In AD 1054, the year of the Great Schism of the Christian Church, the Visigoths, the Franks, and other tribes had divided up the Western Roman Empire. However, the Eastern Roman Empire, later named the Byzantine Empire, remained united.
Over the centuries between the reign of Constantine I and the Schism, division gradually grew between the Eastern and Western Church. The two disagreed on theological matters and experienced political division when Theodosius separated the rule of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire in 395—just decades after Constantine I had unified the Empire. The East and West disagreed over seemingly small issues, such as requiring that clergymen wear beards, prohibiting marriage for clergymen, and the inclusion of a certain phrase in the Nicene Creed. They also celebrated Easter on different dates.
Underlying these practical issues was a fundamental difference in mindset between the Western and Eastern churches. Western Christians today—Protestants and Catholics—both emphasize the concept of a legal relationship between man and God: when man sins, man owes God payment for the wrong, and Jesus’ death pays this debt. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, stresses the idea of humans as image-bearers: when man sins, he mars the likeness of God, and salvation through Jesus restores this image.
This concept of images appeared throughout Eastern Orthodoxy in the church’s use of icons, pictures or statues of Jesus and the saints. These icons were considered holy manifestations of the people they represented. However, many Orthodox Christians began equating the images with those they represented, thus slipping into idolatry. Because of this, the Byzantine emperor Leo III led a movement called iconoclasm in the East in the mid-700s. Leo prohibited all images except the cross and ordered that all other icons in the church be destroyed. Western leaders, namely the Pope and Emperor Charlemagne, voiced their support of the use of icons, increasing the friction between East and West. Eventually, the East stopped using statues but continued using pictures, while the West retained both.
All these accumulating conflicts contributed to the East-West Schism, but the specific event often recognized as the culmination of the separation occurred in 1054. This climax was a dispute over the bread used in communion. The East used leavened bread, while the West chose unleavened. Pope Leo IX sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople to address the problem, but Constantinople’s church patriarch, Michael Cerularius, refused to meet him. This clash of personalities resulted in Humbert walking into the Hagia Sophia on July 16, 1054, and placing on the altar a document to excommunicate Cerularius. In response, Cerularius anathematized Humbert; at the time, anathematization was essentially a more severe form of excommunication. The mutual rejection endured for over 900 years until it was finally lifted in 1965. In 1453, Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, fell to Islamic Turks. With the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, a new hub of Eastern Orthodoxy emerged over the centuries: Moscow.
Division among God’s children has existed for millennia, hurting relationships and fracturing the body of Christ. However, this month as we celebrate the Messiah’s birth, we can remember that He descended to a condemned people as the one and only Savior, uniting all Christians into a single family.
Works Cited:
Cairns, Earle E. Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church. Third ed., Zondervan, 1996, pp. 196-198.
Dennis, George T. “1054 The East-West Schism.” Christian History, no. 28, 1990. Christian History Institute, christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/east-west-schism.
Gignac, Joseph. “Anathema.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, Robert Appleton Company, 1907. www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm. Accessed 28 Nov. 2021.
“Great Schism or East-West Schism part 1.” Khan Academy. www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/medieval-times/medieval/v/great-schism-or-east-west-schism-part-1. Accessed 18 Nov, 2021.
Shelley, Bruce L. Church History in Plain Language. Updated Third ed., Thomas Nelson, 2008, pp. 142-147.
Image Credits:
Akbas, Hasan. “Hagia Sophia.” Unsplash, 26 Sept. 2020, https://unsplash.com/photos/oibcDeiEYhY. Accessed 18 Nov. 2021.
Wodey, Adrien. “St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow, Russia.” Unsplash, 19 Dec. 2019, https://unsplash.com/photos/yjyWCNx0J1U. Accessed 18 Nov. 2021.