The Byzantine Empire and the Great Schism
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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 ref
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ate to say that east and west more or less looked past each other, agreeing to disagree, the Filioque lurking rhetorically in the background to surface again in future. (As a side note: The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up the force of the doctrine: "The rejection of the Filioque . . . and the denial of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff constitute even today the principal errors of the Greek church" (Maas). That perception reinforces the thesis that the Filioque, a matter of Rome's assertion of doctrinal jurisdiction over all Christendom, was the marker of irreconcilable difference between east and west.)
The Byzantine Empire expanded enormously in the ninth and tenth centuries, and independence of the eastern church was one aspect of that. Europe as a whole was in the throes of the Dark Ages; Charlemagne had died in 814, and the influence of the church that crowned him was eclipsed until the time of the Crusades.
During the ninth and tenth centuries the Byzantine Empire extended itself " from Italy to the Euphrates" (85). However, after about 1040, "the seeds of Byzantium's final flowering" (86). The Great Schism was one important aspect of what Ostrogorsky describes as the empire's disintegration (323ff). It was also the unexpect
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Approximate Word count = 3770
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)
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