Orthodoxy or orthodoxe Christianity forms the historical section of the primitive Christianisme. It is organized in many territorial Churches (and not main roads) which form the “ orthodoxe Église together ” or “ orthodoxe Communion ”. Until the Great schism of the East of 1054, the Churches of occident also were orthodoxe, i.e. faithful to the theology of the councils of the first Christian millenium and to the canon law which results from this.

The orthodoxe Churches were born or founded in the antique zone of Greek culture, i.e. in the Eastern zone of the basin of the the Mediterranean. This group of Churches shares a comprehension, a teaching and offices of a great similarity with a strong feeling to regard the ones the others as the parts of only one Church. The Bible and the Liturgie are read in the current or old national languages.

The orthodoxe Churches represent in the world the second greater confession Christian of many faithful after the Roman Catholic church.

Definitions

Name " Church orthodoxe" can indicate several different realities, at least three.

1. The orthodoxe Church

The orthodoxe Church (= orthodoxe Communion) is first of all the official name of a body connected with the church rested by the apostles and organized by the Fathers of the Church, their successors since the first times of Christianity. The supreme authority of this Communion is the council ecumenical, alone ability to decide dogmatic formulations. The authority immediately below is the synod of the primacies which meets for asresser at the other Christian communities. Then the 14 directed Churches autocéphales come each one by a synod chaired by the primacy. The orthodoxe Church is thus the whole of the Églises of the seven councils which are in communion the ones with the others. The communion is materialized several manners and in particular by the eucharistic community, the communion of faith and by the concélébrations of the members of the clergy, by the Diptyques and the honorary order of each Church autocéphales (see Liste of the orthodoxe Churches)

2. The orthodoxe Christianity

The orthodoxe Christianisme (= Orthodoxy, Churches of the seven councils) is sometimes confused with the orthodoxe Church. This confusion leaves the erroneous principle that the fourteen orthodoxe Churches would be completely independent from/to each other and does not constituraient a single body. There would not be a Church but simple a orthodoxe cultural community . What is false. In the desired absence of an absolute chief (which could be only Christ himself) and of centralized administration, it is the communion of faith which prevails and which forms the body of Christ.

3. Any nonplain Eastern Church in Rome

Any nonplain Eastern Church in Rome is sometimes described as orthodoxe Church. Name means only one situation compared to the Roman Catholic church; it indeed gathers three confessions different :

To recognize itself more easily in the various theological orientations which gave them birth, of the tables were created presented under the following bonds:

1. Churches of the two councils, the Assyrian Church sometimes known as nestorienne

2. Churches of the three councils or communion monophysite, called so pre-chalcédonienne.
3. Churches of the seven councils or Orthodoxe Church in a strict sense, still called Orthodoxe Catholic church.

These official expressions as far as technical refer to the councils christologic whose they accept the conclusions. See catholic Dogmas.

Institution of the orthodoxe Church

Jesus-Christ announces in advance the foundation of her Church by using an architectural metaphor " I will build my Église" (Chechmate 16,13-20).

Basic principles

The bishop is successor of the apostles

The orthodoxe Church is included/understood like the Christian Church “of the origins”, " one, holy, catholic and apostolique". Thus, all the other Churches (or confessions), including the roman catholic, are her members or potentially its members, even if separations could, temporarily or durably, to prevent the communion. An orthodoxe Church designs also all the Christians residing in his canonical territory as concerning its pastoral responsibility even if some of them do not recognize it like their spiritual fatherland. She thus sees with more or less surprise the many evangelic confessions, to open on her own sector of the parallel Churches. This surprise also appears for the catholic evangelization fitting in orthodoxe medium. In certain countries, a strong incomprehension reigns. The divergence between the orthodoxe Church and the Roman Catholic church lies in the fact that the orthodoxe ones, according to their interpretations of the precepts of Christ and of her apostles, do not include/understand the need for the primacy of a bishop on the others and invested of a mission for the world Church. Papacy, not like archbishop's palace of Rome or patriarchate of Occident, but like world super-diocese, constitutes an obstacle with the meeting with the Church of Rome which formerly formed part of the concert of the orthodoxe Churches. For the orthodoxe ones, it is in the apostolic collegial structure that the traditional confession of the single royalty of Christ resides only. The bishop is the icon of Christ and it is only in communion with his/her colleagues in the episcopate that it can speak in the name of the Verb (Christ).

canonical territory which opposes the Russian Churches and the Roman Church and the laws in Ukraine which prohibit the evangelic churches. Also modification of the system of diary with the C.OE.E which prohibits that one puts at the debate the questions which annoy. I do not on the dates by heart. As long as I do not on the dates, I leave only the passage for memory. In the same way on the brêve history, it would have been preferable to put brackets of comment or to bring into service “to-C” message --> The episcopate is thus more the high ranking of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The bishop has the plenitude of Christian priesthood indeed, it is in that an image of Christ, the only large priest and only sacrificator of the New Alliance. Each bishop is successor of the whole of the twelve Apôtre S and this succession is materialized by the apostolic Succession, the fact that any bishop is devoted by bishops themselves devoted by lines of bishops who go up, through the centuries, to an apostle.

And this reality sacramental, inherent in episcopal dignity, the orthodoxe Church does not confuse it with the various honorary uses intended to point out the seniority and the apostolic origin of such or such particular Church. It is said indeed that the pope of Rome or that of Alexandria are successors respectively of Pierre or Marc, that the bishop of Antioche is also successor of Pierre: they are complimentary closes, historical memories, certainly important, but which do not remove anything with dignity of the other bishops. The orthodoxe Church conforms on this point to the recommendations of saint Gregoire Ier, pope of Rome, which was afraid that a grandiloquent episcopal title amounts insulating a bishop and to lower the prerogatives of the other bishops (Book V, letter 8).

Territoriality of the Church

The first council ecumenical, that of Nicée I, affirmed this principle already largely applied since the apostles, that in a given place, a bishop and only one, is guaranteeing at the same time of the unit and the communion of all the Christians of the place as well as unit and communion with the Churches of the other places. Each local Church, gathered around its bishop, is in communion with the Churches of the other places. It is in the name of this principle that the orthodoxe Churches are not ethnic but territorial and that the titulatures of the bishops do not return to people but to places. There is no Finnish Church but a Église of Finland which gathers orthodoxe place which they are Finnois, Russian or Swedish.

This principle puts up traditionally with three exceptions, tolerable because minor and very particular:

• the statute of extraterritoriality of métochions (dependences) monasteries,
• the statute of Stavropigie of certain monasteries (free),
• the statute of extraterritoriality of the exarcats (representations of certain primacies in big cities concerned with the jurisdiction of another primacy).

This principle knows several important distorsions also nowadays.

• Since the beginning of the 20th century, because of the conflicts and the ideological upheavals, several Churches founded parallel parishes then évêchés " superposés" in countries which are not traditionally orthodoxe, i.e. in the diaspora (Western Europe, Americas, South Asia and of the East, Australia and Oceania). It is the case of the quasi totality of the Russians who fled the revolution Bolshevik. Africa has escaped with this scattering because the patriarch of Alexandria is well identified there like the primacy of the place.
• Since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1990, the phenomenon extended to some countries from Eastern Europe (Baltic States, Moldavie, Ukraine) or the old jurisdictional memberships were disputed.

With these parishes which, in the same city, concern here a bishop and there another and another Church autocéphale, the orthodoxe Church is confronted with a true challenge. Or it will solidify in a situation of contradiction compared to its principles founders, or it will have courage to make live the tradition which is his to find solutions acceptable and adapted to the various pastoral situations.

Collegial structure and the tradition

" Where two or three are joined together on my behalf, said the Lord, I am in the middle of eux". The rule, in the orthodoxe Church, is nothing to decide all alone and always to take the opinion of its pars and to decide with them: " the Saint Spirit and we decided that… " For this reason the orthodoxe Church cannot accept that the pope of Rome left the college episcopal and isolated as solitary chief, the collegial structure is a guarantee nonsufficient but necessary of orthodoxy. Pursuant to this same principle, one time, if enlightened that it can be believed, does not have to act and decide without putting itself in harmony with the previous times: it is the principle of tradition which governs all the life of the orthodoxe Church.

The harmony between temporal power and spiritual power

One reproached the Church Byzantine Empire much for being submitted to the emperor. Admittedly the emperors constantly designated the patriarchs of Constantinople and other bishops. Admittedly they regularly exerted pressures on the Church. Nothing of all that was unknown in Occident. What is remarkable in the Byzantine history it is the formidable resistance of the Church. Each time the emperors sought to attack the essential doctrines of the Church, they ran up against opponents and even against martyrs: Iconoclasme, attempts to proclaim martyr any dead soldier with the combat, fourth marriage of Leon VI Wise etc the titles and the honors from which profit the emperor match of a condition of size: fidelity with the tradition.

In Occident, resistance was neither also strong, nor also constant. From the Byzantine point of view, the quarrel of the nominations does not touch a vital point of the doctrines of the hello. On the other hand, when Charlemagne decided to modify the creed by the addition of the word Filioque , only the pope resisted truly. And papacy, at the time member of the orthodoxe Church, resisted during three centuries. But it is finally Charlemagne which was right at the time of the election of a pope in rupture of tradition with its predecessors and entirely acquired with the Carolingian doctrines.

The harmony enters the monastic tradition and the secular life

Balance between the acrivie and the economy

The organization

The orthodoxe Church is a communion of Churches independent in the field of the organization and the discipline and closely dependant between them on the dogmatic level. Each one of them is autocéphale, i.e. directed by its own synod entitled to choose its primacy. They divide a whole a common faith, common principles of policy and organization nuns as well as a common liturgical tradition. In addition to the languages employed at the time of the worship, only from the minor traditions differ according to the countries. The bishops primacy with the head of these autonomous Churches can be called patriarchs or archbishops. These primacies chair the episcopal synods which, in each Church, constitute the authority canonical, doctrinal and administrative highest. There exists, between the various orthodoxe Churches, an honorary hierarchy, given according to the history rather than by their current numerical force.

Ordinations and priesthood

The sacrament of the order comprises three stages. The first stage is the diaconate, the second the presbytérat and the third the episcopate. The bishops are selected among the monks, while priests and deacons can be married before being ordered but cannot marry once ordered.

The patriarch, the archbishop primacy or the métropolite like primus inter pares , president the assemblies of bishops, then come the bishops (of the Greek episkopos , i.e. supervisor, inspector), priests (of the Greek presbyteros , old), finally the deacons (Greek. diakonos , i.e assistance or assistant).

The hierarchy counts also ordered sub-deacons, readers, cantors readers or without specific sacrament and particular obligation of discipline. These offices draw their origin from the primitive liturgies; and those which received these orders exert other functions partly that those suggested by their name. The deaconesses also belong to the group of the services without ordination but with special blessing of the bishop. They are mainly qualified for the preparation of the baptism of the women; their role however became unimportant with the acceptance of the baptisms of adults, so that they disappear completely as of the end from the Byzantine Empire. The deaconesses never took part in the office and cannot be regarded as a “female diaconate”.

Contrary to the Western Churches, in the orthodoxe Churches the majority of theologies are traditional and teaching is mainly, between the hands of the Churches; one meets also many laic theologists and, conversely, the majority of the priests are not theologists.

One does not order the women and one does not admit the young girls with the service of furnace bridge. The woman of the priest has a particular position in the community and a specific title:

• in Arabic khouria (female of a hellenism kyrios , “lord”),
• in Greek will presbytera (“priestess”, oldest),
• in Russian matuschka (“mom”).

Excluded from the service of the furnace bridge, the women can, in theory, exert many functions in the community, i.e elected with the council of church, chief of chorus, catechist for the children as for the adults, painter of icons. The participation of the women in the Community life is however different according to the local culture.

Ecumenical councils

See also: List of the ecumenical councils

The synod of the primacies

In certain occasions, the orthodoxe primacies meet. It is the case in particular when it is advisable to affirm an orthodoxe position vis-a-vis the other Christian confessions. It was the case in 1848. The orthodoxe patriarchs wrote an encyclical warning Roman papacy against its project of dogma on " infallibility pontificale"

The Churches autocéphales and autonomous

The Churches autocéphales , from a legal and spiritual point of view, are completely independent and choose their own primacy. They can be competent on other Churches, known as only autonomous because they do not only appoint their primacy.

Because of its radiation or of its historical importance, a Church autocéphale can carry the title of Patriarcat or Archevêché; it is then directed respectively by a patriarch or an archbishop. With the head of an autonomous Church, an archbishop exerts.

The Churches and Russian orthodoxe religious communities (of the 7 councils) in France and rule general in the diaspora depend according to the cases, of the patriarchate of Moscow or that of Constantinople. The Church Russian out-border (or synodal Russian) or the patriarchate of Kiev constitutes dissidences of the Russian Church which are not recognized by the whole of the other Churches of the orthodoxe communion.

In the orthodoxe Churches, all the bishops are juridically and spiritually equal: a patriarch, an archbishop or a métropolite do not have more authority nor of jurisdictional right that any other bishop in the canonical territory of a nearby bishop. They direct however collégialement with the bishops of the synod, carrying the title of primus inter pares (“first between the equal ones”) and they represent the Church outside.
The resolutions engaging a whole Church can be taken only by the community of the bishops at the time of a Concile or a Synode. In his diocese, each bishop exerts the full and whole episcopal jurisdiction.

• See List of the orthodoxe Churches in plenary communion,

• See Organization of the orthodoxe Church in Greece
• For the other jurisdictions, to see List of the orthodoxe churches

Spirituality

Sacrament

The orthodoxe Churches know seven sacraments (although the notion of the 7 sacraments is very late), more exactly named mysteries

• baptism,

• the chrismation (which succeeds the baptism immediately),
• the eucharistie (given the first time also directly after the baptism), the Saints Gifts
• the confession (reconciliation or forgiveness),
• ordination,
• the marriage
• sacrament of the patients - oiling of the patients (is not reserved for dying)

The 7 sacraments were taken again by the Catholic church, but in the orthodoxe Church, they are not fixed dogmatically as that occurred in the Catholic church at the time of the Reform (16th century). Thus, the delimitation is not clear between sacrament and sacramentality (p. e.g. a burial or an undulation).

Contrary to the majority of the religions of the world, the orthodoxe Churches do not celebrate any ritual of transition from the child to the adult; but much of local traditions are practiced by young people and came out from this type of celebration: in Greece, for example, to plunge in a river or the sea and to bring back of them the cross which the priest threw there at the time of the celebration of the Baptême of Christ , on January 6th.

Orthodoxy is the continuity of the primitive Christian Church.

(This sentence does not have much direction. Orthodoxy is a virtue exerted by individuals, the faith, the Church is an institution gathering the aforementioned individuals, including if their faith is not expressed explicit manner. The expression " faith of Eglise" is, in a certain direction, absurdity.)

Liturgy

• the heart of orthodoxe spirituality is rich, mainly in the song of the liturgy strongly symbolic system, of which the current form, at least partially, enracine in the time constantinienne 4th century.
• the first part of the liturgy, called Liturgy of the catechumens with prayer and readings biblical referred with the worship synagogal, such as Jesus had to know it; the second part, the Liturgie of faithful the celebrates the eucharistie, is of properly Christian origin. The name of each part refers to time when all the not yet baptized candidates were to leave the church after the first part and where the doors with key were closed.

• the original liturgy lasts five hours, the liturgy basilienne lasts approximately two hours, the liturgy of Jean Chrysostome lasts approximately only one hour and half and it is that which is celebrated the majority of Sundays while, for certain occasions (Sundays of the large Lent, celebrates of Basile saint) the typicon envisages the liturgy of saint Basile.

With the orthros (crossbred), the early hours, the prayers before and after the communion, the Sunday office can last three hours, or more the feastdays. Moreover, the use of the agrypnie or night vigil was preserved, not only for Easter, as in Occident, but also for other festivals and in particular for the employers', votive festivals or panégyrie. In certain large monasteries, the celebration of the employers' festival can last all during the night. So all the faithful ones do not remain beginning at the end of the celebrations. The frequent Antienne Kyrie eleison is typical as well ( Seigneur, take pity ) liturgical prayer as individual prayer.

• the song develops a particular importance in the orthodoxe Russian liturgy. They are included/understood like Prière with whole share; they should thus be “produced” only by the human voices. The use of the instruments is not allowed in the orthodoxe Russian Churches because the instruments cannot request.

In the other orthodoxe Churches, the instrumental music is rare. A theory, considering this aversion against the instrumental music, brings it closer to the usual orchestras in the Roman Circus games; the Christians consider the circus games, in which they were sometimes the victims, like a Culte idolâtre.

In the orthodoxe liturgy, one signs oneself each time the Trinité is mentioned. The sign of cross is practiced according to a movement from right to left: face, chest, right shoulder, left shoulder. The inch, the index and the major one are dependant to represent the trinity, while the annular one and the auricular one is folded up in the palm to mean the double nature . One also signs oneself by admiring an icon with or without prayer and in innumerable other occasions, left with the discretion of the believer.

The faithful one is, in theory, upright with the office; many churches have seats only along the walls for the elderly or weakened. The position with knees is not very frequent; Sunday, one knows some great prostrations similar to those of the Islam in the Churches of central Europe or Egypt.

Calendar

Certain orthodoxe churches did not adopt the reform of the calendar initiated by the catholic pope Gregoire XIII in 1582. They thus use still the Calendrier Julien. For the members of these churches (Jerusalem, Russia, Georgia, Serbia, Athos mount) the dates of religious holidays are consequently shifted compared to those of the other Christians, and compared to the civil calendar, which is the Gregorian Calendrier everywhere. These orthodoxe celebrates Christmas well the December 25th but their festival falls the January 7th from the civil calendar (before 1900, it fell the January 6th).

The date of Easter is however common to all the orthodoxe Churches (except for the autonomous Church of Finland) because it is fixed everywhere starting from the Julien calendar. This way of calculating generates variable variations with the date determined by the Gregorian calendar: certain years the date is the same one, other years it can have there a week or even five weeks of difference (Easter fall in April or May for the orthodoxe ones, never in March).

Liturgical festivals

The liturgical day begins the " veille" at the evening, laying down sun, in accordance with the Semitic use. It thus includes/understands a night of day before and a day in accordance with the account of the Genesis " It was one evening, it was one morning, first jour".

The festivals are distributed as follows: *Une Festival of the festivals, Solemnity of solemnities:

• which includes/understands the day of Easter , inaugurating the week of the Revival and the Pascal time which lasts in all forty days.

*Douze large fêtes' often represented on the walls of the churches:

• Nativity of the Very Holy Mother of God (September 8th).
• Exaltation of the Very Holy Cross (September 14th).
• Presentation of the Very Holy Mother of God to the Temple (November 21st).
• Nativity of the Lord (December 25th).
• Baptism of Christ or Théophanie (January 6th).
• Presentation of Christ to the Temple or Candlemas (February 2nd).
• Annunciation (March 25th).
• Entered of Christ to Jerusalem or Branches (one week before Easter).
• Rise of the Lord (40 days after Easter).
• Pentecost (50 days after Easter)
• Transfiguration of Christ on the mount Thabor (August 6th)
• Dormition of the Very Holy Mother of God (August 15th).

*Autres important festivals :

• liturgical New year, prayer for the safeguard of creation (September 1st).
• Protection of the Very Holy Mother of God (October 1st, in Greece 28).
• Holy archangels (November 8th).
• Saint Nicolas (December 6th).
• Holy Basile the Large one and Circumcision of the Lord (January 1st).
• Three S. Doctors, Basile, Jean Chrysostome and Gregoire T. (January 30th).
• Triumph of Orthodoxy (First Sunday of the Large Lent).
• Resurrection of Lazare (Saturday takes care of the Branches).
• Great Week (Holy Week between Branches and Easter).
• Nativity of saint Jean Baptist (June 24th).
• Holy apostles Pierre and Paul (June 29th).
• Decapitation of saint Jean Baptist (August 29th, day of fast).
• Other festivals,

to see Sunday, List of the saints of the orthodoxe Church

*Jours of fast :

• Lent of Christmas (40 days from November 15th to December 24th).
• day before Théophanie (January 5th).
• the Large Lent (40 days of pure Monday with before Branch day before).
• Holy Week (of Saturday takes care of the Branches of the Easter Saturday).
• Fast preceding the festival by the apostles Pierre and Paul (June 29th).
• Fast of the Mother of God (of 1st at August 14th).
• Decapitation of saint Jean Baptist (August 29th).
• Exaltation of the Invaluable Cross
• Wednesdays and Fridays safe in times of great festival.

*Semaines complete without fast :

• Christmas from December 25th to January 4th
• Week of the Pharisee and Publicain, three weeks before the Large Lent
• Week of dairy produces (without meat), week preceding the Large Lent
• Week by Easter or the Revival
• Week of Pentecost
• Week of the festival of Dye stick Deslauriers Gardere

*Dates of Easter (according to the Gregorian calendar):

• 2006: April 23rd,
• 2007: April 8th,
• 2008: April 27th,
• 2009: April 19th,
• 2010: April 4th,
• 2011: April 24th,
• 2012: April 15th.

Saints

See also: List of the saints of the orthodoxe Church

Differences with the other Christian confessions

• Differences between the orthodoxe Church and the two Western confessions (Catholicism and Protestantism)

• 1. The orthodoxe Church does not add to the Credo the word Filioque for three reasons:

• this addition, which modified the text of a ecumenical council (Ier council of Constantinople), would have been imposed by the emperor Charlemagne against the opinion of the holy pope of Rome Leon III and of the majority of its successors lasting more than one century (9th century, except notable for Nicolas Ier).
• this addition would not be in conformity with the text of the Gospel (Jean 15,26).
• this addition would modify the relations between the people of the Trinité and would lower the Holy Spirit.
• this addition implies that God can save only Christian hearts, which is likely to legitimate drifts such as forced conversions or the Inquisition.

• 2. The orthodoxe Church refuses the doctrines augustinienne on the grace for two reasons:

• these doctrines, very personal, is not divided by the concert of the Pères of the Church, as well in the East as in Occident (principle of collegial structure).
• these doctrines destroys the freedom of the man: if it is the grace which does all, that the man makes?

• 3. The orthodoxe Church baptizes by immersion for three reasons:

• it is the tradition since the evangelic origins.
• it is the direction even word Baptême in Greek.
• that symbolizes well the complete membership with Christ and the fact of " to cover Christ".

• 4. Orthodoxe church is unaware of the concept d'" hospitality eucharistique"

With the holy Table, it is Christ himself " who offers and who is offered, who receives and who distribue" as each liturgy repeats it. No priest, no bishop, no patriarch has the right to interpose between the Christ and the conscience of the faithful one. If a person is in communion of faith with the Church, that it makes the step freely become member about it and this step will be sealed by the eucharistic communion. If another person is not in communion with the Church, that its conscience either respected and is not forced, that it communie not for her judgment and that no lie does not come to darken her relation with God.

The orthodoxe Churches, for the majority of them, are members of the World Council of Churches, joined in 1961. They maintain also an oecumenical dialog with the Catholic church and the Communion Anglican. They are however not ready to accept, even if a decision is voted in the majority, to plan to adopt nontraditional concepts and practices, (presidency of a innate Pasteur at the time of a common celebration, evolution of the liturgical Langue, theological Libéralisme) etc

History

Apostolic times (of the origins with 90)

The provincial organization (90-325)

Ecumenical councils and the patriarchal organization (325-787)

Rupture with the Occident (787-1204)

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. According to the majority of the authors, the first schisms, in 787 and 863, have two main causes:

• reduction in the influence of the Roman Empire of the East and Italy, with the profit of the Lombards, and the concern of the Papacy of reconciling the latter, geographically closer;
• the doctrinal divergence about the Holy Spirit ( Filioque , to see Schism of Photius): according to the bishop of Rome, this one rises from Christ as much as Father: consequently only a Christian heart can be saved and the duty of the Church is to convert all incroyant; according to the remainder of the Church faithful to the Symbol of Nicée-Constantinople and thus according to the Patriarchate S Orthodoxe S, the Holy Spirit rises only from the Father and this one can save which It wants, without condition of religion.

But these two schisms were transitory. The final rupture in 1054 of the bishop of Rome, at the time Leon IX, with the remainder of the Pentarchie originates in:

• the disappearance of the influence of the Roman Empire of the East and Italy, with the Frank profit of the and the Norman , and the concern of the Papacy of reinforcing its spiritual authority on these powerful neighbors;
• political competition between Leon IX and the patriarch of Constantinople Michel Cérulaire, the first interpreting its statute of Primus inter pares in the direction of a canonical authority on the other Patriarchs, the second refuting this interpretation;
• papal will to standardize in the direction " latin" rites in the southern part of the Italy, recently conquered by the Norman on the Byzantine , which runs up against the opposition of very the Michel Cérulaire (Keroularios), quite as concerned to standardize them in the direction " grec" ; the stone of obstacle was the use of the Pain azime (of which the paste was not raised) in Occident.

It followed an exchange of letters not very pleasing in which the œcumenicity is discussed of the patriarchate of Constantinople. The intransigence of the two protagonists leads to the rupture, 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 Pietro d' Amalfi. Humbert and Michel Cérulaire are as likely one as the other. Michel Cérulaire questions the validity of the mandate of the legates. The debate turns to the exchange of 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.

However, contrary to what is often marked, excommunication is not reciprocal between Rome and Constantinople because the pope is not blamed there, and 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 13th century that the things will be spoiled at the time of the Croisades. The event determining will be the bag of Constantinople by the Fourth crusade in 1204.

Until the reconciliation of 1965, each church claimed to be the single Catholic church and orthodoxe at the same time, denying these titles 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 anathema 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).

Empire in Eastern Europe (1204-1453)

The time of the néo-martyrs (1453-1831)

The assertion of an national organization (1831-1914)

Persecutions of the XXème century (1914-1990)

Today (since 1990)

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