The purpose of this research is to examine effects on the Byzantine Empire from 1054 until 1300 of the Great Schism between the Christian churches of Byzantium and Rome. In the background of the Great Schism lie the apostolic and patristic history of the Roman Catholic Church and the long-term decline of the western Roman Empire in the face of emancipated Christianity and the rise of Byzantium from the fourth century onward. According to Pagels's study of Christian sectarian gnosticism, the second century of Christianity was decisive for the development of the faith because it was then that diverse belief systems emergent in the apostolic period were programmatically identified in the service of institutionalization of the priestly hierarchy and ecclesiastical authority. The basic tenets of modern Christianity, "the canon of Scripture, the creed, and the institutional structure--emerged in present form only toward the end of the second century" (Pagels xxiii). First there was a period of consolidation and doctrinal advocacy, which occurred despite religious persecution and pursuant to the biblical injunction to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:18-20).
The implication of earthly need and divine sanction for a priestly class, i.e., clergy, to shepherd the faithful was taken up most systematically and forcefully by Paul. Campbell refers to Paul as Christianity's first "organization man," who, "in turning from Pharisee to Christian, [] simply transferred his temperament to the other side of the line and that the Christian Church that he founded thus inherited and carried into Europe the stamp of his Levantine regard for the monolithic consensus" (Campbell 379). Campbell quotes the passage in Galatians (3:28) calling for unity of Jew and Greek, slave and free, "in Christ Jesus." Similar refere...