Difference between revisions of "Great Schism" - New World Encyclopedia
m (→Origins) |
|||
| Line 16: | Line 16: | ||
==Great Schism== | ==Great Schism== | ||
===Catalysts=== | ===Catalysts=== | ||
| − | + | Beside the above-mentioned general tendencies, there were many specific issues which caused tension between East and West. Some of these were: | |
| − | * [[Leo III the Isaurian]] outlawed the veneration of | + | *'''[[Iconoclasm]]'''.—The Eastern Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian]] (eighth century), responding in part the challenge of [[Islam]] in his domain, outlawed the veneration of [[icons]]. While many Orthodox bishops in the Byzantine Empire rejected this policy, some Eastern bishops cooperated with it, believing the Emperor to be God's agent on earth. The Popes—that is the bishops of Rome during this period—spoke out strongly both against the policy itself and against the Emperor's authority over the Church, a tradition which came to be known in the West as [[Caesaropapism]]. |
| − | * The | + | * '''The Filioque'''.—Traditionally, the [[Nicene Creed]] spoke of the [[Holy Spirit]] proceeding from the Father only, but the Western Church began using the ''[[filioque clause]]''—"and the Son"—an innovation rejected by the East and later declared by the Orthodox Church to be a [[heresy]]. |
| − | * Disputes in the [[Balkans]], Southern Italy, and [[Sicily]] over whether the Western or Eastern church had jurisdiction. | + | * '''Jurisdiction'''.—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'''—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 [[Patriarch]]s. | + | *'''''Primus Inter Pares'''''.—Disputes over whether the Patriarch of Rome, the [[Pope]], should be considered a higher authority than the other [[Patriarch]]s, or whether he should be considered merely ''primus inter pares''—"the first among equals." |
| − | * The | + | * The Eastern policy characterized in the West by the term [[Caesaropapism]], a tying together the ultimate political and religious authorities, which was much strong in the capital of [[Constantinople]] than in Rome, which eventually 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, | + | * Following the rise of [[Islam]] as a political force, the relative weakening of the influence of the patriarchs of [[Antioch]], [[Jerusalem]], and [[Alexandria]], resulting in Rome and Constantinople emerging as the two real power centers of Christendom, with often competing interests. |
| − | * | + | *'''Liturgical practices'''.—The East objected to Western changes in the liturgy, which it saw as innovations, such the use of unleavened bread for the [[Eucharist]] and the popularity of the western [[Athanasian Creed]], with its use of the ''filioque''. |
| − | * | + | *'''Clerical celibacy'''. The practice of celibacy began to be required for all clergy in the West, as opposed to the Eastern discipline whereby parish priests could be married if their marriage had taken place when they were still laymen. |
===Preliminary schisms=== | ===Preliminary schisms=== | ||
| − | + | Two temporary schisms between Rome and Constantinople anticipated the final Great Schism. The first of this, lasting from 482 to 519 CE is known in the West as the([[Patriarch Acacius of Constantinople|the Acacian Schism]]. It involved a conflict between Ecumenical Patriarch Acacius and Pope Felix III. Acacius advised the Byzantine emperor Zeno, in an effort to quell the [[Nestorianism|Nestorian]] heresy, to tolerate the [[Monophysitism|Monophysites]], thus ignoring the Chalcedonian formula in which both of these theological positions were condemned. Felix III condemned and "deposed" Acacius, although his decree had no practical effect on him. The schism lasted until well after Acasius' death, under the reigns of the Emperor [[Justin I]] and Pope [[Hormisdas]] in 519. | |
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | and for 13 years from 866-879 (see [[Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople]]). | ||
===Excommunications and final break=== | ===Excommunications and final break=== | ||
Revision as of 05:59, 8 December 2007
| Part of a series of articles on Christianity | ||||||
| ||||||
|
Foundations Bible Christian theology History and traditions
Topics in Christianity Important figures | ||||||
|
Christianity Portal | ||||||
The East-West Schism, or Great Schism, divided Chalcedonian Christianity into Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches, which then became the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church respectively. Dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was 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—and the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed by the Western Church. Eastern Orthodoxy today holds that the primacy of the Patriarch of Rome (the Pope) is one of honor only, and that he does not have the authority determine policy for other jurisdictions or to change the decisions of Ecumenical Councils. The filioque controversy has to do with a difference between the two churches on the doctrine of the Trinity; namely, whether the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from the Father alone (the Orthodox position) or from the Father and the Son (the Catholic position). 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 fully healed.
Origins
The Christian Church in the Roman Empire generally recognized the special positions of three bishops, known as patriarchs: the Bishop of Rome, the Bishop of Alexandria, and the Bishop of Antioch. These were joined by the Bishop of Constantinople and by the Bishop of Jerusalem, both confirmed as patriarchates by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The patriarchs held precedence over fellow bishops in their geographical areas. The Ecumenical Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon stated that the See of Constantinople should be ranked second among the patriarchates as the "New Rome." However, the Patriarch of Rome strongly disputed that point, arguing that the reason for Rome's primacy had never based on its location in the Imperial capital, but because of its bishop's position of the successor of St. Peter, the first-ranking among the Apostles.
Disunion in the Roman Empire contributed to tensions within 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 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.
Other factors caused the East and West to drift further apart. The dominant language of the West was Latin, while 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. The Eastern Church tended to be more mystically oriented, while the Western Church developed an effective administrative apparatus. The East greatly honored the Apostle John, while the West more strongly emphasized the role of Peter. The East used the Septugint Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, while the West accepted portions of the Hebrew text as well as portions of the Septuagint. The highly logical writings of Saint Augustine greatly influenced the West, but more mystically oriented writers tend to predominate in the East. In addition, from the time of Saint Ambrose onward, the West developed a more of a tradition of opposing the authority of the state, while the East, especially after the time of Justinian the Great, followed a doctrine of harmonia, in the the church was less likely to oppose the emperor. Although the Great Schism was still centuries away, its outlines were already perceptible.
Great Schism
Catalysts
Beside the above-mentioned general tendencies, there were many specific issues which caused tension between East and West. Some of these were:
- Iconoclasm.—The Eastern Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (eighth century), responding in part the challenge of Islam in his domain, outlawed the veneration of icons. While many Orthodox bishops in the Byzantine Empire rejected this policy, some Eastern bishops cooperated with it, believing the Emperor to be God's agent on earth. The Popes—that is the bishops of Rome during this period—spoke out strongly both against the policy itself and against the Emperor's authority over the Church, a tradition which came to be known in the West as Caesaropapism.
- The Filioque.—Traditionally, the Nicene Creed spoke of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father only, but the Western Church began using the filioque clause—"and the Son"—an innovation rejected by the East and later declared by the Orthodox Church to be a heresy.
- Jurisdiction.—Disputes in the Balkans, Southern Italy, and Sicily over whether the Western or Eastern church had jurisdiction.
- Ecumenical Patriarch—The designation of the Patriarch of Constantinople as Ecumenical Patriarch, which was understood by Rome as universal patriarch and therefore disputed.
- Primus Inter Pares.—Disputes over whether the Patriarch of Rome, the Pope, should be considered a higher authority than the other Patriarchs, or whether he should be considered merely primus inter pares—"the first among equals."
- The Eastern policy characterized in the West by the term Caesaropapism, a tying together the ultimate political and religious authorities, which was much strong in the capital of Constantinople than in Rome, which eventually ceased to be subject to the emperor's power.
- Following the rise of Islam as a political force, the relative weakening of the influence of the patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, resulting in Rome and Constantinople emerging as the two real power centers of Christendom, with often competing interests.
- Liturgical practices.—The East objected to Western changes in the liturgy, which it saw as innovations, such the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist and the popularity of the western Athanasian Creed, with its use of the filioque.
- Clerical celibacy. The practice of celibacy began to be required for all clergy in the West, as opposed to the Eastern discipline whereby parish priests could be married if their marriage had taken place when they were still laymen.
Preliminary schisms
Two temporary schisms between Rome and Constantinople anticipated the final Great Schism. The first of this, lasting from 482 to 519 C.E. is known in the West as the(the Acacian Schism. It involved a conflict between Ecumenical Patriarch Acacius and Pope Felix III. Acacius advised the Byzantine emperor Zeno, in an effort to quell the Nestorian heresy, to tolerate the Monophysites, thus ignoring the Chalcedonian formula in which both of these theological positions were condemned. Felix III condemned and "deposed" Acacius, although his decree had no practical effect on him. The schism lasted until well after Acasius' death, under the reigns of the Emperor Justin I and Pope Hormisdas in 519.
and for 13 years from 866-879 (see Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople).
Excommunications and final break
The direct causes of the Great Schism are, however, 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. This riled the patriarch Cerularius, who ordered the Latin churches of Constantinople to adopt Eastern usages and when they refused, he shut them down (although this piece of information is questionable for many historians today; it seems that several Latin churches were still open even years later). He 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, Cerularius 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 Cerularius, 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.[1]
When Pope Leo died on April 19,1054, the legates' authority legally ceased, but they did not seem to notice.[citation needed] 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 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 [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 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 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.
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. Between then and the 20th century, some Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches entered into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, thereby establishing the Eastern Catholic Churches as in full communion with, but liturgically and hierarchically distinguished 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 withdrew the exchange of excommunications between prominent ecclesiastics in the Roman see and the Ecumenical 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.[2] After the mass officiated in Izvor Park, Bucharest, the crowd (both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) chanted "Unity!" Despite the fact that Pope John Paul II did not participate as an officiant, but only assisted at the Orthodox liturgy officiated by the Romanian Patriarch, the Greek monks of Mount Athos refused to admit Romanian priests and hieromonks as co-officiants at their liturgies for a few years afterwards.[citation needed] Patriarch Teoctist visited Vatican City at the invitation of Pope John Paul from October 7–October 14, 2002.
On November 27, 2004, in an attempt to "promote Christian unity," Pope John Paul II returned the relics of two sainted Archbishops of Constantinople, John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul). The Orthodox believe the relics were stolen from Constantinople in 1204 by participants in the Fourth Crusade, an interpretation that Vatican spokesman Dr Joaquin Navarro Valls declared to be "historically inaccurate".[3]
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, together with Patriarchs and Archbishops of other Eastern Orthodox Churches, were present at the funeral of Pope John Paul II on 8 April 2005. Bartholomew sat in the first chair of honor. The special and increased role of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs in Pope John Paul's funeral along with the fact that this was the first time for many centuries that an Ecumenical Patriarch has attended the funeral of a Pope, was considered by many a serious sign that dialogue towards reconciliation might have started.
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."[4] Pope Benedict XVI was invited to visit Turkey in November 2006 by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I [2].
Archbishop Christodoulos, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on December 13, 2006. It was the first official visit by a head of the Church of Greece to the Vatican.
Notes
- ↑ Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. (1967) pg 102.
- ↑ See also John Paul II General Audience, 12 May 1999 - Reflection on the visit to Romania [1]
- ↑ Vatican returns saints' relics to Orthodox patriarch, faithful
- ↑ Pope Benedict's 1st Papal Trip CBS News, May 29, 2005
See also
- Western Christianity
- Eastern Christianity
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
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
