When my parents divorced, I had to choose between them—but it’s not what you think! Please afford me the chance to explain before you jump to conclusions.
Many years ago, my father and mother were married and deeply loved each other. But over time, difficulties arose between them, which caused a slow deterioration in the health of their relationship and, eventually and regrettably, divorce. And worse, their separation had the unintended result of dividing my brother and me from each other, as each of us chose a different parent to live with.
My brother and I now have two different lives with very different backgrounds, each stemming from the parent each of us chose. You’ll probably agree that children shouldn’t have to make such decisions because of the failures of their parents.
Now, you may think I’m talking about my biological father, mother, and brother. And maybe I was . . . but I’m also referring to my spiritual father, the Catholic Church; my spiritual mother, the Eastern Orthodox churches; and my spiritual brother, my Orthodox lay brethren. As a Catholic who has been Eastern Orthodox, both of my spiritual parents are responsible for who I am today. As such, I deeply desire to see unity between my parents. I have even dedicated my life to it.
Before there can be healing and unity between Catholics and Orthodox, we must examine what led to the separation, much like a couple who wish to restore their relationship. After all, if the cause of a medical disease is not discerned, it is unlikely that the proper remedy will be provided. So it is with the Catholic and Orthodox divide.
Examining this history will also help Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants to be more familiar with how we ended up in the state of separation we are in today. Familiarity with this will help them further determine that the schism was unjustified and should not be perpetuated by their actions.
When surveying the relations between Catholic West and Orthodox East, we quickly observe a long and drawn-out history of friction and deterioration. In the same way a divorce can be the result of a long and subtle breakdown in communication and relations between a husband and wife, so too it is with the Catholic and Orthodox divide.
We start to see tremors of this division as early as the second century, where Pope St. Victor I (189-199) threatened to excommunicate the churches of Asia minor over a dispute about the proper date of Easter. Some claimed they had a tradition from the apostles that Easter should be on the fourteenth of the ancient Jewish month of Nisan, whereas others claimed that it should be on whatever Sunday fell after the fourteenth of Nisan. This was patched up after several figures, including St. Irenaeus, engaged in some skillful East-West diplomacy.
Sadly, there were many other divisions to come after this event.
The fourth century saw an incredible amount of ecclesiastical turmoil and confusion. Though Nicene Christology was successfully defended and codified at the Council of Nicaea (325), this success was immediately met with resistance from many bishops in the East, who either outright rejected it or wished to adopt a modified version. This put much of the East in opposition with the bishop of Rome, along with St. Athanasius. But by the end of the fourth century, orthodoxy triumphed, and there was peace between much of the East and the West—though this too would be short lived.
In the fifth century, Christological debates in the East about the personhood and natures of Jesus led to several divisions that last to this day. For instance, the Assyrian Church of the East broke communion with the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches, and the Oriental Orthodox churches when it rejected the Council of Ephesus (431). The Oriental Orthodox broke away from the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches with its rejection of the Council of Chalcedon (451) and Constantinople II (553). It may be argued that most, if not all, of these divisions were the result of a breakdown in language and political disputes more than doctrinal differences. However, the net result of several formal divisions remains.
The fifth century saw further tremors between East and West when the patriarch of Constantinople (an important Eastern bishop over the new capital of the Roman Empire), in an attempt to win back those who had rejected the Council of Chalcedon, failed to fully uphold Chalcedon. This led to Constantinople, and those in the East who supported it, finding themselves out of communion with Rome for over four decades, in what has come to be known as the Acacian Schism. This was patched up by Pope Hormisdas, whose formula or libellus 250 Eastern bishops were required to sign to be restored to communion with the Catholic Church.
The sixth century had some bumps in the road, too. The Byzantine emperor, the leader of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, made some unsavory moves against the pope in an attempt to heal the division with those who had rejected the Council of Chalcedon. In the year 553, he held the fifth ecumenical council and attempted to force the pope’s participation and approbation. When things did not go according to plan, the council attempted to suspend the pope. Eventually, the pope and the emperor came to an agreement, but the situation left relations between East and West strained.
In the seventh century, there arose another heresy over whether Christ has one or two wills. Some in the East, backed by the emperor, asserted that Christ has only one will in order to accommodate those who were dissatisfied with Chalcedon’s emphasis on the two natures of Christ. This new heresy, called Monothelitism, offended a few bishops in the East, but especially the pope in the West. The true doctrine of two wills in Christ prevailed at the sixth ecumenical council (680-681), which was called to reassert the pope’s position, though it mistakenly condemned a previous pope, Honorius, for himself allegedly holding to Monothelitism.
The council’s adoption of Rome’s dyothelite (two wills in Christ) position resolved the brief rupture between Rome and many in the East. Yet in the next year, the Council of Trullo (691-692) stirred up petty disputes with the West over disciplinary differences, such as priestly celibacy. At the time, the differences were not enough to break ties between East and West—but some of them would find their way into later polemical works.
In the eighth century, Byzantine iconoclasm damaged relations with the West. The Byzantine emperor’s encroachment on missionary territory belonging to the pope did not help. In the end, the papacy triumphantly defended iconography in the East with the Second Council of Nicaea (787)—and yet the tension between East and West remained.
It should be noted that up until the eighth century, the East had spent a considerable amount of time outside communion with Rome. Up until this time, the heresies of the East were mostly about Christological matters rather than disputes over the papacy. However, this would change over the next couple of centuries.
It was in the eleventh century that many of the underlying tensions from previous centuries came to a swelling point. When Pope Leo IX (1049-1054) sent Cardinal Humbert (1000-1061) as his representative to Constantinople in 1054, tempers were lost, theological polemics were exchanged, and eventually the cardinal and patriarch excommunicated each other. This was not a moment where all of the Eastern churches severed ties with Rome, though it is often portrayed that way in popular circles, but it certainly impaired relations with the West.
In the late twelfth century, Constantinople massacred its Latin Catholic inhabitants for political reasons. Twenty-two years later, at the turn of the thirteenth century, a crusader army made up of Venetian Catholics sacked Constantinople in a dispute over promised payments, in what is known as the Fourth Crusade. Though the pope forbade this act, and had already excommunicated the Venetians involved, the papacy took advantage of the conquered city by acknowledging the newly installed Latin patriarch there. Having a rival Latin patriarch over the same jurisdiction claimed by the Greek patriarch of Constantinople poured acid in the wounds of Eastern Christians, who were shocked by the actions of their Western brethren. Relations with the East further deteriorated after this.
In the fifteenth century, the East experienced significant losses in territory at the hands of the Turks. This put serious pressure on the emperor to work toward reconciliation with the pope, whose aid the East could use. Thus, the Orthodox churches met with the pope at the Council of Florence (1438-1445) in an attempt to hash out their theological differences. This led to most of the Eastern bishops signing off on the papal claims and agreeing to the Church’s formulations on other disputed topics, like the filioque and purgatory. Tragically, the Orthodox bishops who signed the agreement almost immediately repudiated it, especially because their laity rejected the council.
After the Orthodox’s repudiation of the reunion council, the schism between East and West was almost entirely sealed. Occasional instances of sharing in each other’s sacraments occurred, but by the mid-eighteenth century, even this effectively ceased when it was discovered that several patriarchs of Antioch had secretly converted to Catholicism.
It is noteworthy that reunion efforts from Florence and onward were not entirely fruitless. Most of what we now call the Eastern Catholic churches came into communion with Rome, through separate agreements, from the period of the Council of Florence unto recent times. These were reunions with particular churches from parts of Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Assyrian Church of the East. In a real sense, many of these reunions were efforts to heal the schisms that began in the fifth century. However, some, especially those remaining Eastern Orthodox, have looked on these efforts as acts of betrayal by the Eastern Catholics and further occasions for mistrust in Rome.
Having reviewed some of the reasons that led to the schism between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, it is clear that naming an exact date when “the schism” occurred—let alone defining one single schism!—is a tall order, and probably impossible. What can be said confidently is that the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches began brewing in the second century and truly came to a head after the Orthodox formally repudiated the reunion of the Council of Florence.