East–West Schism

The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences, theological disputes and geopolitical tensions between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split in 1054. Prominent among these were the procession of the Holy Spirit (), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, iconoclasm, the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans in 800, the pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy. Although 1054 has become conventional, various scholars have proposed different dates for the Great Schism, including 1009, 1204, 1277, and 1484.

The first action that led to a formal schism occurred in 1053 when Patriarch Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople. In 1054, the papal legate sent by Leo IX travelled to Constantinople to deny Cerularius the title of "ecumenical patriarch" and insist that he recognize the pope's claim to be the head of all of the churches, and to seek help from the Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos, in view of the Norman conquest of southern Italy, and to respond to Leo of Ohrid's attacks on the use of unleavened bread and other Western customs, attacks that had the support of Cerularius. When the leader of the legation, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, learned that Cerularius had refused to accept the demand, he excommunicated him, and in response Cerularius excommunicated Humbert and the other legates.

The validity of the Western legates' act is doubtful because Pope Leo had died and Cerularius' excommunication only applied to the legates personally. Still, the Church split along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed: each side occasionally accuses the other of committing heresy and of having initiated the schism. Reconciliation was made increasingly difficult in the generations that followed; events such as the Latin-led Crusades, though originally intended to aid the Eastern Church, only served to further tension. The Massacre of the Latins in 1182 greatly deepened existing animosity and led to the West's retaliation via the Sacking of Thessalonica in 1185, the pillaging of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and the imposition of Latin patriarchs. The emergence of competing Greek and Latin hierarchies in the Crusader states, especially with two claimants to the patriarchal sees of Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem, made the existence of a schism clear. Several attempts at reconciliation did not bear fruit.

In 1965, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I nullified the anathemas of 1054, although this was merely a gesture of goodwill and did not constitute a reunion. The absence of full communion between the Churches is even explicitly mentioned when the Code of Canon Law gives Catholic ministers permission to administer the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist, and the anointing of the sick to members of eastern churches such as the Eastern Orthodox Church (as well as the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East) and members of western churches such as the Old Catholic Church, when those members spontaneously request these.

Eastern Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky criticize the focus of Western theology of God in "God in uncreated essence" as misguided, which he alleges is a modalistic and therefore a speculative expression of God that is indicative of the Sabellian heresy. Eastern Orthodox theologian Michael Pomazansky argues that, in order for the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son in the Creed, there would have to be two sources in the deity (double procession), whereas in the one God there can only be one source of divinity, which is the Father hypostasis of the Trinity, not God's essence per se. In contrast, Bishop Kallistos Ware suggests that the problem is more in the area of semantics than of basic doctrinal differences:

Experience of God versus scholasticism

Lossky argues that the difference between East and West lies in the Catholic Church's use of pagan metaphysical philosophy (and scholasticism) rather than the actual experience of God, called , to validate the theological dogmas of Catholic Christianity. For this reason, Lossky states that Eastern Orthodox and Catholics have become "different men". Other Eastern Orthodox theologians such as Romanides and the ecumenical Second Council of Constantinople numbered Saint Augustine among the great doctors of the Church, alongside Athanasius of Alexandria, Hilary of Poitiers, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, St. Ambrose, Theophilus, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Pope Leo the Great. The late modern denial by some Eastern Orthodox writers of the supposedly "Western" teaching on original sin is regarded by some traditionalist Eastern Orthodox as a form of modernism.

Eastern Orthodox teaching on original sin

What the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts is that ancestral sin corrupted their existence (their bodies and environment) that each person is born into, and thus we are born into a corrupted existence (by the ancestral sin of Adam and Eve) and that "original sin is hereditary. It did not remain only Adam and Eve's. As life passes from them to all of their descendants, so does original sin. All of us participate in original sin because we are all descended from the same forefather, Adam." The teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church is that, as a result of Adam's sin, "hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden, and experiences the fruits of it in this present world."

Similarly, what the Catholic Church holds is that the sin of Adam that we inherit, and for the remission of which even babies who have no personal sin are baptized, is called "sin" only in an analogical sense since it is not an act committed like the personal sin of Adam and Eve, but a fallen state contracted by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice.

Both East and West hold that each person is not called to atone for the actual sin committed by Adam and Eve.

According to the Western Church, "original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants", and the Eastern Church teaches that "by these fruits and this burden we do not understand [actual] sin". The Orthodox and the Catholics believe that people inherit only the spiritual sickness (in which all suffer and sin) of Adam and Eve, caused by their ancestral sin (what has flowed to them), a sickness leaving them weakened in their powers, subject to ignorance, suffering from the domination of death, and inclined to sin.

Immaculate Conception

The Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which claims that God protected the Virgin Mary from original sin through no merit of her own, was dogmatically defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Orthodox theology proclaims that Mary was chosen to bear Christ, having first found favor of God by her purity and obedience.

Sin, purgatory, and hell

Purgatory

Another point of theological contention between the Western and Eastern churches is the doctrine of purgatory (as it was shown at the Second Council of Lyon and the Council of Ferrara–Florence). It was developed in time in Western theology, according to which "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." However, some Eastern theologians, while agreeing that there is beyond death a state in which believers continue to be perfected and led to full divinization, consider that it is a state not of punishment but of growth. They hold that suffering cannot purify sin, since they have a different view of sin and consider suffering as a result of a spiritual sickness. Western theology usually considers sin not only as a sickness that weakens and impedes but also as something that merits punishment.

The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that "there is a state beyond death where believers continue to be perfected and led to full divinization". Although some Orthodox have described this intermediate state as purgatory, others distinguish it from aspects associated with it in the West: at the Council of Ferrara–Florence, the Orthodox Bishop Mark of Ephesus argued that there are in it no purifying fires.

Some Orthodox Christians also subscribe to the belief of aerial toll houses, which states that souls are tested by demons while on their way to Heaven. This concept is not found in Roman Catholicism.

Damnation

The traditional Orthodox teaching is that those who reject Christ will suffer his absence. According to the Confession of Dositheus, "persons go immediately to joy in Christ or to the torments of punishment". In Orthodox doctrine, there is no place without God. In eternity, there is no hiding from God. In Catholic theology, God is present everywhere, not only by his power but in himself. Hell is a state of self-selected separation from God.

Eastern theology considers the desire to sin to be the result of a spiritual sickness (caused by Adam and Eve's pride), which needs to be cured.

History

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

thumb|[[Hagia Sophia, 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. but not when reciting it in Greek.

In June 1995, Patriarch Bartholomew I, of Constantinople, visited Vatican City for the first time, and joined in the historic inter-religious day of prayer for peace at Assisi. John Paul II and Bartholomew I explicitly stated their mutual "desire to relegate the excommunications of the past to oblivion and to set out on the way to re-establishing full communion".

In May 1999, John Paul II was the first pope since the Great Schism to visit an Eastern Orthodox country: Romania. Upon greeting John Paul II, the Romanian Patriarch Teoctist stated: "The second millennium of Christian history began with a painful wounding of the unity of the Church; the end of this millennium has seen a real commitment to restoring Christian unity." John Paul II visited other heavily Orthodox areas such as Ukraine, despite lack of welcome at times, and he said that healing the divisions between Western and Eastern Christianity was one of his fondest wishes.

In June 2004, Bartholomew I's visit to Rome for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) afforded him the opportunity for another personal meeting with John Paul II, for conversations with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and for taking part in the celebration for the feast day in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Patriarch's partial participation in the Eucharistic liturgy at which the Pope presided followed the program of the past visits of Patriarch Dimitrios (1987) and Patriarch Bartholomew I himself: full participation in the Liturgy of the Word, a joint proclamation by the Pope and by the Patriarch of the profession of faith according to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in Greek and as the conclusion, the final Blessing imparted by both the Pope and the Patriarch at the Altar of the Confessio. The Patriarch did not fully participate in the Liturgy of the Eucharist involving the consecration and distribution of the Eucharist itself.

Prospects for reconciliation

Despite efforts on the part of Catholic popes and Orthodox patriarchs to heal the schism, only limited progress towards reconciliation has been made over the last half-century. One stumbling block is the fact that the Orthodox and the Catholics have different perceptions of the nature of the divide. The official Catholic teaching is that the Orthodox are schismatic, meaning that there is nothing heretical about their theology, and their unwillingness to accept the supremacy of the Pope is presented in Catholic teaching as chiefly an ecclesiological issue, not so much a theological one. The Orthodox object to the Catholic doctrines of purgatory, substitutionary atonement, the immaculate conception, and papal supremacy, among others, as heretical doctrines.

Sources

External links

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Encyclopædia Britannica: Schism of 1054
Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, 7 December 1965
BBC Radio 4 round table: In Our Time: Schism (16 October 2003) (audio)
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