Great Schism of the East

History

The schism originates in the concern of the Papauté of standardizing the rites in the southern part of the Italy, recently conquered by the Normands on the Byzantine . It runs up against the opposition of the patriarch of Constantinople, Michel Cérulaire (Keroularios), quite as concerned to standardize them in the field of the Patriarcat of Constantinople. The stone of obstacle is the use of the Pain azime (of which the paste was not raised) in Occident. Follows an awkward exchange of letters by which is raised the œcumenicity patriarchate of Constantinople, whereas the emperor Constantin IX is in favor of an alliance with Rome and wants to be reconciling.

The pope Leon IX sends to Constantinople the Légat S Humbert de Moyenmoûtier, Frederic of Lorraine (later pope under the name of Etienne IX) and Pierre d' Amalfi. Humbert and Michel Cérulaire are quite as likely one as the other. Michel Cérulaire expresses doubts on the validity of the mandate of the legates. The debate turns to the exchange of frankly abusive matter. Humbert raises the problem of the Filioque ( fili oque ). The July 16th 1054, Humbert and the legates deposit the bubble Excommunication of Michel on the furnace bridge of the cathedral Holy-Sophie, leave and shake the dust of their shoes. July 24th, the Synode permanent Byzantine retorts in anathémisant the legates. The pope is not blamed there. The business is not taken very with serious at the time, in spite of the excommunication, a few years of the emperor Alexis I {{er}} Comnène, moreover raised later by the pope Urbain II.

At the end of the 11th century, it is not question of schism. It is only at the 12th century that the things will be spoiled at the time of the Croisades. The reasons of this progressive rupture are to be sought so much side of the doctrinal and liturgical divergences which brooded between the two Churches since the 8th century, that side of the political competitions between the Western States, which start to continue and the Byzantine Empire, whose power declines at the 12th century. The event determining will be finally the bag of Constantinople by the Fourth crusade in 1204.

So far, each one claims to be the single Catholic church and the only orthodoxe one, denying this title with the other, qualified schismatic . Semantically one could say that the Western church indeed was " orthodoxe" before to have introduced in theology, liturgy and canon law, changes acumulés with the wire of the centuries (question of the " Filioque ", discipline of the Fast and Baptism without immersion among catholics, postulate of the Purgatory, absence of a épiclèse before the account of the institution, eucharistic Prayer of the catholic mass, sale of the Indulgences, ecclesiastical Celibacy and absence of barb in the clerks, Enquiry, infallibility of the Pope…), whereas the Eastern churches remained in conformity with the Symbole of Nicée-Constantinople (so much so that the orthodoxe word means: " conform to the dogma of origine" even in the laic sphere).

In spite of these not easily surmountable divergences, the relations partially slackened at the 20th century in an effort of oecumenism: the reciprocal anathemas were raised the December 7th 1965 by the pope Paul VI and the patriarch Athénagoras I {{er}}. But with the 21e century they were tightened again, with the policy of centring of the pope Benoît XVI, the retreat of the oecumenism and the irritation of the orthodoxe Rumanian and Slavic churches vis-a-vis the claims of the churches Uniates (these last claim to them the restitution of the buildings confiscated by the Communist regimes and given to the orthodoxe churches).

Account of the schism by John Julius Norwich ( History of Byzance )

" The resurgence of the quarrel (between the two Churches) was mainly the fact of the patriarch of Constantinople, Michel Cérulaire, poor theologist who had only one diagrammatic knowledge of the history of the Church. The argument burst at the time of the progression alarming at Norman in Italy of the South. In 1053, the pope Leon IX had in person ordered an army to fight them close to the small town of Civitate, but, overcome and imprisoned, it had returned to Rome to only die there. Michel Cérulaire detested pontifical supremacy, had inspired a document to be diffused with " all bishops of the Francs and with the worthy pope him-même" , which condemned some practical of the Roman Church violently, sullied with sin and Judaism. That leads to the sending by Leon of a delegation in Constantinople. Its unhappy composition consisted of its principal secretary, the cardinal Humbert de Mourmoutiers - a visceral anti-Greek with the narrow and limited spirit - accompanied by the Frederic cardinal of Lorraine (future pope Etienne IX) and by the archbishop Pierre d' Amalfi. The latter had fought in Civitate (against the Norman ones in 1053) and kept a bitter resentment against the Byzantines who had not come to fight, which they compared to a treason. The three prelates arrived at Constantinople in April 1054. The news arrived shortly after that the pope had died in Rome. Humbert and her colleagues, staff representatives of Leon, his death thus deprived them of any official statute. On the other hand, they, remained in Constantinople. Finally, Humbert lost patience. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, on Saturday, July 16, 1054, in the presence of all the clergy assembled for the eucharistie, the three ex-legates of Rome - two cardinals and an archbishop - entered Holy-Sophie and went up towards the furnace bridge on which they solemnly deposited a papal bubble which excommunicated the patriarch. They arose from the church, stopping only symbolically to withdraw the dust of their feet. Two days later, they left for Rome.

" Such is in short the continuation of events which led to a durable separation between churches of the East and Occident. The fatal blow was carried by the legates without being able of a dead pope who acted in the name of a decapitated Church since new sovereign pontiff had not been elected yet. Excommunications, as well Latin as Greek, were directed personally against the dignitaries in fault rather as against the Churches which they represented; no at the time was regarded as factor of a permanent schism. Theoretically, they were not it, indeed, since twice in two centuries the Church of the East had recognized the supremacy of Rome. But the jointly inflicted wound nine centuries ago with the Christian Church by the cardinal Humbert and the Cérulaire patriarch still bleeds aujourd'hui."

(Source: John Julius Norwich, History of Byzance , Tempus, Malesherbes 2005, p. 264-266.)

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