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Schism 1054: Causes of the Separation Between East and West

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redacteur-chretien-Benoit

Written by Benoît Santos - Updated on Oct 28, 2024

Summary :

    Are you looking for information about Schism 1054? You've come to the right place!

    Before telling you more about the causes of the separation between East and West, we would like to remind you that we post new articles on Christianity every week.

    If you want to learn more about the difference between the Catholic and Orthodox religions, here is an article that shares more information:

    And if you want to know the difference between the Catholic and Protestant religions, here is another article to discover just below:

    And without further ado, let's start reading the article! 🙏

    The Great Schism that Divided East and West

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    In 1054, Pope Leo IX sent an emissary , Cardinal Humbert, from Rome to Constantinople. The cardinal's visit to Patriarch Cerularius was supposed to be a conciliatory mission. It became anything but.

    The cardinal excommunicated the patriarch, who in turn excommunicated the cardinal. The main point of contention was the use of leavened bread in the celebration of Mass , according to MacMillan Publishing's

    While it is commonly accepted that the separation of Rome and Constantinople into two Christian churches was the result of centuries of conflict, the event has become known as the Great Schism of 1054. The schism, which reflected many long-standing tensions between the East and West of the Roman Empire, was perhaps inevitable. The church had remained united for centuries without resolving several theological conflicts. Political and cultural differences between East and West further fueled the separation.

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    The problems between the two Christian Churches

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    “The problems had been brewing for some time,” said Father William Saunders, president of the Notre Dame of Alexandria Institute. “There were conflicting centers of power with different cultural traditions.” Mediterranean civil centers became strongholds for the early Christian church. Disciples took their ministries to the population centers of the day. “Cities like Antioch, Rome and Alexandria attracted the apostles and became centers of evangelization ,” John Faris writes in

    The conversion of the Emperor Constantine provided the Church with a political superstructure within which it could flourish. The history of the Church after this event in some ways paralleled the history of the Roman Empire for the remainder of the millennium.

    When the sleepy fishing village of Byzantium was transformed into Constantinople - the "New Rome" - in 330, it also became a center of Christianity.

    The Church was soon organized into patriarchates. Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem became the official evangelical headquarters.

    In the 20th century, the modern locations of these ancient cities may seem like a short commuter flight from each other. To the people of the early Church's Mediterranean rim, they stretched from one end of the world to the other.

    Despite the political unity of the empire, the patriarchates represented distinct peoples and cultures. These distinctions became part of the universal Church .

    “Liturgy originated in the second, third and fourth centuries,” said Chorebishop Seely Beggiani of the Washington Maronite Seminary and a professor at Catholic University. “These liturgies reflect local cultures. They used different vestments, music and art. Even among different Eastern churches, there can be a lot of differences.”

    Constantinople, officially established as the political capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius in 395 , also became the most important of the Eastern patriarchates.

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    The liturgical tradition of Constantinople, known as the Byzantine Rite, is attributed to Saint John Chrysostom. Due to the importance of the city and subsequent missionary activity, the Byzantine Rite became widely practiced. In an attempt to maintain unity among the various developing traditions and to define Catholic doctrine , the idea of ​​the ecumenical council arose. The first seven councils ¾ all of which are still recognized as valid by the Catholic Church ¾ were held from 325 to 787.

    These proclamations of the early councils are also recognized by Christians of the Byzantine Rite. For Eastern churches not currently in communion with Rome, the proclamations of later councils are not recognized. Vatican II is the 21st ecumenical council of the Catholic Church . Although intended to promote unity, the councils raised issues that caused the first major splits in the Catholic Church. The Trinitarian doctrine of the first two councils was universally accepted. But at the Third Council, the theology of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople was condemned, causing a split and the development of a Nestorian Church separate from the Catholic Church.

    A more significant break occurred at the Fourth Council, held at Chalcedon in 451. The terminology concerning the dual nature of Christ - both divine and human - was rejected by many representatives of the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch and Armenia.

    Alexandria, established in Egypt by Alexander the Great in 331, accepted the liturgical rite developed by St. Mark, considered an adaptation of the Antiochian rite. The patriarchate had the apostolic charge of Egyptian and Ethiopian Christians. It was the first indigenous African church, 600 years before Islam.

    The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church: more information on the causes of the Schism 1054

    Many Alexandrian Rite Christians broke with the Catholic Church and became known as non-Chalcedonians. Cultural differences and "terminological misunderstandings" have aggravated the disagreement, according to the

    External pressures on the Roman Empire also weighed on Christian unity. After Muhammad's death in the seventh century, his followers launched a jihad "with the aim of conquering the entire world," according to Faris. Muslims quickly took control of three patriarchates - Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria - leaving Constantinople as the only unoccupied eastern patriarchate.

    The Western Empire faced repeated attacks from the north and eventually fell to the Barbarians. The papacy remained the dominant political entity in Rome. Subsequent popes exercised political authority, while the Byzantine patriarchs controlled only church affairs.

    This too was a cause of friction, as several patriarchs felt that the papacy had become overly important, according to Father Saunders.

    Continued invasions and the growth of the Islamic world further isolated Rome from Constantinople. Travel between the two cities was dangerous. For the Roman popes, contact with the developing cultures of Western Europe became more widespread than with the Eastern empire.

    The different orientations were reinforced by missionary activity . Constantinople had little access to Western Europe , but found Eastern Europe ripe for missionary work.

    Byzantine missionaries carried their liturgical rite to Slavic lands and as far north as Russia and Ukraine in the 10th century. Two of the most famous of these missionaries were Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Both brothers were sent from Constantinople when the prince of Great Moravia requested Christian missionaries from the Roman emperor .

    Although relations between Rome and Constantinople were strained, Saint Cyril sought and received papal approval to translate the Scriptures into vernacular languages ​​- the first such translations. In doing so, he discovered that the Greek alphabet was inadequate for the task, leading him to develop the Cyrillic alphabet.

    Missionary expansion was partly responsible for a temporary schism in the ninth century. From 861 to 867, Pope Nicholas I and Patriarch Photius excommunicated each other when they both tried to exert control over the nascent church in Bulgaria. It was also the Western insertion of the filioque, "and the Son," into the Nicene Creed. Ecclesiastical relations between Rome and Constantinople were restored, but the root of the problem - papal primacy - was never resolved between then and 1054. For Rome, it was a Roman Church, headed by a papacy established by Christ.

    Rome had been established as the chief patriarchate by the first ecumenical councils, but the Eastern patriarchs did not always recognize the authority of the pope in all matters. And after the 11th century, few Eastern Christians recognized this authority.

    The Byzantine or Orthodox Church emerged from the schism. It shared a common heritage and common doctrine, as outlined in the first seven ecumenical councils, but it was no longer aligned with the Roman Catholic Church .

    The Orthodox Church still exists in many forms today, but many Eastern Rite Christians are now in communion with the Pope. The series will continue next week with the reunification of these Eastern Rite Catholics into the Catholic Church .

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    2 comments

    Benoît

    Jan 9, 2024

    Bonjour,
    Le Grand Schisme de 1054, marquant la séparation entre l’orthodoxie et le catholicisme, est le résultat d’une évolution complexe sur plusieurs siècles, reflétant des différences théologiques, liturgiques, linguistiques, culturelles et politiques entre l’Est et l’Ouest. La rupture s’inscrit dans le contexte des tensions historiques entre Rome et Byzance, avec des divergences telles que la controverse sur le Filioque et les débats sur l’autorité papale. La barrière linguistique, le latin à l’ouest et le grec à l’est, a aussi joué un rôle clé dans la cristallisation de ces différences, conduisant à une scission formelle et durable entre l’Église catholique romaine et l’Église orthodoxe. J’espère que j’ai pu répondre à votre demande, soyez bénis 🙏

    ABER

    Jan 9, 2024

    Peut-on dire que ce shisme entre orthodoxie et catholicisme est une suite de Rome et Byzance ?

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