Search This Blog

Sunday 23 November 2014

East–West Schism

For centuries, the Eastern Orthodox Church had been drifting apart from the Roman Catholic Church. By the mid eleventh century there was a major problem due to the papacy's rigid assertion of authority over all the eastern bishops, including the leader of the Orthodox church. Also the Eastern church objected to the Nicene Creed being altered to the "Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son". They believed it should read "The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father" only.

In 1054 Pope Leo IX sent a legation to Constantinople, which turned into a diplomatic disaster mainly due to the cultural differences between the two camps. The leader of the pope's legation, the high-handed Cardinal Humbert lost patience and flanked by his fellow legates, he marched up the Hagia Sophia aisle during the divine liturgy and slammed down onto the high altar a Bull of Excommunication against the Constantinople archbishop Michael Cerularius. The Archbishop responded in kind thus prompting the Great Schism, the formal breaking up of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

In 1965 the Orthodox Eastern Church and the Western Catholic Church agreed to retract the excommunications cast on each other in 1054 which formalized the Great Schism.


Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church signed an Ecumenical Declaration on February 12, 2016. The meeting, which took place in a VIP room at José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba was the first since the East–West Schism in 1054.


No comments:

Post a Comment