Unity with Orthodox? [Catholic/Orthodox Caucus]

Question: What is it that separates the Catholic Church from our Orthodox counterparts? What led to these divisions? — Name withheld via email

Answer: The separation between the Orthodox Churches of the East and Western Churches united to Rome is a complex issue rooted in culture, language and politics as much as theology or authority. The modern tendency to fix the Great Schism on one event or year is misleading. The first cause of the division was the gradual estrangement of East and West. The East and West increasingly grouped themselves around different centers (Rome and Constantinople), used different rites and spoke different languages.

The elaborate rites of the East were contrasted to the simpler rites of the West. A Syrian, Greek or Egyptian layman could not fail to notice that a Latin bishop or priest celebrated the holy mysteries in a way that was very strange. Regarding language, the Western Church spoke Latin, and the Eastern Church spoke Greek. At councils the papal legates addressed the assembled in Latin and no one understood them; the council deliberated in Greek and the legates wondered what was going on. So there arose suspicion on both sides.

Regarding authority, although the ancient Church had regarded the pope as supreme, and he was often appealed to in order to solve disputes, this began to break down as the cultural and political breaches widened. Increasingly the pope represented to Eastern Christians a remote and foreign authority, and they were less willing to appeal to him.

For these and other complex political reasons, Eastern Christians began looking more to Constantinople than Rome and seeing the pope more as the Patriarch of the West, rather than supreme pontiff.

And all this provides the remote background for the Great Schism that occurred technically in 1054 and is popularly thought to involve the addition of a word (filioque) to the Nicene Creed. But the realities are so much more complex and coalesce more around rising political tensions between the East and the West.

After many debates and attempts to negotiate with the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Caerularius, Roman legates excommunicated him (July 16, 1054). But this was not a general excommunication of the Byzantine Church, still less of all the East. What broadened the problem was that the rest of the East eventually sided with Constantinople, and gradually all the other Eastern patriarchs took sides with Caerularius. Thus, the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches was less an event than a drifting apart that multiplied misunderstandings. Add politics and power to the mix, and the perfect storm that rent the Church raged through.

There really is not any insurmountable question of doctrine involved. This is not a heresy, but a schism. It is true that the Orthodox Churches deny papal infallibility and the Immaculate Conception, and they quarrel over our terminology regarding purgatory and the procession of the Holy Spirit, but they do not outright deny these teachings.

Important to remember that (although if you read Russian sources, the degree of vitriol toward the Latin Church is disheartening).

this was not a general excommunication of the Byzantine Church, still less of all the East

It was not. The sin against unity was not in that episode in 1054, but in the intransigence that surrounded it: the prelates on both sides, but more so in the East, did not see unity, for which Christ so fervently prayed, as of much value.

This starts off well, but it glosses over so much. The various churches of the East did not all break communion with Rome at once. It happened over a long period of time with the final breach occurring perhaps as late as the 16th century around the time of the Pan-Orthodox Council of 1583 (though most churches had already long broken communion with Rome).

The events of 1054 were probably less determinative than those of 1204 when the armies of the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople. In fairness the Pope was outraged and excommunicated those involved. But the excommunications were quietly lifted following the appropriate expressions of repentance in the form of large donations to the Holy See. For the Empire the event represents the single greatest catastrophe sans only the final collapse. The vast bulk of the wealth of the Christian East was carried off to the West, where most of it remains to this day, including countless relics and holy icons as well as the more customary symbols/measures of wealth and power. The city remained under essentially Western military occupation until 1261, a period known as the Latin Captivity. While it would be a mistake to claim that this was the final blow, all empires eventually collapse, it did inflict a devastating wound from which the Late Roman Empire (commonly but inaccurately referred to as Byzantine) never recovered. Battered and weakened it certainly hastened the final collapse, perhaps by several centuries. This betrayal, more than any other event, poisoned the relations between the East and West and remains an open wound to many Eastern Christians even after eight centuries. It is likely the underlying source for the expression “better the turban than the tiara.”

As far as dogma is concerned there are a lot of issues. The “Filioque” is flatly condemned by what the Orthodox recognize as the 8th and 9th OEcumenical Councils and is considered heresy by us. The Orthodox also reject the decrees of the First Vatican Council, which carry anathemas undoubtedly aimed at us more so than Protestants. So that is pretty much a problem. Purgatory as it is understood by Roman Catholics is rejected but some Orthodox subscribe to a belief in something of a similar nature often referred to as the aerial toll houses. This is hugely controversial and is at best a pious belief which carries no canonical or doctrinal imprimatur.

At least as serious as all of the above is the current chaos in the Roman Church. Whatever disagreements we may have, all but the most fanatical Orthodox recognize the Roman Church as the great bastion of Christian faith in the West. And what has been going on over the last century or so, and hugely accelerated by Vatican II and the current Pontificate is almost universally viewed with alarm (bordering on horror) by those of us on the other side of the Bosporus. The idea of restoration of communion is probably far fetched under the best of circumstances. But the idea of entering communion with a church where bishops are openly promoting sodomy and communion with apostate Protestant sects is unthinkable.

In Orthodoxy, communion is not a feel good sacrament. The sharing of the Cup implies a full unity in faith with no serious differences. Or to put it simpler language, you are who you are in communion with. And right now it’s starting to look like Rome has decided it’s future is Protestant.

Excellent response, NRx.

I agree with Msgr Pope that the Great Schism began much earlier than A.D. 1054—I personally believe the fracture showed its first signs of cracking under the pontificate of Gregory the Great.

Why Gregory? In spite of the time he spent in Contantinople he had limited understanding of Greek, and, therefore, the nuances of the language of the East. While he did offer liturgical gifts to each “lung” of the Church by introducing the Great Doxology to the West and the divine liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts to the East his influence was more of a divider than a unifier.

But the real villian, in my estimation, is Pope Hadrian for his act of Coronating Charles “the Great” as the Holy Roman Emperor. That unilateral action—not undertaken in any conciliar manner—set the stage for more unilateral actions (both doctrinal and political) which culminated in the events of 1054.

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