Download the great schism

The Great Schism
The Great Schism is the name given
to the split that formed in the Church
in the eleventh century A.D. The
separation of this led to the "Roman
Catholic" Church, known as the
Western Church, and the "Greek
Catholic" or "Greek Orthodox
Church," known as the Eastern
Church.
“The schism between the two
Churches in 1054 had been on
points of theology, ritual and church
discipline and had gone unnoticed
by the mass of laymen. However, it
did give rise to a new literary form,
the anti – Latin treatise.”
‘The Byzantine Empire’ – Robert
Downing
• There is no single event that caused the breakdown
between the Catholic and Orthodox Church. But many
factors that contributed to it.
• After 451 AD there were 5 patriarchs in the Byzantine
Empire. The western church rejected this council in 692,
which then later led to the Eastern Church rejecting many
Latin customs.
• Disunity in the Roman Empire further contributed to disunity
in the Church.
• In the early 4th century Emperor Diocletian divided the
management of the eastern and western portions of the
Empire. Theodosius the Great, became the last Emperor to
rule over a united Roman Empire.
• After his death, the division into western and eastern halves,
each under its own Emperor, became permanent.
Starting a fight
-The
Norman invasion caused problems
between the east and west.
-The Byzantine churches spoke Greek and
had different customs than the Roman
church.
-The Normans made the churches they
conquered use Latin rituals.
-To get even, the Emperor in the east made
the Latin churches over there use Eastern
customs.
Tension
• There was already tension between the Byzantine and
old Roman Empire.
• The Eastern priests could marry before they became
priests. Rome didn’t agree.
• The Roman church used unleavened bread in their
mass. The east thought this was too “Jewish”.
• The Eastern church had Greek mass. The Roman
Church used Latin.
Major Issues
• The Eastern churches did not like how the Pope of
Rome claimed himself to be the head of the
Christian church.
• The Eastern church believed the patriarch (bishop)
of Constantinople should be the head if anyone.
• In 1054, the final straw came when the Western
Church added the filioque to their creed which
included the “Holy Spirit” in the Christian Trinity.
• The dominant language of the West was Latin, whilst the most
spoken language in the East was Greek. When the language unity
began to change soon cultural unity began to fall as well.
• The main causes of the Schism were disputes over conflicting
claims of jurisdiction and over papal authority. Pope Leo IX
claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs.
Other problems:
• In the West, the decline of imperial authority left the Church a
relatively independent political authority. The power of the
Papacy significantly grew. Now the only two rival powerful centres
of clerical authority that remained were Constantinople and
Rome.
• The Western Church had many different views to the Eastern
Church. Therefore by the time of the First Crusade there were
serious divisions between the two Churches but they were not
necessarily permanent yet.
Creation of a New Church
• The result of the 1054 Schism is the division
between the Roman Catholic and Eastern
Orthodox Church.
• The word Orthodox means dedication to the
traditional faith.
• The Eastern church believed that they followed
traditional Christian beliefs and unlike the
Roman church with they viewed as greedy and
too close to Judaism.
“Since 1054 not even the Christian Church had been at one. On
the surface, the schism was the result of firstly an interpolation of
the creed by the West which the Eastern Church was unable to
accept and secondly of the liturgical problem of whether leavened
or unleavened bread should be used at communion. But just as
important as the growing differences in theology and ritual were
matters of politics – Church politics like the question of the
primacy of Rome and secular politics like the rivalry between the
two ‘Roman’ Empires of East and West. The Cultural differences
between the two sides were too great for the unity of Christendom
to survive for too long.”
‘The Crusades’ – Hans Eberhard Mayer