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- East-West Schism, event that precipitated the final separation between the Eastern Christian churches (led by the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius) and the Western church (led by Pope Leo IX).
www.britannica.com/event/East-West-Schism-1054
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May 13, 2024 · East-West Schism, event that precipitated the final separation between the Eastern Christian churches and the Western church. The mutual excommunications by the pope and the patriarch in 1054 became a watershed in church history. The excommunications were not lifted until 1965.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054.
- What Led to The Great Schism?
- Little Schisms
- Language Differences
- Iconoclastic Controversy
- Filioque Clause Controversy
- What Sealed The East-West Schism?
- Attempts at Reconciliation
- Sources
By the third century, the Roman Empire was growing too large and difficult to govern, so Emperor Diocletian decided to divide the empire into two domains—the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. One of the initial factors which caused a shifting apart of the two domains was language. The primary lan...
The churches in the divided Empire began to disconnect as well. Five patriarchs held authority in different regions: The Patriarch of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. The Patriarch of Rome (the pope) held the honor of “first among equals,” but he did not possess authority over the other patriarchs. Small disagreements calle...
Since the main language of the people in the Eastern Empire was Greek, Eastern churches developed Greek rites, using the Greek language in their religious ceremonies and the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. Roman churches conducted services in Latin, and their Bibles were written in the Latin Vulgate.
During the eighth and ninth centuries, controversy also arose regarding the use of icons in worship. Byzantine Emperor Leo III declared that the worship of religious images was hereticaland idolatrous. Many Eastern bishops cooperated with their emperor’s rule, but the Western Church stood firm in support of the use of religious images.
The filioque clause controversy ignited one of the most critical arguments of the East-West Schism. This dispute centered around the Trinity doctrine and whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Fatheralone or from both the Father and the Son. Filioque is a Latin term meaning “and the son.” Originally, the Nicene Creedstated simply that the Ho...
Most contentious of all and the conflict which brought the Great Schism to a head was the issue of ecclesiastical authority—specifically, whether the pope in Rome held power over the patriarchs in the East. The Roman Church had argued for the primacyof the Roman pope since the fourth century and claimed that he held universal authority over the who...
Despite the Great Schism of 1054, the two branches still communicated with each other on friendly terms until the time of the Fourth Crusade. However, in 1204, Western crusaders brutally sacked Constantinople and defiled the great Byzantine Church of the Hagia Sophia. Now that the break was permanent, the two branches of Christianity became more an...
The Complete Book of When and Where in the Bible and Throughout History (p. 164).Pocket Dictionary of Church History: Over 300 Terms Clearly and Concisely Defined (p. 122).The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev., p. 1089).Pocket History of Theology: Twenty Centuries in Five Concise Acts (p. 60).The eleventh-century reform in the Western Church called for the strengthening of papal authority, which caused the church to become more autocratic and centralized.
The Crusades to the Holy Land began after the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus appealed for western aid against the Turks in 1095, but instead of repairing the rift between East and West these so-called holy wars eventually led to enduring hostilities between Byzantium and Rome.
The resulting split divided the European Christian church into two major branches: the Western Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. This split is known as the Great Schism, or sometimes the “East-West Schism” or the “Schism of 1054.”
What made the schism continue so firmly for centuries was not theological in nature but the behavior of western armies raised and sent by Western church leaders to put down the spread of Islam into Jerusalem and territories of the eastern church.
