Download The Great Schism

The Great Schism
Under the Roman emperor Constantine, the Church began to have two focal points
(very important cities):
1. Rome in the west
2. Byzantium in the east (Byzantium is also known as Istanbul, in what is now
Turkey)
As Christianity expanded into Western Europe, the bishop of Rome came to be
called pope and he took on new powers and was seen as the leader of the Church.
The Patriarchs in the east saw themselves as just as important, causing tension
between east and west.
The most serious disagreement was over the Filioque Clause, a Latin word
inserted into the Nicene Creed by the Church (headed by the pope) in the west.
The Roman pope added the expression “and the son” to the end of the following
statement of the original Nicene Creed in 325 CE: “And we believe in the Holy
Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, and precedes from the Father.”
The Western church believed that the father and the son sent forth the Holy Spirit,
but the Eastern Church believed that the Holy Spirit came only from the Father.
Tensions continued to increase between the East and the West, and in 1054 CE the
pope in Rome and the patriarch in Constantinople (also known as Byzantium and
Istanbul) excommunicated (formally expelled) one another’s senior church
officials. This split is known as the Great Schism. We now have the Roman
Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East.
The Catholic Church has 23 rites in the east and one rite in the west