For a thousand years, there was only one Church. In 1054, it split in two, and the fracture between Rome and Constantinople, between Catholics and Orthodox, lasts until today. It is the Great Schism of the East, and to understand it is to understand why Christianity has, since then, two large lungs that breathe separately.
Like almost everything in history, the rupture of 1054 was not a bolt from the blue. It was the end of centuries of separation.
A separation that came from afar
From an early age, the Christian world had two very different halves. The Latin West, centered in Rome, spoke Latin and inherited the administrative structure of the Empire. The Greek East, centered in Constantinople, spoke Greek and had a different theological and liturgical sensitivity. While the Empire kept the two united, the differences coexisted. When the West followed its own political path, they began to take their toll.
Distance turned into distrust, and distrust, over time, turned into rupture.
What was at stake
Three points concentrated the conflict:
- The primacy of the pope. Rome asserted universal authority over the entire Church; the East recognized the pope as an honor, but not this direct power.
- The filioque. The West had added to the Creed the statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "and from the Son", a change that the East never accepted.
- Culture. Language, rites and mentality had already moved apart to the point where each side found the other strange.
In 1054, envoys from the pope and the patriarch of Constantinople exchanged excommunications. The gesture, at the time, seemed like one more episode. Over time, it became the landmark of the division.
The Schism did not tear the Church apart in a day; he only recognized, in one day, a distance of centuries.
What was left of it?
The separation deepened in the following centuries, especially after the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. Catholics and Orthodox follow, to this day, two great distinct traditions. There was rapprochement, mutual excommunications were lifted in 1965, but full unity remains a quest, not a fact.
To understand the Schism within history
The Great Schism is only understood within the long history of the Church, with its tensions between East and West. To follow it in depth, the reference is the collection History of the Church of Christ, by Daniel Rops. To avoid going through such an extensive work alone, there is guided reading, chapter by chapter, with the entire historical, philosophical and theological context.
Estudo aprofundado
Curso História da Igreja, com o Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Bitencourt
Leitura aprofundada da obra de Daniel Rops, a história da Igreja contada com rigor e narrativa, do Império Romano ao Vaticano II.
Conhecer o curso de História da IgrejaFrequently asked questions
What was the Eastern Schism?
It was the rupture, consummated in 1054, between the Church of Rome (Catholic) and that of Constantinople (Orthodox), which divided Christianity between the Latin West and the Greek East.
What were the causes of the Schism?
A sum of centuries: the cultural and linguistic distance between Latins and Greeks, the dispute over the primacy of the pope and doctrinal divergences, such as the filioque clause in the Creed.
Are Catholics and Orthodox still separated?
Yes, the separation remains, although there is dialogue. The mutual excommunications of 1054 were lifted in 1965, in a gesture of rapprochement, but full unity has not yet been reestablished.
Continue: The Church in the Middle Ages · The Protestant Reformation: causes and consequences · The Crusades: what they really were