I just happened across this very helpful tidbit written by our friend, Professor William J. Tighe, for the dearly lamented Pontifications. The context is a response to a passage from Louis Bouyer’s The Church of God (1982).
It is true that the date of 1054 is wholly “symbolic” (however important a symbol it later became) and without concrete importance in the process. Rome and Constantinople, it appears, had been in technical schism from one another since 1009, when Pope Sergius IV (1009-1012) may have sent, upon his election, a statement of faith including the filioque to Patriarch Sergius II (1000-1019) of Constantinople (Rome was to adopt the Creed with the filioque in 1014); however, it may be that Roman popes from 1009 onwards ceased to notify Constantinople of their election, which would account for the fact that the last Pope of Rome commemorated on the Constantinopolitan diptychs was John XVIII (1003-1009). While the events of 1054 certainly contributed to the alienation of the two sees from one another (as, more profoundly, did the shock of the sacking of Constantinople in 1204), it was far from being the date of the schism between “the East” and “the West,” and as late as the 1090s the Byzantine Emperor could inform the Latins who had reached Constantinople in the course of the First Crusade that it had been the negligence of past bishops of both Rome and Constantinople that had occasioned the alienation between them, and not differences of doctrine. As to the other Eastern Patriarchates, in Antioch there was open schism from 1100 onwards, in which year the Crusaders installed a Latin Patriarch and expelled the Byzantine one, and for the next two centuries, until the expulsion of the last Crusaders in 1291, two rival lines vied for the possession of the city’s churches and the allegiance of its clergy. In Jerusalem, the Turkish rulers had expelled the Greek patriarch in the 1070s, and although the Crusaders had agreed to restore the Byzantine patriarch when they captured Jerusalem, he died a few weeks before Jerusalem fell in July 1099. The Crusaders then elected a Latin patriarch, and a succession of Latin patriarchs seem to have been accepted by easterners and westerners alike for nearly a century, until Saladin reconquered Jerusalem for Islam in 1187. From 1099 onwards a series of Greek “Patriarchs of Jerusalem” continued at Constantinople, and it was to the Greek patriarch that Saladin gave control of the Jerusalem Church in 1188, and during the brief Latin reconquest of Jerusalem from 1229 to 1244 the two rival lines contended for the allegiance of the holy city’s churches and clergy. As for Alexandria, as late as 1215 its patriarch regarded himself as in communion with Rome, but this had evidently ceased by the close of the century; and Rome named a Latin “Patriarch of Alexandria” in 1310.
Up until the Council of Florence both the East and the West contained “rigorists” and “laxists” concerning the ecclesiastical status of the other, and while the papacy generally took a strict line in theory, holding that those who were not in the “communion and obedience” of the Apostolic See, in practice it took the line—certainly at Florence—that the division, whetever its precise nature and status, was within the Church. At Florence, or after it, all four Eastern patriarchs accepted the union that the council had achieved, and while the union appears to have been treated at Constantinople as broken from 1453 onwards, after the Turkish conquest, it was not until 1484 that all four patriarchs, either in person or through their representatives, meeting at Constantinople, formally repudiated Florence. So if there must be a date given for the schism, the best one is 1484—and this despite the fact that the Metropolitinate of Kiev appears to have succeeded in remaining in communion with Rome and Constantinople down to just before or after 1500.
So much for dating the schism. One had to add, though, that relations between Byzantines and Latins were very different in Slavic lands and in Greek/Arabic lands. In the former, Moscow’s prompt rejection of Florence in 1441 was followed-up by the anathematization of Latins as heretics and the requirement of rebaptism for all Latins wishing to enter Orthodoxy, and as Muscovite influence over Orthodoxy in neighboring Slavic lands grew over the succeeding 200 years (especially after then 1595 Union of Brest, which brought a substantial portion of the Kiev Metropolitanate back into union with Rome), this policy gradually became the norm. However, in the 1660s the Russians, under the influence of both Greek practice (the same meeting of patriarchs in 1484 that had repudiated the Council of Florence mandated the reception of Latin converts by chrismation) and, perhaps, Western sacramental teaching, abandoned the practice of rebaptism for chrismation only. However, the Constantinopolitan practice was itself about to change.
A watershed was passed in 1724 with the division of the Patriarchate of Antioch into two factions, one in favor of union with Rome, the other against. Ethnic rivalries were also involved in the dispute: by 1700 the Alexandrian and Antiochene patriarchates were both firmly under Greek control at a hierarchical level (the Alexandrian patriarchate, small in numbers, served some few ethnic Greek communities in Egypt, but the Jerusalem patriarchate, although exclusively Greek in its bishops, served a largely Arab laity, and most of its married clergy were Arabs as well), but in Antioch the patriarch (frequently) and the bishops (mostly) were Arabs. In the aftermath of the election of rival patriarchs in 1724, the Constantinople patriarchate managed to secure a decisive say in the choice of all three other eastern patriarchates, which amounted in the case of Antioch to a Greek take-over (it was not until 1878 that an Arab became patriarch again) , and while the first Melkite Catholic patriarch was quickly executed by the Turkish authorities, the end result was two Byzantine patriarchal lines in Antioch, one Catholic (in communion with Rome), the other Orthodox. This led to increasing hostility on both sides: in 1729 and again in 1753 Rome issued strict proscriptions banning any common worship or sacramental sharing between Catholics and Orthodox, and in 1755 the Orthodox Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem (but not Antioch, despite the bitterness of the disvision there), laid down that all Latin converts were to be received henceforth by rebaptism, not chrismation — a practice that Constantinople and Alexandria ceased to require in the 1960s, but which the Jerusalem patriarchate still maintains in its full rigor (as do various “Old Calendar” and “True Orthodox” Orthodox splinter groups) to this day.
One cannot pass over completely any mention of how, at times, and in some places, a theoretical rigorism coexisted with a practical laxity. Bishop Kallistos (Ware) has documented the degree of practical cooperation, and even sacramental sharing, that occurred in the Aegean region right down to the early 1700s in his article from the early 1970s “Orthodox and Catholics in the Seventeenth Century: Schism or Intercommunion” (Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, ed. Derek Baker [Cambridge, 1972]) and similar examples could be provided from the Middle East in the same period.
(Thanks to Christopher at Orrologion for preserving the text of this article on his blog.)
This is such a fine and informative article. Thanks for this!
It reinforces my own conviction that our chance for authentic unity lies in knowing one another, wrestling with theological issues, and coming to see one another as important gifts to each other.
Until we are able to admit that each of us is “defective” we will continue treating this as some rivalry that requires capitulation by one side or the other.
The reality is we will have to capitulate to each other and to Christ, the only Head of His Body.
B
I am not sure that the word “capitulate” really gets at the lesson that I take from Dr Tighe’s fine and worthy post. What I take away from this is that long after differences in doctrine had solidified between Rome and the Constantinople (and, by extension, the three other patriarchates under Constantinople’s sway) Rome and Constantinople continued to maintain communion as a sort of practise of oikonomia.
I think that if there is to be any hope for reconciliation, it will have to be found in this generous application of oiknomia, rather than in a “capitulation” to each other, or even to Christ. Indeed, the idea that it requires a capitulation to Christ, while fine sounding, really can never do more than beg the question in practise (in what, precisely, does such a capitulation consist?). To claim that an extension of oikonomia is necessary, however, is at least an intelligible claim (albeit highly unpalatable to the more extreme partisans of both sides).
Indeed, the idea that it requires a capitulation to Christ, while fine sounding, really can never do more than beg the question in practise (in what, precisely, does such a capitulation consist?).
My thought exactly. In fact, when I first read Barnabas’s comment, I was (impishly) tempted to respond (re capitulating to Christ), “Yeah, and He wants you to join the Catholic Church.”
OK, it was an impish impulse…and not intended seriously. (Just heading off the brick-brats here. :))
Barnabas,
If you haven’t had a chance to read Fr. Maximos’ post, “Defective Churches” at The Anastasis Dialogue, I recommend it also. In it, he asks if Rome is also “defective” due to want of communion with the Orthodox churches. As a Byzantine Catholic, I readily confess that my Church is also “defective”, because anything short of full communion with Orthodoxy is “defective”. At any rate, Fr. Maximos wrote:
Diane,
With all due respect, your “confessional” comment was unnecessary. What were you hoping to achieve by spilling your “impish” thought? I encourage you to speak plainly, and not to coat your words with alleged “humor”. It makes dialogue difficult because I can’t hear what you’re actually saying behind, “That was not intended to be taken seriously.”
Thanks for reposting this. I found it informative the first time I read it, but even more so now. I was wondering about the Antiochene situation. I worship at an Antiochian Orthodox church and have noted that Roman Catholics coming into the church are not required to be rebaptised. That is good catholic theology.
Wei-Hsien: I see that my attempt to dodge the brickbrats was not successful. They were lobbed anyway. Ah well. This is the Internet, after all, inn’t it? It’s pretty much impossible to say “boo” in an online forum without eliciting some snarky, and usually judgmental, response. 😦
Dr. Tighe makes excellent points as usual. From the legalistic point of view his dating is correct. However I think the event which redefined the schism from what had been hitherto an isolated quarrel between two patriarchs (Old Rome & New Rome) can not be ignored. With the sack of Constantinople in 1204 all that followed became virtually unavoidable. Whatever good will had remained between East & West up to that point vanished in the blink of an eye. The later dates are what lawyers would look for. But it was in 1204 that the Orthodox perceived Rome had become the enemy.
We are now 800 years away from that black date. A lot has happened since then, some good some not. But the gulf remains. Nothing before or after the events of 1204 could have on their own kept open this bitter wound in the Body of Christ. I stand by that date. It is not 1484 that most Orthodox from the old country remember. It is the long shadow of 1204 that lies between the two halves of Christendom to this day.
ICXC
John
Greg DeLassus:
>Indeed, the idea that it requires a capitulation to Christ, while fine sounding, really can never do more than beg the question in practise (in what, precisely, does such a capitulation consist?).
Of course we need to ask the further question “in what does such capitulation [to Christ] exist?” but it’s nice to at least first reestablish that healing the schism *is* a matter of capitulation to Christ. If you think everyone truly understands that already, I will just say that I disagree with you.
Re: Diane’s comments- frequently to make provocative remarks and then to try to take them back with “oh I was just kidding” is, IMO, to invite brickbats. Joe
The beginning of alienation between East and West can be seen much earlier than the 11th century. For example, the Quinisext Council (692) appears to have gone out of its way to condemn longstanding Western practices and to prescribe the disciplinary customs of Constantinople as binding on the entire Church. Therefore, I don’t think what occurred in 1054 can be written off as “an isolated quarrel between two patriarchs.” Rather, it was one skirmish in an intermittent rivalry that went back centuries earlier and continued gradually to harden for centuries thereafter.