What in heaven's name are you talking about, Alex? If you mean the rejection of Florence by the people and lower clergy, that's the way Orthodoxy works and always has. Hierarchs don't rule over us, though they often try to. We saw an example of it in this century with the removal of the unlamented Spyridon as Archbishop of America. It works the same way with dogmas. If the people do not evidence their acceptance of a dogma from a council, give their “Great Amen” as we say, by living out the dogma in their lives, it is no dogma. For example, the “dogma” against artificial non-abortifacient birth control would be no dogma in the Latin Church if you had the same sort of ecclesiology.
It is not that simple. Mark of Ephesus was no "people and lower clergy" and he was the major force in rejecting the union. Therefore my assertion of pro-Muslim agitation against Florence was accurate except, of course, it was pro-Muslim in its inevitable effect rather than theologically. I am not sure from whom the famed expression "better the turban than the mitre" came from but its horrific succinctness suggests a political calculation hardly on the minds of people and lower clergy. It took a familiarity with the Muslim principles of dhimmitude to make, hence it could not be a popular sentiment.
Further, neither the issue between Eastern and Western Churches is of such nature that faithful peasants on either side could make. Neither the procession of the Holy Ghost nor the proper role of papacy yield to plain seat-of-the-pants analysis. It was entirely proper that Florence was conducted by theologians and brought to its temporary success by theologians; it was mindless anti-Catholic agitation and pliability of the plain folk, and the insidious calculations of the pro-Muslim political leadership that wrecked it.
I am moving West with my family, so I'll be mostly off line for a couple of days.