[redgolum]

As a biased (Lutheran) third party, I often wonder if it was both sides leaving each other. By the time of 1054, the East spoke Greek, and didn’t speak much Latin. The West spoke poor Latin, and knew no Greek. Reading the notes from the councils translated into Latin and Greek, they read totally different (full disclosure, I don’t read Greek). At some point, neither side really understood what the other was saying. Or wanted to.

The East was worried about all the barbarian Germans running around with church titles, and the West was worried that the effeminate Greeks would demand they perfume themselves and bow before them. Both had an idea that church unity meant that they had to reside under the same Empire, which was going to be impossible by then.

[Kolokotronis]

Here’s how we pray:

“When You descended to death, O Immortal Life, then
the light of Your divinity destroyed Hades. When You raised the
dead from the depths of darkness, all the heavenly powers cried
out, “Glory to You our Christ, the Giver of Life.”

What’s not to understand... or to change?

[lightman]

As a biased (Lutheran) third party, I often wonder if it was both sides leaving each other. By the time of 1054, the East spoke Greek, and didn’t speak much Latin. The West spoke poor Latin, and knew no Greek. Reading the notes from the councils translated into Latin and Greek, they read totally different (full disclosure, I don’t read Greek). At some point, neither side really understood what the other was saying.

Bingo.

The first small fissure leading to the Great Schism was the election of Pope Gregory I, the first Bishop of Rome who was NOT bilingual Latin/Greek.