...] refuses to return to obedience to the Apostolic See, [for] she has seen in the Latins nothing but examples of corruption and works of darkness."

From the time of the sack of Constantinople and the founding of the Latin Empire, the rupture between the Eastern and Western Churches was no longer, for the common people, a mere dispute between theologians over matters that could seem almost like quibbles to a layman, but a bitter reality. The schism of 1054 had "become final" by the events of 1204. Even an emphatically preferential treatment of the Greek bishops in the areas occupied by the Latins could not change that.

The weight of the strong aversion of the common people against the Latins was also shown by the fact that later medieval efforts at union failed because of the resistance of the Greek church people. From now on it was no longer possible to bring the Orthodox Eastern Church under Roman sovereignty on the terms of the Latins.

The Latins conquer Constantinople. Mosaic from the early 13th century.


Pope Leo IX drawing in an 11th century manuscript.