The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences, theological disputes and geopolitical tensions between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split in 1054. Prominent among these were the Filioque clause of the Nicene Creed, whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, iconoclasm, the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans in 800, the pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy. Although 1054 has become conventional, various scholars have proposed different dates for the Great Schism, including 1009, 1204, 1277, and 1484.
The first action that led to a formal schism occurred in 1053 when Patriarch Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople. In 1054, the papal legate sent by Leo IX travelled to Constantinople to deny Cerularius the title of "ecumenical patriarch" and insist that he recognize the pope's claim to be the head of all of the churches, and to seek help from the Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos, in view of the Norman conquest of southern Italy, and to respond to Leo of Ohrid's attacks on the use of unleavened bread and other Western customs, attacks that had the support of Cerularius. When the leader of the legation, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, learned that Cerularius had refused to accept the demand, he excommunicated him, and in response Cerularius excommunicated Humbert and the other legates.
The validity of the Western legates' act is doubtful because Pope Leo had died and Cerularius' excommunication only applied to the legates personally. Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed: each side occasionally accuses the other of committing heresy and of having initiated the schism. Reconciliation was made increasingly difficult in the generations that followed; events such as the Latin-led Crusades, though originally intended to aid the Eastern Church, only served to further tension. In 1185, the Normans sacked Thessalonica, while the schism culminated in the sack and pillage of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the imposition of Latin patriarchs. The emergence of competing Greek and Latin hierarchies in the Crusader states, especially with two claimants to the patriarchal sees of Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, made the existence of a schism clear. Several attempts at reconciliation did not bear fruit.
In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I nullified the anathemas of 1054, although this was merely a gesture of goodwill and did not constitute a reunion. The absence of full communion between the Churches is even explicitly mentioned when the Code of Canon Law gives Catholic ministers permission to administer the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick to members of eastern churches such as the Eastern Orthodox Church (as well as the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East) and members of western churches such as the Old Catholic Church, when those members spontaneously request these. Contacts between the two sides continue. Every year a delegation from each joins in the other's celebration of its patronal feast, Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) for Rome and Saint Andrew (30 November) for Constantinople, and there have been several visits by the head of each to the other. The efforts of the ecumenical patriarchs towards reconciliation with the Catholic Church have often been the target of sharp internal criticism.
Differences underlying the schism
Jaroslav Pelikan emphasizes that "while the East–West schism stemmed largely from political and ecclesiastical discord, this discord also reflected basic theological differences". Pelikan further argues that the antagonists in the 11th century inappropriately exaggerated their theological differences, whereas modern historians tend to minimize them. Pelikan asserts that the documents from that era evidence the "depths of intellectual alienation that had developed between the two sections of Christendom." While the two sides were technically more guilty of schism than of heresy, they often charged each other with blasphemy. Pelikan describes much of the dispute as dealing with "regional differences in usages and customs", some of which were adiaphorous (i.e., neither commanded nor forbidden). However, he goes on to say that while it was easy in principle to accept the existence of adiaphora, it was difficult in actual practice to distinguish customs which were innocuously adiaphoric from those that had doctrinal implications.
Ecclesiological disputes
Philip Sherrard, an English Eastern Orthodox theologian, asserted that the underlying cause of the East–West schism was and continues to be "the clash of these two fundamentally irreconcilable ecclesiologies". Roger Haight characterized the question of episcopal authority in the Church as "acute" with the "relative standings of Rome and Constantinople a recurrent source of tension". Haight further characterized the difference in ecclesiologies as "the contrast between a pope with universal jurisdiction and a combination of the patriarchal superstructure with an episcopal and synodal communion ecclesiology analogous to that found in Cyprian". However, Nicholas Afanasiev has criticized both the Catholic and Orthodox churches for "subscribing to the universal ecclesiology of St. Cyprian of Carthage according to which only one true and universal church can exist".
Ecclesiological structure
There are several different ecclesiologies: "communion ecclesiology", "eucharistic ecclesiology", "baptismal ecclesiology", "trinitarian ecclesiology", and "kerygmatic theology". Other ecclesiologies are the "hierarchical-institutional" and the "organic-mystical", and the "congregationalist".
The Eastern Churches maintained the idea that every local city-church with its bishop, presbyters, deacons, and people celebrating the eucharist constituted the whole church. In this view called eucharistic ecclesiology (or more recently, holographic ecclesiology), every bishop is Saint Peter's successor in his church ("the Church"), and the churches form what Eusebius of Caesarea called a common union of churches. This implied that all bishops were ontologically equal, although functionally particular bishops could be granted special privileges by other bishops and serve as metropolitan bishops, archbishops or patriarchs. Within the Roman Empire, from the time of Constantine the Great to the fall of Constantinople (and the empire) in 1453, universal ecclesiology, rather than eucharistic, became the operative principle.
The view prevailed that, "when the Roman Empire became Christian the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign and coterminous with it was the one universal church". Early on, the Roman Church's ecclesiology was universal, with the idea that the Church was a worldwide organism with a divinely (not functionally) appointed center: the Church/Bishop of Rome. These two views are still present in modern Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism and can be seen as foundational causes of the schisms, including the Great Schism between East and West.
The Orthodox Church does not accept the doctrine of papal authority outlined in the First Vatican Council (1869–1870), and taught today in the Catholic Church. The Orthodox Church has always maintained the original position of the bishops' collegiality, resulting in a church structure closer to a confederation. The Orthodox have synods in which the highest authorities in each church community are brought together, but unlike the Catholic Church, no central individual or figure has the absolute, infallible last word on church doctrine. In practice, this has sometimes led to divisions among Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian Orthodox churches, as no central authority can serve as an arbitrator for various internal disputes.
Since the second half of the 20th century, eucharistic ecclesiology has been upheld by Catholic theologians. Henri de Lubac writes: "The Church, like the Eucharist, is a mystery of unity—the same mystery, and one with inexhaustible riches. Both are the body of Christ—the same body." Joseph Ratzinger called eucharistic ecclesiology "the real core of Vatican II's (Second Vatican Council) teaching on the cross". According to Ratzinger, the one church of God exists in no other way than in the various individual local congregations. In these, the eucharist is celebrated in union with the Church everywhere. Eucharistic ecclesiology led the council to "affirm the theological significance of the local church. If each celebration of the Eucharist is a matter not only of Christ's sacramental presence on the altar but also of his ecclesial presence in the gathered community, then each local eucharistic church must be more than a subset of the universal church; it must be the body of Christ 'in that place'."
The ecclesiological dimension of the East–West schism revolves around the authority of bishops within their dioceses and the lines of authority between bishops of different dioceses. It is common for Catholics to insist on the primacy of Roman and papal authority based on patristic writings and conciliar documents.
The Catholic Church's current official teachings about papal privilege and power that are unacceptable to the Eastern Orthodox churches are the dogma of the pope's infallibility when speaking officially "from the chair of Peter (ex cathedra Petri)" on matters of faith and morals to be held by the whole Church, so that such definitions are irreformable "of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church" (ex sese et non-ex consensu ecclesiae) and have a binding character for all (Catholic) Christians in the world; the pope's direct episcopal jurisdiction over all (Catholic) Christians in the world; the pope's authority to appoint (and so also to dismiss) the bishops of all (Catholic) Christian churches except in the territory of a patriarchate; and the affirmation that the legitimacy and authority of all (Catholic) Christian bishops in the world derive from their union with the Roman see and its bishop.
Principal among the ecclesiastical issues separating the two churches is the meaning of papal primacy in any future unified church. The Orthodox insist that it should be a "primacy of honor", and not a "primacy of authority", whereas the Catholics see the pontiff's role as required for its exercise of power and authority, the exact form of which is open to discussion with other Christians. According to Eastern Orthodox belief, the test of catholicity is adherence to the authority of Scripture and then by the Holy Tradition of the church. It is not defined by adherence to any particular see. The Orthodox Church holds that it has never accepted the pope as the de jure leader of the entire church.
Referring to Ignatius of Antioch, Carlton says:
Contrary to popular opinion, the word catholic does not mean "universal"; it means "whole, complete, lacking nothing." ... Thus, to confess the Church to be catholic is to say that She possesses the fullness of the Christian faith. To say, however, that Orthodox and Rome constitute two lungs of the same Church is to deny that either Church separately is catholic in any meaningful sense of the term. This is not only contrary to the teaching of Orthodoxy, it is flatly contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, which considered itself truly catholic
The church is in the image of the Trinity and reflects the reality of the incarnation.
The body of Christ must always be equal with itself ... The local church which manifests the body of Christ cannot be subsumed into any larger organisation or collectivity which makes it more catholic and more in unity, for the simple reason that the principle of total catholicity and total unity is already intrinsic to it.
Theological issues
The iconoclast policy enforced by a series of decrees of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian in 726–729 was resisted in the West, giving rise to friction that ended in 787, when the Second Council of Nicaea reaffirmed that images are to be venerated but not worshipped. The Libri Carolini, commissioned by Charlemagne, criticized what a faulty translation gave as the council's decision, but their objections were rebutted by Pope Adrian I.
From the Catholic Church's perspective, ecclesiological issues are central, which is why it characterizes the split between the two churches as a schism. In their view, the Eastern Orthodox are close to them in theology, and the Catholic Church does not consider the Eastern Orthodox beliefs to be heretical. However, from the perspective of Eastern Orthodox theologians, there are theological issues that run much deeper than just the theology around the primacy of the Pope. In fact, this is in contrast to Catholics, who do not generally consider the Orthodox heretical and speak instead about the Eastern "schism".
In the Catholic Church, too, some writers may be found who speak pejoratively about the Eastern Orthodox Church and its theology, but these writers are marginal.
The official view of the Catholic Church is the one expressed in the decree Unitatis redintegratio of Vatican II:
In the study of revelation East and West have followed different methods, and have developed differently their understanding and confession of God's truth. It is hardly surprising, then, if from time to time one tradition has come nearer to a full appreciation of some aspects of a mystery of revelation than the other, or has expressed it to better advantage. In such cases, these various theological expressions are to be considered often as mutually complementary rather than conflicting. Where the authentic theological traditions of the Eastern Church are concerned, we must recognize the admirable way in which they have their roots in Holy Scripture, and how they are nurtured and given expression in the life of the liturgy. They derive their strength too from the living tradition of the apostles and from the works of the Fathers and spiritual writers of the Eastern Churches. Thus they promote the right ordering of Christian life and, indeed, pave the way to a full vision of Christian truth.
Trinity
Although the Western churches do not consider the Eastern and Western understanding of the Trinity to be radically different, Eastern theologians such as John Romanides and Michael Pomazansky argue that the Filioque clause is symptomatic of a fatal flaw in the Western understanding, which they attribute to the influence of Augustine and, by extension, to that of Thomas Aquinas.
Filioque, Latin for "and (from) the Son", was added in Western Christianity to the Latin text of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which also varies from the original Greek text in having the additional phrase Deum de Deo (God from God) and in using the singular "I believe" (Latin: Credo, Ancient Greek: Πιστεύω) instead of the original "we believe" (Ancient Greek: Πιστεύομεν), which the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East also preserve.