The great Eastern Schism - The most powerful empire and nearly half of Christendom fell away
The great Eastern Schism must not be conceived as the result of only one definite quarrel. It is not true that after centuries of perfect peace, suddenly on account of one dispute, nearly half of Christendom fell away.
Such an event would be unparalleled in history, at any rate, unless there were some great heresy, and in this quarrel there was no heresy at first, nor has there ever been a hopeless disagreement about the Faith. It is a case, perhaps the only prominent case, of a pure schism, of a breach of intercommunion caused by anger and bad feeling, not by a rival theology.
It would be inconceivable then that hundreds of bishops should suddenly break away from union with their chief, if all had gone smoothly before. The great schism is rather the result of a very gradual process. Its remote causes must be sought centuries before there was any suspicion of their final effect.
There was a series of temporary schisms that loosened the bond and prepared the way.
Strictly speaking, the present schism dates from the Eastern repudiation of the Council of Florence (in 1472). So although the names of Photius and Caerularius are justly associated with this disaster, inasmuch as their quarrels are the chief elements in the story, it must not be imagined that they were the sole, the first, or the last authors of the schism.
If we group the story around their names we must explain the earlier causes that prepared for them, and note that there were temporary reunions later.
The first cause of all was the gradual estrangement of East and West.
To a great extent this estrangement was inevitable. The East and West grouped themselves around different centres — at any rate as immediate centres — used different rites and spoke different languages.
We must distinguish the position of the pope as visible head of all Christendom from his place as Patriarch of the West.
The position, sometimes now advanced by anti-papal controversialists, and that all bishops are equal in jurisdiction, was utterly unknown in the early Church.
The difference between the East and West then was in the first place that the pope in the West was not only supreme pontiff, but also the local patriarch.
He represented to Eastern Christians a remote and foreign authority, the last court of appeal, for very serious questions, after their own patriarchs had been found incapable of settling them; but to his own Latins in the West he was the immediate head, the authority immediately over their metropolitans, the first court of appeal to their bishops.
So all loyalty in the West went direct to Rome.
Rome was the Mother Church in many senses, it was by missioners sent out from Rome that the local Western Churches had been founded.
The loyalty of the Eastern Christians on the other hand went first to his own patriarch, so there was here always a danger of divided allegiance — if the patriarch had a quarrel with the pope — such as would have been inconceivable in the West. Indeed, the falling away of so many hundreds of Eastern bishops, of so many millions of simple Christians, is explained sufficiently by the schism of the patriarchs.
Further points that should be noticed are the differences of rite and language.
REASONS OF THE PRESENT SCHISM
In this deplorable story we notice the following points. It is easier to understand how a schism continues than how it began. Schisms are easily made; they are enormously difficult to heal.
In its origin we must distinguish between the schismatical tendency and the actual occasion of its outburst. But the reason of both has gone now.
The tendency was mainly jealousy caused by the rise of the See of Constantinople.
That progress is over long ago. The last three centuries Constantinople has lost nearly all the broad lands she once acquired.
There is nothing the modern Orthodox Christian resents more than any assumption of authority by the oecumenical patriarch outside his diminished patriarchate.
The Byzantine see has long been the plaything of the Turk, wares that he sold to the highest bidder. Certainly now this pitiful dignity is no longer a reason for the schism of nearly 100,000,000 Christians.
It is not difficult to show that on all these points their own Fathers are with those of the Latin Church, which asks them only to return to the old teaching of their own Church.
That is the right attitude towards the Orthodox always.
They have a horror of being latinized, of betraying the old Faith.
One must always insist that there is no idea of latinizing them, that the old Faith is not incompatible with, but rather demands union with the chief see which their Fathers obeyed.
In canon law they have nothing to change except such abuses as the sale of bishoprics and the Erastianism that their own better theologians deplore.
Celibacy, azyme bread, and so on are Latin customs that no one thinks of forcing on them. They need not add the Filioque to the Creed; they will always keep their venerable rite untouched. Not a bishop need be moved, hardly a feast (except that of St. Photius on 6 Feb.) altered.
All that is asked of them is to come back to where their Fathers stood, to treat Rome as Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom treated her.
It is not Latins, it is they who have left the Faith of their Fathers.
There is no humiliation in retracing one's steps when one has wandered down a mistaken road because of long-forgotten personal quarrels.
They too must see how disastrous to the common cause is the scandal of the division. They too must wish to put an end to so crying an evil. If they really wish it the way need not be difficult.
For, indeed, after nine centuries of schism we may realize on both sides that it is not only the greatest it is also the most superfluous evil in Christendom.
The great Eastern Schism - The most powerful empire and nearly half of Christendom fell away
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