History books tend to refer to the Orthodox/Catholic schism as “the Great Schism.” And history teachers have the bad habit of mispronouncing schism, which is
So what really happened? Jesus’s church split. Not because one faction
I know: Both sides claim it was neither stupid nor petty, but vitally important. Of course it’s because they picked a side. They’re either pro-Orthodox or pro-Catholic, and wanna defend their team. But just like
Let’s begin at the beginning.
As y’might know if you read Acts, Jesus’s church began with 120 people:
Of course other units began to crop up. Starting with the dispute between those who wanted the new gentile disciples to get circumcised before they could become Christian.
Galatians 1.6-9 NET - 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel— 7 not that there really is another gospel, but there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we (or an angel from heaven) should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be condemned to hell! 9 As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell!
Banning turned into
So when Christians began to ban pro-circumcision legalists, d’you think these guys went off and started their own heretic churches? Knowing humans, probably so. That would be the very first church split.
And there were others.
So what makes the Orthodox/Catholic schism such a big deal? Three things:
- It’s between really large bodies of Christians. We’re not talking a few heretic congregations scattered over a large geographic area. We’re talking entire countries and provinces.
- It’s actually not a split over heresy. Lemme repeat, in bolder letters: NOT OVER HERESY. It’s about the Catholics adopting
a doctrine which the Orthodox didn’t sign off on. It’s the Catholics insisting they had every right to do so, and the Orthodox insisting no they didn’t. It’s about power. It’s political. - Because it’s not a split over heresy, it paved the way for later church splits which are likewise not about heresy. Too many Christians feel we don’t have to accept diverse opinions and practices; we can simply leave, or drive out anyone we disagree with, and it’s all good. Who needs unity?
It set a precedent. A big, bad, destructive precedent.
Political reasons.
The Roman Empire was huge. Not as huge as China or the Mongolian Empire, but huge enough for the Romans to refer to the Mediterranean as “our sea.” Problem is, in those pre-telecommunications days, it was really hard to administrate. Various senates and emperors tried to divide it into sections; usually between the Latin-speaking western part, and the Greek-speaking eastern part. Sometimes they had as many as four co-emperors. And sometimes the co-emperors fought, which turned into civil wars, which turned into one emperor overthrowing all the others… and so much for administration.
Part of the reason for administration was the Empire’s enemies. You had Huns in the east, Goths and Vandals in the west. When these foreigners weren’t actually trying to conquer Roman territory, they’d raid the coasts and otherwise harass travelers and border towns. The Romans successfully fought ’em back till the year 476, when the western emperor was overthrown by Flavius Odoacer, who declared himself king of Italy. Which meant “the Roman Empire” no longer included Rome itself.
But a century before, Rome stopped being the Roman Empire’s capital. The Romans moved it to New Rome in 330, building it atop
Anyway. Before the Roman Empire receded, Christians had got into the unhealthy mindset of confounding the Empire with
Some of this alienation was just plain cultural. Latin-speaking westerners, living in less-developed nations under feudal kings, had a very different way of life than civilization-dwelling, Greek-speaking easterners. They had to rely on God in different ways. When you lack resources, you tend to trust him more, ’cause you don’t have money to fall back on. When you lack education, nor the free time to really study the scriptures, superstitions creep in. Nationalism promotes the idea God loves your nation best; sectarianism gives you the idea your church leaders hear God better than other churches’ leaders. Little divisions grow into big ones.
And of course there’s power. Church leadership was structured under an
So whereas easterners would get together in councils to sort out major church controversies and doctrines in councils, westerners would leave the final word to their pope, who’d unilaterally decide stuff. Which isn’t wise—and most popes recognized this, and sought the advice of the bishops under them. But power corrupts, and not every pope bothered to do this.
The filioque controversy.
The issue which tends to get most of the blame for the Orthodox/Catholic schism is the filioque controversy. ’Cause whenever orthodox Christians recited
- I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.
- He proceeds from the Father.
- He, with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified.
Problem is, around the 600s, westerners began to add the word filioque
- I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.
- He proceeds from the Father and the Son.
- He, with the Father and the Son, is adored and glorified.
Lemme be clear: This alteration isn’t heresy. The Holy Spirit does proceed from the Son. Jesus said he’d send us the Spirit, who proceeds from his Father.
But biblical or not, it’s not what the councils put in the creed. And you can’t just change a creed because you feel like it, or because everybody else is saying it different, or because the pope says it’s okay. You gotta have a council and get a universal consensus on it. You get kicked out of church for skipping that! As the Chalcedonian Council put it:
No one shall bring forward a different faith. Not to write one, not to put one together, not to expound upon one, not to teach one to others. Those who put together another faith, or bring one forward, or teach one, or present a different creed to those who wish to convert from gentiles or Jews or any heresy whatsover: If they’re bishops or clergy, have them removed from office. If they’re monks or laymen, have them banned.
But westerners got away with saying the creed with filioque in it, for centuries. It was in their literature; it was preached in their sermons; they’d said it this way all their lives. Some westerners were even claiming it was part of the original creed, and easterners had removed it.
This was the theological excuse for the schism. The political reasons—the Roman head bishops refusing to work with the other head bishops—was far more divisive, but the filioque bit was just what the leaders needed to justify any formal split. So in 1054, that’s what happened. The heads of the Roman and Constantinopolitan churches formally excommunicated one another as heretics. Functionally they were already working as separate churches, but now they were officially separate churches. And have been since.
Do they still consider themselves separate churches? Yes. Do they still consider one another to be heretics? Not anymore. In the last century Orthodox and Catholic theologians
As for Protestants… well, too many of us ignorantly figure
In any event, as I said, it paved the way for all future church splits, and Christianity’s current divisiveness. It created a lot of hurt feelings and bad attitudes we need to overcome and fight. Jesus wants us to be one.
