Ecumenism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Great Schism=== {{Further|East–West Schism}} Although the Christian world as a whole did not experience any major church divisions for centuries afterward, the [[Eastern Christianity|Eastern]], predominantly Greek-speaking and [[Western Christianity|Western]], predominantly Latin-speaking, cultural divisions drifted toward isolation, culminating in the mutual excommunication of [[Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople|Patriarch of Constantinople]] [[Michael I Cerularius]] and the legate of then-deceased [[Pope of Rome]] [[Leo IX]] in 1054, in what is known as the [[Great Schism (Christianity)|Great Schism]]. The canonical separation was sealed by the Latin [[Siege of Constantinople (1204)|sacking of Constantinople]] (1204) during the [[Fourth Crusade]] and through the poor reception of the [[Council of Florence]] (1449) among the Orthodox Eastern Churches. The political and theological reasons for the schism are complex. Aside from the natural rivalry between the [[Eastern Roman Empire|Eastern Roman]] or Byzantine Empire and the [[Franks|Franco-Latin]] [[Holy Roman Empire]], one major controversy was the inclusion and acceptance in the West in general—and in the diocese of Rome in particular—of the [[Filioque clause]] ("and the Son") into the [[Nicene Creed|Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed]], which the East viewed as a violation of ecclesiastical procedure at best, an abuse of [[primacy of the Bishop of Rome|papal authority]] as only an [[Ecumenical Council]] could amend what had been defined by a previous council, and a heresy at worst, inasfar as the Filioque implies that the essential divinity of the Holy Spirit is derived not from the Father alone as ''arche'' (singular head and source), but from the [[Perichoresis|perichoretic]] union between the Father and the Son. That the hypostasis or persona of the Spirit either is or is produced by the mutual, pre-eternal love between God and His Word is an explanation which Eastern Christian detractors have alleged is rooted in the medieval [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustinian]] appropriation of [[Plotinus|Plotinian]] [[Neoplatonism]]. (See Augustine of Hippo, ''[[On the Trinity|De Trinitate]]''.) Both West and East agreed that the patriarch of [[Rome]] was owed a "primacy of honour" by the other patriarchs (those of [[Alexandria]], [[Antioch]], [[Constantinople]] and [[Jerusalem in Christianity|Jerusalem]]), but the West also contended that this primacy extended to jurisdiction, a position rejected by the Eastern patriarchs. Various attempts at dialogue between the two groups would occur, but it was only in the 1960s, under Pope [[Paul VI]] and [[Patriarch Athenagoras]], that significant steps began to be made to mend the relationship between the two. In 1965, the excommunications were "committed to oblivion". The resulting division remains, however, providing the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, both of which are globally distributed bodies and no longer restricted geographically or culturally to the "West" or "East", respectively. (There exist both Eastern Rite Roman Catholicism and Western Rite Orthodoxy, for example.) There is an ongoing and fruitful [[Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches|Catholic-Orthodox dialogue]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page