The schism between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean Christians resulted from a variety of political, cultural and theological factors which transpired over centuries. Historians regard the mutual excommunications of 1054 as the terminal event. It is difficult to agree on a date for the event where the start of the schism was apparent. It may have started as early as the
Quartodeciman controversy at the time of
Victor of Rome (c. 180). Orthodox apologists point to this incident as an example of claims by Rome to the papal primacy and its rejection by Eastern Churches. Sporadic schisms in the common unions took place under
Pope Damasus I in the 4th and 5th centuries. Disputes about theological and other questions led to schisms between the Churches in Rome and Constantinople for 37 years from 482 to 519 (the
Acacian Schism). Most sources agree that the separation between East and West is clearly evident by the
Photian schism in 863 to 867.
Claims of the See of Rome While the church at Rome claimed a special authority over the other churches, the extant documents of that era yield "no clear-cut claims to, or recognition, of papal primacy." Towards the end of the 2nd century, Victor, the Bishop of Rome, attempted to resolve the Quartodeciman controversy. The question was whether to celebrate Easter concurrently with the Jewish
Passover, as Christians in the Roman province of Asia did, or to wait until the following Sunday, as was decreed by synods held in other Eastern provinces, such as those of
Palestine and
Pontus, the acts of which were still extant at the time of
Eusebius, and in Rome. The pope attempted to excommunicate the churches in Asia, which refused to accept the observance on Sunday. Other bishops rebuked him for doing so. Laurent Cleenewerck comments: Despite Victor's failure to carry out his intent to excommunicate the Asian churches, a number of Catholic apologists point to this episode as evidence of papal primacy and authority in the early Church, citing the fact that none of the bishops challenged his right to excommunicate but instead questioned the wisdom and charity of his action. Anglican apologists question the premise that Victor even asserted what he imagined to be supremacy: The opinion of the bishop of Rome was often sought, especially when the patriarchs of the Eastern Mediterranean were locked in fractious dispute. However, the bishop of Rome's opinion was by no means accepted automatically. The bishops of Rome never obviously belonged to either the
Antiochian or the
Alexandrian schools of theology, and usually managed to steer a middle course between whatever extremes were being propounded by theologians of either school. Because Rome was remote from the centers of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean, it was frequently hoped its bishop would be more impartial. For instance, in 431,
Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, appealed to
Pope Celestine I, as well as the other patriarchs, charging Constantinople Patriarch
Nestorius with heresy, which was dealt with at the
Council of Ephesus. He nevertheless believed Rome's capacity to excommunicate Nestorius to only be effective in the West. In 342,
Pope Julius I wrote: "The custom has been for word to be written first to us [in the case of bishops under accusation, and notably in apostolic churches], and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place". This was also decreed by the
Council of Sardica, which declared Saint
Athanasius to be the lawful bishop of Alexandria. In
382 a synod in Rome protested against the raising of Constantinople to a position above that of Alexandria and spoke of Rome as "the
apostolic see".
Pope Siricius (384–399) claimed for papal decretals the same binding force as decisions of synods,
Pope Innocent I (401–417) said that all major judicial cases should be reserved for the see of Rome, and
Pope Boniface I (418–422) declared that the church of Rome stands to "the churches throughout the world as the head to its members" and that bishops everywhere, while holding the one same episcopal office, must "recognise those to whom, for the sake of ecclesiastical discipline, they should be subject". Celestine I () considered that the condemnation of Nestorius by his own Roman synod in 430 was sufficient, but consented to the general council as "of benefit in manifesting the faith".
Pope Leo I and his successors rejected canon 28 of the
Council of Chalcedon, as a result of which it was not officially recorded even in the East until the 6th century. The Acacian schism, when, "for the first time, West lines up against East in a clear-cut fashion", ended with acceptance of a declaration insisted on by
Pope Hormisdas (514–523) that "I hope I shall remain in communion with the apostolic see in which is found the whole, true, and perfect stability of the Christian religion". Yet, "the vast majority of the Eastern Bishops subscribed quite a different Formula." Earlier, in 494,
Pope Gelasius I (492–496) wrote to Byzantine emperor,
Anastasius, distinguishing the power of civil rulers from that of the bishops (called "priests" in the document), with the latter supreme in religious matters; he ended his letter with: "And if it is fitting that the hearts of the faithful should submit to all priests in general who properly administer divine affairs, how much the more is obedience due to the bishop of that see which the Most High ordained to be above all others, and which is consequently dutifully honoured by the devotion of the whole Church."
Pope Nicholas I (858–867) made it clear that he believed the power of the papacy extended "over all the earth, that is, over every church".
Claims of the See of Constantinople , the cathedral of Constantinople at the time of the schism In 330,
Emperor Constantine moved the imperial capital to
Byzantium, which later became
Constantinople. The centre of gravity in the empire was fully recognised to have completely shifted to the
eastern Mediterranean. Rome lost the
Senate to Constantinople and lost its status and gravitas as imperial capital. The bishop of
Byzantium was under the authority of the
metropolitan of
Heraclea when Constantine moved there. Thereafter, the bishop's connection with the imperial court meant that he was able to free himself from ecclesiastical dependency on Heraclea and in little more than half a century to obtain recognition of next-after-Rome ranking from the
First Council of Constantinople (381), held in the new capital. It decreed: "The Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because Constantinople is New Rome", thus raising it above the sees of Alexandria and Antioch. This has been described as sowing the seed for the ecclesiastical rivalry between Constantinople and Rome that was a factor leading to the schism between East and West. The website of the Orthodox Church in America says that the Bishop of Byzantium was elevated to
Patriarch already in the time of Constantine.
Chalcedon (451) Rome's
Tome of Leo (449) was highly regarded and formed the basis for the Council of Chalcedon formulation. But it was not universally accepted and was even called "impious" and "blasphemous" by those who condemned the council that approved and accepted it. The next ecumenical council corrected a possible imbalance in Pope Leo's presentation. Although the Bishop of Rome was well respected even at this early date, the East holds that the concept of the primacy of the Roman See and
Papal Infallibility were only developed much later. The disputed Few of these would have noticed any difference as noted by Timothy Ware: "Even after 1054 friendly relations between East and West continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them. ... The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in East and West were largely unaware". At the time of the excommunications, many contemporary historians, including Byzantine chroniclers, did not consider the event significant. Relations continued as usual, for instance
endownments made towards churches in the East such as the Holy Sepulchre were kept in place and Pope Gregory VII confirmed the proprietorship of the Patriarch of Jerusalem over a church in Le Marche in the Pyrenees. When Emperor
Alexios Komnenos asked in the 1080s whether a canonical decision had been made to break relations with Rome, the participants of the synod of Constantinople said no. Interactions in the 12th century between the Latin crusaders and the indigenous population show that rather than the former considering the latter as heretics or schismatics, they incorporated local hierarchies into their own.
Sectarian tensions in the Byzantine Empire in the 11th–12th centuries Starting from the late 11th century, the dependency of the Byzantine Empire on the navies of the
Republic of Venice and, to a lesser extent, the
Republic of Genoa and the
Republic of Pisa, led to the predominance of Catholic merchants in Byzantium—which had received major trading concessions since the 1080s—subsequently causing economic and social upheaval. Together with the perceived arrogance of the Italians, it fueled popular resentment amongst the middle and lower classes both in the countryside and in the cities. By the second half of the 12th century, the practically uncontrollable rivalry among competitors from the different city-states devolved to the point that Italians were raiding the quarters of other Italians in the capital, and retaliatory draconian measures by the Byzantine authorities led to the deterioration of inter-religious relations in the city. When in 1182 the regency of the
empress mother,
Maria of Antioch, an ethnic French notorious for the favouritism shown to Latin merchants and the big aristocratic land-owners, was deposed by
Andronikos I Komnenos in the wake of popular support, the new emperor allowed mobs to
massacre the hated foreigners. Henceforth Byzantine foreign policy was invariably perceived as sinister and anti-Latin in the West. Byzantine theologian
Theodore Balsamon wrote in 1190 that no Latin should be given sacraments unless he first declares that he will abstain from Latin dogmas and customs and conform to Eastern practices. He was still criticized for excessive harshness by contemporaries such as Archbishop
Demetrios Chomatenos, who pointed out that Latins had not been condemned as heretics and were not in complete schism, although he did not state whether Latins should be given Communion or vice versa.
Fourth Crusade (1204) and other military conflicts Motivated in part by lingering resentment over the
massacre of the Latins in Constantinople 22 years earlier, ill-fated dynamics in the organization of the crusade (originally intended to recapture Jerusalem), and
Alexios Angelos' request that his father's rule be reestablished in Constantinople, the fourth crusader army arrived in Constantinople in April 1203. Latin crusaders and Venetian merchants sacked
Constantinople itself (1204), looting
the Church of Holy Wisdom and various other Orthodox holy sites, and converting them to Latin Catholic worship. The Norman Crusaders also destroyed the
Imperial Library of Constantinople. Various holy artifacts from these Orthodox holy places were taken to the West. The crusaders also appointed a
Latin Patriarch of Constantinople. The conquest of Constantinople and the
final treaty established the
Latin Empire of the East and the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, with various other
Crusader states. Later some religious artifacts were sold in Europe to finance or fund the Latin Empire in Byzantium – as when Emperor
Baldwin II of Constantinople () sold the relic of the
Crown of Thorns while in France trying to raise new funds to maintain his hold on Byzantium. In 1261, the Byzantine emperor,
Michael VIII Palaiologos brought the Latin Empire to an end. However, the Western attack on the heart of the Byzantine Empire is seen as a factor that led eventually to its conquest by Ottoman Muslims in the 15th century. Some scholars believe that the 1204 sacking of Constantinople contributed more to the schism than the events of 1054. In northern Europe, the
Teutonic Knights, after their 12th- and 13th-century successes in the
Northern Crusades, attempted (1240) to conquer the
Eastern Orthodox Russian Republics of
Pskov and
Novgorod, an enterprise somewhat endorsed by
Pope Gregory IX (). One of the major defeats the Teutonic Knights suffered was the
Battle of the Ice in 1242. Catholic
Sweden also undertook several
campaigns against Orthodox Novgorod. There were also
conflicts between Catholic
Poland and Orthodox Russia, which helped solidify the schism between East and West.
Second Council of Lyon (1272) The
Second Council of Lyon was convoked to act on a pledge by Michael VIII to reunite the Eastern church with the West. Wishing to end the Great Schism that divided
Rome and
Constantinople, Gregory X had sent an embassy to Michael VIII, who had reconquered Constantinople, putting an end to the remnants of the
Latin Empire in the East, and he asked Latin despots in the East to curb their ambitions. On 29 June (the
Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a patronal feast of the Popes), Gregory X celebrated a
Mass in
St John's Church, where both sides took part. The council declared that the Roman church possessed "the supreme and full primacy and authority over the universal Catholic Church." The union effected was "a sham and a political gambit", a fiction maintained by the emperor to prevent westerners from recovering the city of Constantinople, which they had lost just over a decade before, in 1261. It was fiercely opposed by clergy and people and never put into effect, in spite of a sustained campaign by Patriarch
John XI of Constantinople (John Bekkos), a convert to the cause of union, to defend the union intellectually, and vigorous and brutal repression of opponents by Michael. In 1278,
Pope Nicholas III, learning of the fictitious character of Greek conformity, sent legates to Constantinople, demanding the personal submission of every Orthodox cleric and adoption of the
Filioque, as already the Greek delegates at Lyon had been required to recite the Creed with the inclusion of
Filioque and to repeat it two more times. Emperor Michael's attempts to resolve the schism ended when
Pope Martin IV, seeing that the union was only a sham, excommunicated Michael VIII in 1281 in support of
Charles of Anjou's attempts to mount a new campaign to retake the Eastern Roman provinces lost to Michael. Michael VIII's son and successor
Andronicus II repudiated the union, and Bekkos was forced to abdicate, being eventually exiled and imprisoned until his death in 1297.
Council of Ferrara–Florence (1439) In the 15th century, the eastern emperor
John VIII Palaiologos, pressed hard by the
Ottoman Turks, was keen to ally himself with the West, and to do so he arranged with
Pope Eugene IV for discussions about the reunion to be held again, this time at the
Council of Ferrara-Florence. After several long discussions, the emperor managed to convince the Eastern representatives to accept the Western doctrines of Filioque, Purgatory and the supremacy of the Papacy. On 6 June 1439, an agreement was signed by all the Eastern bishops present but one,
Mark of Ephesus, who held that Rome continued in both
heresy and
schism. It seemed that the Great Schism had been ended. Upon their return, the Eastern bishops found their agreement with the West broadly rejected by the populace and by civil authorities, with the notable exception of the Emperors of the East who remained committed to union until the
Fall of Constantinople two decades later. The union signed at Florence has never been accepted by the Eastern churches.
Fall of Constantinople (1453) and thereafter At the time of the
Fall of Constantinople to the invading
Ottoman Empire in May 1453, Orthodox Christianity was already entrenched in
Russia, whose political and de facto religious centre had shifted from
Kiev to
Moscow. The
Russian Church, a part of the Church of Constantinople until the mid-15th century, was granted full independence (
autocephaly) and elevated to the rank of
Patriarchate in 1589. The Russian political and ecclesiastical elite came to view Moscow as the
Third Rome, a legitimate heir to Constantinople and Byzantium. Under
Ottoman rule, the Orthodox Church acquired the status of an autonomous
millet, specifically the
Rum Millet. The Ecumenical Patriarch became the ruler (
millet başı) of all the Orthodox Christian subjects of the empire, including non-Greeks. Upon conquering Constantinople,
Mehmed II assumed the legal function of the Byzantine emperors and appointed Patriarch
Gennadius II. The sultans enhanced the temporal powers of the Greek orthodox hierarchy that came to be politically beholden solely to the Ottoman sultan and, along with other
Ottoman Greek nobles, came to run the Balkan Orthodox domains of the Ottoman Empire. In Russia, the anti-Catholic sentiments came to be entrenched by the
Polish intervention during the
Time of Troubles in the early 17th century, which was seen as an attempt to convert Moscow to Catholicism. The modern Russian national holiday,
Unity Day, was established on the day of church celebration in honour of the
Our Lady of Kazan icon, which is believed to have miraculously saved Moscow from outright Polish conquest in 1612.
Patriarch Hermogenes of Moscow was executed by the Poles and their supporters during this period (see also
Polish–Lithuanian–Muscovite Commonwealth). In the 16th and 17th centuries, there were attempts at unions between the Roman Church and various groups within Eastern Orthodoxy. For example, a succession of Patriarchs of Antioch had been in communion with both Rome and Constantinople in the years preceding the Rome-Antioch schism of 1724. The final separation between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches came in the 18th century. In 1729, the Roman Church under
Pope Benedict XIII prohibited communion with Orthodox Churches. In 1755, the
patriarchs of Alexandria,
Jerusalem and Constantinople in retaliation declared the final interruption of sacral communion with the Roman Church and declared Catholicism heretical.
First Vatican Council (1870) The doctrine of papal primacy was further developed at the
First Vatican Council, which declared that "in the disposition of God the Roman church holds the preeminence of ordinary power over all the other churches". This council also affirmed the dogma of
papal infallibility, declaring that the infallibility of the Christian community extends to the pope himself when he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church. This new dogma, as well as the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, promulgated in
Ineffabilis Deus a few years prior, are unequivocally rejected by the Eastern Church as heretical.
Nullification of mutual anathemas (1965) A major event of the
Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), was the issuance by
Pope Paul VI and Orthodox Patriarch
Athenagoras I of Constantinople of the
Catholic–Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965. At the same time, they lifted the mutual excommunications dating from the 11th century. The act did not result in the restoration of communion. ==Eastern Catholic Churches==