Centuries of estrangement over the filioque, papal primacy, and the rites of two halves of one empire hardened in 1054, when legates and patriarch exchanged anathemas in Constantinople. The sack of the city by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 made the breach a wound rather than a disagreement.
The parties
- The Latin West under the Bishop of Rome
- The Greek East under the Patriarch of Constantinople
What was disputed
The procession of the Holy Spirit and the primacy of the Roman see.
Causes: doctrinal political linguistic cultural
Key documents
- The bull of excommunication of 1054
- The Photian Encyclical (867)
What it produced
Branch
Catholic
The church in communion with the Bishop of Rome, holding the sacraments, the apostolic succession, and the councils of the undivided church and of…
Branch
Eastern Orthodox
The communion of Chalcedonian churches in the Greek and Slavic worlds, holding the seven councils, the Divine Liturgy, and conciliarity without a…
Resolution attempts
- The lifting of the mutual anathemas by Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras (1965)
- The Ravenna Document on conciliarity and primacy (2007)
How each side understands it
The East reads the schism as Rome's departure from the conciliar faith; the West reads it as a breach of communion within one church. The dates each side treats as decisive differ.
Downstream divisions
- Protestant Reformation, 1517 and after
Sources
Primary
- The letters of Michael Cerularius and the legatine bull of 1054.
Secondary
- Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church (2003).