FOOD FOR THOUGHT                                                                    GREEKS AND LATINS
Fr Francis Marsden
For 24 Jan 1988.
16 July 1054. Constantinople, second city of Christendom, Rome of the East. Imagine the glorious domed basilica of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom), encrusted with mosaics and icons. Enter Cardinal Humbert, legate of Pope Leo IX. No diplomat but an aggressive and intolerant individual. Down upon the High Altar he throws a scroll carrying the Papal seal. It is a solemn Bull of Excommunication against Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of the city, in rank second only to the Pope.
By order of the Byzantine Emperor, the document is publicly burnt in defiance. The long schism of East and West has begun. Unto this day it continues. World Christianity is divided: 70% Roman Catholic, 15% Eastern Orthodox, and another 15% to stem from the Protestant reformation.

Centuries of friction had gradually led to the separation of 1054. Political ambition, a spirit of independence, abusive language, an arrogant Patriarch and a quarrelsome Cardinal finally split the Church asunder.

Worse still, in 1204 the Fourth Crusade ran wild in Constantinople. Against the orders of Pope Innocent III, western troops had occupied the city. The rabble ran riot. Latin Christian soldiers looted churches and basilicas, committed sacrilege, robbery, rape and murder against the Greek Christian population. The wealthiest and most highly civilized city of Christendom was put to the sword — by fellow Christians.

The Greek Emperor held out in Nicea. His successor recaptured Constantinople in 1261. Attempts to reunite the Church followed. Agreement was reached at Lyons (1274) but disintegrated, due to fierce anti-Latin feeling in the East.
Much later, in 1437, Pope Eugene IV persuaded the Greeks to attend a General Ecumenical Council, held at Ferrara and Florence. The Byzantine Emperor John VIII, the Patriarch of Constantinople, many Greek bishops and legates of the Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem were welcomed amidst great splendour. This genuine effort at reunion may teach us some lessons for our modern unity negotiations.
Although the Emperor’s intent was mainly political — he desperately needed Papal military support against Islam, and wanted to avoid theological issues which might put such an alliance at risk — the Papal diplomats slowly persuaded him to let the bishops tackle theology.
Gradually they pressed the Greeks to come to the point — to say why they thought the Latins were heretics. Then theologians explained the Roman doctrines. There were four major difficulties:
1.	The “Filioque” clause in the Nicene Creed, added by Rome without consulting the East. Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father alone, or also from the Son?
2.	The Latin use of unleavened bread in the Mass. The Greeks use ordinary bread.
3.	The Latin doctrine of purgatory.
4.	The primacy of the Roman see over the whole Church.

After two months’ discussion, the Greeks declared that what the Latins believed about purgatory was the same as their own belief. The language had been the problem.
After nine more months, the Greeks were ready to accept that the Latin “Filioque” clause was neither heretical nor sinful.
Both sides agreed that each Church should follow its own custom as to the type of bread used in the Eucharist.
Finally, they agreed on the universal, primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The Pope was acknowledged as “representative and Vicar of Christ, Pastor and teacher of all Christians, to the end that he may govern and rule the Church, but without detriment to the rights and prerogatives of the Eastern Patriarchs.”

Rome particularly wanted the Greeks to allow appeals to the Pope from the East in matters of controversy, and secondly to acknowledge that only the Pope could call a General Council of the Church.
133 Latin and 33 Greek bishops signed the final unity decree. It was published as a Papal Bull, Laetentur Coeli (1439). East and West were reunited.  But were they? True, the Patriarch of Constantinople and many bishops had signed. What of the ordinary people? Did they want reunion?
The Greek bishops returned to a country fighting its last battles against Turkish invasion. Archbishop Mark of Ephesus had refused to sigh the unity document and began to agitate against reunion. Many of the lower clergy were also hostile to the Roman primacy and Latin rite. So bitter was the anti-Latin spirit in Constantinople that the Emperor did not dare to publish the Unity Decree of Florence until 1452, in a magnificent ceremony in Hagia Sophia Cathedral. The mass of the population henceforth avoided the Cathedral as though it were plague-stricken.
Despite the arrival of the Papal fleet, money and arms, the city fell six months later to the 160,000 strong Turkish army. “Better the turban of the Prophet than the Pope’s tiara “ had been the cry of the anti-Roman faction. They got what they asked for. After 1100 years, the Byzantine Empire came to an end.

The conquering Sultan Mohammed II made sure an enemy of the Latins was appointed as Patriarch. Thereafter the Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem also rejected the reunion, although their delegates had signed it. The reunion collapsed.
Nevertheless, some smaller churches did return to communion with Rome: the Armenians in 1440, the Jacobites of Syria, some of the Ethiopians, the Nestorians of Syria and Maronites of the Lebanon. Others remain separate to this day.
What lessons can we draw from this episode?
The original schism owed more to politics, hot tempers and different cultures than to doctrinal differences. Once the bishops and theologians sat down together, given good will they could resolve the doctrinal problems.

However, theological agreement alone was not enough. There also had to be the support of the Christian people in general — a genuine widespread will and desire for unity. Because this was lacking at grass roots level, agitators like Archbishop Mark of Ephesus were able to wreck the reunion.
The major stumbling block for the East is still what jurisdiction or power the Pope should have to intervene in their affairs — as a court of appeal, in the appointment or deposition of bishops? One can see political complications with the Kremlin over the Russian Orthodox Church. Moscow would hardly welcome any Roman influence in Russian religious affairs. A national church is much easier to control than an international one.

Between Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants the gaps are much wider. The Anglican Communion seems very much divided within itself over basic teachings. Can the ecumenical movement be an invitation to them to find their source of unity not in the British Establishment, but where historically it ought to be, in the See of Rome?

While liturgies can vary, so long as the Seven Sacraments are celebrated; while the extent of Papal jurisdiction over reunited churches would have to be negotiated, there are - divinely revealed Catholic teachings which are non-negotiable. These truths are unchangeable, and cannot be put in danger by ambiguous statements. One can only pray that dialogue with Protestant theologians and church leaders will lead to their gradually understanding and accepting such truths preserved in the Catholic faith. We too may learn from their experience.

The path towards unity is long and hard. Only the Holy Spirit knows the route.