This week the Orthodox churches celebrate Holy Week. It is an appropriate time in which we might re-visit what is perhaps still the greatest scandal in Christendom of all time — the split which occurred between the East and the West in 1054. Dr Andrew Kania's commentary today takes us back to examine the causes of the split and argues that greater effort needs to be made on both sides to heal the split.

The Catholic Church's single greatest ecclesiastical tragedy…

Hagia Sophia stands today as a museum, silently casting its shadow over the Turkish city of Istanbul. After the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, this magnificent jewel of Christianity, was to become a mosque, its ancient Christian images lacquered over with plaster. But on the morning of July 16th, 1054, Hagia Sophia, with its dazzling mosaic icons, its chanting choirs, and streams of wafting incense, was very much the glorious domed temple of those Byzantine Christians who, since the time of St. Andrew, the brother of St. Peter, had gathered as a community in this region. Hagia Sophia was also to become on this day the scene of the Catholic Church's single greatest ecclesiastical tragedy.

Hagia Sophia – today a museum – on 16th July 1054 the focal point of the single greatest ecclesiastical tragedy in Catholicism (Run your mouse over the image to zoom it to larger size)

Arriving in Constantinople on a mission from Pope Leo IX (1002-1054) to resolve increasing tensions between the Eastern and Western Churches, Cardinal Humbert (1000-1061), the papal delegate, had been coolly received. Michael Cerularius (1000-1059), the patriarch of Constantinople had deliberately not granted the Cardinal an audience for a week, and after the two eventually met both men came out of the meeting with an even poorer opinion of one another, than what they had decided up until then to have. The scholar, Timothy Ware (1963, p. 67), sums up the situation in the following manner: "The choice of Cardinal Humbert was unfortunate for both he and Cerularius were men of stiff and intransigent temper, whose mutual encounter was not likely to promote good will among Christians".

By the close of that July day, Humbert would have disrupted vespers by placing a bull of excommunication on the high altar. In full view of all who were in Hagia Sophia, Humbert would walk out without bowing, genuflecting or praying, then take off his shoes at the entrance and shake the dust off his feet. Soon after, Cerularius and a Council of Eastern Catholic Patriarchs would issue a bull excommunicating Humbert and Pope Leo IX. Thus after 1054, Western Catholics and the small remnant of Eastern Catholics who remained faithful to papal authority would retain the name 'Catholic', and those Eastern Catholics who supported Constantinople and rejected the Pope of Rome would be known as 'Orthodox'.

It is now nearly a thousand years since the unfortunate event that removed the Catholic Church of the great majority of her Eastern lung. The tragedy of this division of the Apostolic Churches of Christ has polarized what was once a unity which served to express to the world the Godliness of Christ's Church. To this day despite the kiss of peace exchanged by Pope Paul VI (1897-1978) and Patriarch Athenogoras (1886-1972) of Constantinople in 1965, and the mutual retractions of the bulls of excommunication, the disunity is still maintained, more often than not, cordially.

There have been many consequences of the making rent of the sisterhood of Apostolic Churches, but probably the most poignant has, according to the eminent Orthodox priest and scholar Alexander Schmemann (1977: 252), been: "the fact that through the centuries we find hardly any sign of suffering from it, any longing for unification, any awareness of the abnormality, sin, and horror of this schism in Christendom. There was almost a satisfaction with the separation, and a desire to discover darker and darker aspects in the opposite camp…" There have been other consequences peculiar to each side.

On the Catholic side, threatened by the majority of the Apostolic Patriarchs supporting the cause of the East, Catholicism has become more and more identified with the Pope. Such identification is distinct from the ancient usage of the term 'Catholic', which in fact stated that a community was 'Catholic' as long as there was agreement by its members over the articles of the Apostles and/or Nicene Creed; the celebration of the seven Sacraments and Apostolic succession. It was this issue that Nicholas Cardinal Cusa (1401-1464), attempted to redress in his work of 1433, The Catholic Concordance, wherein he searched for a means by which to devolve the governance of the Catholic Church among the local churches. Of course all Catholics acknowledge the Pope as Universal Head of the Church, but this acceptance is not the single nor most important qualification of Catholicism. The subsequent fracture of the Latin Church after the Protestant Reformation has made the centrifugal drag toward Rome stronger. What has developed over the past millennium in the West, primarily out of self-preservation, has been a pervasive lack of awareness of the 'catholicity' of the Church. Due to the Schism of 1054 the Catholic Church has become predominately Roman Rite and subsequently uniform in its liturgical practice and emphasis of Thomistic theology. As the great ecumenist and Eastern Catholic father, Metropolitan Andrii Sheptyts'kyi (1865-1944) wrote: "Indeed, [Western] Catholics are hardly able to work fruitfully on the great project of re-unification of the West with the Catholic Church, when they do not know the rites, the customs, the history, or the teachings of the Eastern Church. It is even difficult for them to pray well for these goals, [since] one can only wish for properly what one knows and understands well". (Husar, 1993, p.189)

On the Orthodox side, a sense of self-righteousness and vindication of what occurred in 1054, as well as in the later sacking of Constantinople by the West in 1204 has often served as the fundamental rationale to help justify a failure to reach any agreement to return to the See of Rome. Metropolitan Sheptyts'kyi, a staunch defender of the Orthodox Churches, but a Catholic Prelate equally desirous of the return of the entire Christian East to Rome, had this advice for the Orthodox: "The essence of any effort toward church union ought to consist of the following: that the general opinion of our Eastern Orthodox brethren be changed in such a way that the reunification with the center of the Catholic Church be desired and longed for spontaneously from their own midst". (Husar, 1993: 185)

To this day despite the kiss of peace exchanged by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenogoras of Constantinople in 1965, and the mutual retractions of the bulls of excommunication, the disunity is still maintained, more often than not, cordially.

According to Sheptyts'kyi the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will only take place when those within the Orthodox Church have a spiritual change of heart, and this can only take place when the wrongs of the past are forgiven and when the West comes to terms with re-acquainting itself with the status of the ancient Churches of the East in relation tto Itself. The dispute as John Meyendorff (1983) writes in his work, Catholicity and the Church has never been that the Pope is the Universal Head of the Church, it has been with regard the nature and extent of Papal authority over the various Churches that once comprised the Catholic communion of the East. No Orthodox scholar can seriously oppose the notion that the Fathers of the East affirmed the Primacy of the Pope, for as the Fathers of the infallible Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon wrote to Pope Leo I on November 451 AD: "For if where two or three are gathered together in His name, He says He is there in the midst of them, how much more will He not show His companionship with five hundred and twenty priests, who preferred the spread of knowledge concerning Him to their own home and affairs, when you, as the head to the members, showed your good will through those who represented you?" (Jurgens, 1979, Vol. III, p. 271)

What the Orthodox scholars can justifiably claim is that much injustice was done in 1054, and in its wake, and that assurances and retractions must not only be granted by word of mouth, but put into practice. Without doubt, once this has been done, only the hard-hearted and mean-spirited could resist the necessary reunion of Christ's Body here on earth.

Unity in Diversity…

Plato in Philebus highlights a dialogue facilitated by Socrates, discussing the concept of unity in diversity. According to Socrates, the disparity between parts of a whole can be compared to the variety of voices which express the same word. In each case the message that a person is conveying is the same, although those who speak have a variety of intonations, expressions, accents and vocal pitch. Plato's dialogue can help illustrate the inspiration of the Holy Spirit within the Catholic Church. Within the life of the Catholic Church, there should be expressed but one Word, but with many voices singing the message to all the corners of the globe hence the existence of a unity (the Word), in diversity (many voices) in the Church. The key to future reconciliation lies in putting into practice the teaching of St. Augustine of Hippo, "In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity". The process needs to begin again with Catholic and Orthodox scholars establishing "the essentials" in a spirit of charity, and then coming to an agreement over what "non-essentials" can in the same spirit be accepted or not accepted.

As Catholics we find ourselves not without a Divine message to preach, but without adequate voice to fully speak, for only when the body has two lungs which function correctly can the voice truly be heard to its fullest purity. As Catholics we need to take the role of the shepherd who goes in search of the sheep that is lost, and not hold in our hearts the jealousy of the elder son who despises the prodigal's return home to the Father; for none of us deserve the Father's love more than another, and each of us is entitled to be heirs of our Divine inheritance, irrespective of the years that may have passed.

Since 1054, the Catholic Church has offered the world a unity at the cost of diversity, and the Orthodox Church, a diversity at the cost of unity. For our part we must acknowledge that any disease invented by man is capable of being cured by the Hand of God, if we are willing to allow God to speak through us and use our hands to do His work. If we are unwilling to find peace with our brothers then no matter how well we dress ourselves in the garment of Abel, we shall be walking in the shadow of Cain.

Image Credits: Click on the images for the original source. The photos of Hagia Sophia and St Peter's Basilica used in the headline animation were sourced from the European Commission and WikiMedia respectively.

©2008 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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