Byzantine Culture

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The Great Schism of 1054

Discover the Great Schism of 1054, the event that divided Christianity into its Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic branches. Explore the theological, liturgical, and political causes of the split.

The Great Schism of 1054 is the event traditionally taken to mark the final separation between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Although the actual split was the result of centuries of growing apart, the year 1054 has come to symbolize the moment when the two branches of Christianity definitively broke their communion. The Schism shaped the subsequent history of both churches, of Europe, and of the Mediterranean world, and its effects are still felt in Christian life today.

The Schism was not a single event but a process, the culmination of tensions that had been accumulating for centuries. The mutual excommunications of 1054 were not the cause of the Schism but the symbol of it, and the real causes were theological, liturgical, political, and cultural, extending back to the very origins of Christianity.

The Roots of the Schism

Early Tensions

The earliest tensions between the Christian East and West can be traced to the second and third centuries, when the apostolic sees of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem began to develop distinct traditions of theology and practice. The recognition of Rome as the chief see of the Christian world, with a primacy of honor derived from the tradition that both Peter and Paul had been martyred there, was accepted by all the apostolic churches. But the practical meaning of this primacy was disputed from the beginning.

The theological differences between East and West began to take shape in the fourth century, with the Arian controversy, the disputes over the nature of the Trinity, and the ecumenical councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. The Creed that emerged from these councils, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, became a point of contention when the Western church added the phrase “and the Son” (the Filioque) to the clause concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Eastern churches rejected this addition as theologically unsound and as an illegitimate alteration of the ecumenical faith.

The Role of the Patriarchates

By the fifth century, the five great patriarchates of the Christian world — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem — had developed a system of honorary precedence, with Rome first, Constantinople second, Alexandria third, Antioch fourth, and Jerusalem fifth. The exact basis of this precedence was disputed, with Rome appealing to its foundation by Peter and Paul, and Constantinople appealing to its status as the New Rome and as the seat of the imperial court.

The Council of Chalcedon in 451 had attempted to resolve some of these tensions by recognizing Constantinople as the second see of the Christian world, with jurisdiction over the churches of Asia Minor and the Balkans. The Roman popes, however, rejected this decision, since it appeared to elevate the see of Constantinople above the apostolic sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and to do so on the basis of political rather than theological grounds.

The Theological Differences

The Filioque

The principal theological issue between East and West was the Filioque, the Western addition of the phrase “and the Son” to the Nicene Creed. The original text, as adopted by the Council of Constantinople in 381, stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Western churches, beginning with Spain in the sixth century, added the phrase “and the Son,” so that the text read that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son.”

The Western addition was based on a careful distinction between the eternal procession of the Spirit within the Trinity (in which the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from one principle) and the temporal mission of the Spirit in the world (in which the Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son). The Eastern churches, however, objected to the addition on two grounds. First, they argued that the addition was theologically misleading, since it seemed to subordinate the Spirit to the Son. Second, they argued that the addition was illegitimate, since it had been made without the consent of an ecumenical council.

The Papal Primacy

The second principal theological issue was the question of papal authority. The Roman popes, drawing on the Gospel text in which Christ gave Peter the keys of the kingdom and the power to bind and loose, had come to claim a supreme and universal jurisdiction over the entire Christian church. The Byzantine patriarchs, while recognizing the pope’s primacy of honor, rejected his claim to universal jurisdiction, arguing that the pope was simply the first among equals of the patriarchs, and that the universal church was governed by the five patriarchs together, with the consent of the ecumenical councils.

The papal claims were articulated most clearly by Pope Leo I in the fifth century, by Pope Gregory VII in the eleventh century, and by Pope Innocent III in the early thirteenth century. The Byzantine patriarchs, beginning with Photios in the ninth century, articulated the Eastern position that the pope was a patriarch of a particular see, with a primacy of honor but not of jurisdiction.

Other Doctrinal Issues

A number of other theological issues divided East and West. The Azymes controversy concerned the use of unleavened bread in the Latin rite, which the Eastern churches considered uncanonical. The doctrine of Purgatory was a Western development, although the Eastern churches had a related but distinct teaching on the matter. The Eastern churches used the Greek text of the New Testament, while the Western churches used the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome. The Eastern churches permitted married priests and bishops (although not the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, who were required to be celibate), while the Western church required all priests to be celibate.

The Liturgical Differences

Greek and Latin

The two branches of Christianity had developed distinct liturgical traditions. The Eastern rite, derived from the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, was celebrated in Greek, used leavened bread, and gave communion to the laity in both bread and wine. The Western rite, codified in the Roman Missal after the reforms of Gregory VII, was celebrated in Latin, used unleavened bread, and gave communion to the laity in bread alone.

The liturgical differences were not merely ceremonial. They were tied to deeper theological and cultural differences, including the different understandings of the sacraments, the use of different theological terms, and the different relationships between liturgy and theology. The Eastern liturgical tradition, with its emphasis on the cosmic liturgy of heaven celebrated by the saints and angels, was structured by a different vision of the Christian life than the Western tradition, with its emphasis on the historical work of Christ celebrated by the church on earth.

The Political Context

The Imperial and Papal Conflict

The Schism of 1054 cannot be understood apart from the political context. The Byzantine emperor, ruling from Constantinople, had long claimed a supremacy over the Christian world, with the right to convoke ecumenical councils and to appoint the patriarchs of the Eastern churches. The Roman popes, by contrast, had been increasingly independent of imperial authority since the eighth century, and they had found powerful allies in the Frankish kings of the West, especially the Carolingians and their successors.

The political tensions between East and West had erupted repeatedly in the centuries before 1054. The Iconoclast controversy had alienated the papacy from the Byzantine emperor, since the Roman popes had defended the veneration of icons against the Byzantine Iconoclasts. The coronation of Charlemagne as Roman emperor by Pope Leo III in 800 had been a deliberate affront to the Byzantine emperor, who was supposed to be the sole Roman emperor. The missionary activities of the Franks in the Balkans, especially the conversion of the Bulgarians, had brought the Western and Eastern churches into direct conflict in the regions traditionally under Byzantine influence.

The Events of 1054

The Patriarch and the Papal Legate

The specific events of 1054 involved the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, and the papal legate, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida. Cerularius had been trying to assert his authority over the churches of the Byzantine Empire, including the church of Hagia Sophia, and he had closed some Latin churches in Constantinople in retaliation for the Latin seizure of churches in southern Italy.

Pope Leo IX had sent a delegation to Constantinople in 1054, led by Cardinal Humbert, to negotiate a settlement of the disputes. The negotiations failed, and on 16 July 1054, Cardinal Humbert walked into the Hagia Sophia and placed a bull of excommunication on the altar, excommunicating Patriarch Cerularius. Cerularius responded in kind, excommunicating the papal legates. The mutual excommunications remained in effect until 1965, when Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I lifted them as a gesture of reconciliation.

The Aftermath

The Fourth Crusade

The Schism of 1054 was not the end of contact between East and West, but it shaped all subsequent relations. The First Crusade, proclaimed in 1095 by Pope Urban II, was originally a Western response to the Seljuk Turkish advance into Anatolia, and the Byzantine emperor Alexios I saw it as an opportunity to recover lost Byzantine territory. The relationship between the Crusaders and the Byzantines was always tense, and the eventual sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 was a catastrophe that confirmed and deepened the Schism.

The Council of Florence

Repeated attempts were made to reunite the churches, especially in the late medieval period when the Byzantine Empire was under severe threat from the Ottoman Turks. The Council of Florence, held in 1438–1439, succeeded in producing a declaration of reunion, accepted by Emperor John VIII and the Byzantine delegation, but rejected by the majority of the Byzantine clergy and laity. The reunion was never implemented, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 demonstrated the futility of the project.

The Long Term

The Schism of 1054 has shaped the subsequent history of Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox Churches, led by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, have remained in communion with one another but separated from Rome. The Roman Catholic Church, with its center in Rome, has developed in its own way, including the development of the doctrine of papal infallibility in the nineteenth century. The Eastern Orthodox Church has preserved the early Christian traditions of the seven ecumenical councils, while the Roman Catholic Church has continued to add to its theological tradition.

The mutual excommunications of 1054 were lifted in 1965 by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I, but the theological differences between the two churches remain, and the Schism of 1054 continues to be one of the defining events in the history of Christianity.

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