Yet More on the Great Schism

A Celebration of the Eucharist in an Orthodox

Church "We did not know if we were in heaven or

still on earth."

Sorry about the hiatus.  We have been without internet for several days and then I was involved in doing some moving which is always a strain on time and energy.  But things have settled down a bit and I would like to get back to the matter of the schism that has divided the Orthodox Churches of the East from the Catholic Church of the West.  I mentioned in the previous blog that the first thing we Catholics have got to get over is the idea that the Greek Church was in some way or other at one time “under” the Pope.  It never has nor had been.  The Churches of Rome and of Constantinople, and the various local Churches of their respective patriarchates, had been in communion with one another since apostolic times.  That communion was fractured in the ninth century when Pope Nicholas I, as senior patriarch of the Church, had excommunicated the Byzantine Emperor Michael III for having deposed the Patriarch Ignatios and replaced him with Photius but the Pope was acting as senior patriarch protecting the rights and authority of a brother patriarch, Igantios.  Ignatios, as a matter of fact, was restored and when, after the death of Ignatios,  Photios was elected in his own right to the Patriarchal Throne there was no breach of communion with the Churches of the West.  In fact, according to some historians, Photios’ son succeeded to the Papal Throne as Theodore II, one of the few good popes of the late ninth  century.  (He had a very short reign, only twenty days, in 897.  His death may be a witness to just how good a pope he was in a time when a fair number of evil men coveted the Throne of Peter and achieved it by very unscrupulous means.)  This time, however, the schism would be of greater and more serious duration.  
     Part of the problem is that the Byzantine Empire was in the early stages of what would be a fatal decline.  Actually, by the time of the schism o f 1054 the decline was pretty advanced, though it could—and would—get far worse.  For over four centuries the Empire had been being whittled away by first the Arabs and then the Turks.  Jerusalem, Damascus, Antioch had all fallen to the Caliphate.  Most of Asia Minor—modern day Turkey—was no longer under imperial control.  It would be another four centuries before the Empire fell completely but the effects of its diminution were already being felt.  Long-term fatal illnesses in empires, like humans, often lead to denial.  The smaller and weaker the Empire became, the more pretentious and even arrogant its claims to sovereignty.   And while it was shrinking, it remembered that while its dominion may be shaky, Rome was not little more than a clump of ruined temples and theatres in a malaria-ridden cattle field.  It was time for “old Rome” to give up its pretensions to Patriarchal Seniority and allow “new Rome” (Constantinople) its rightful dominance in matters ecclesiastical as well as civil. 
     “Old Rome” was not about to do any such thing.  Granted, the Vatican Basilica was already falling down around their ears and cows wandered grazing around those churches standing among the ruins of Caesar and Marcus Aurelius’ capital, but like a delusional old dowager whose once-expensive dresses were now patched and who no longer could afford the luxury of the beauty parlor, but who claimed yet to be the grand dame of the town’s first family,  the Popes of Rome in the squalor of the Lateran reminded anyone who would listen that they were the successors of Saint Peter to the plenitudo potestatis.  Conflict was inevitable where claims of ego were the agenda of the hour. 
     The conflict had been building over time, but the immediate conflagration was ignited when the Patriarch, Michael Caerularius wrote to the Bishop of Trani, an Italian See that had connections both to Rome and to Constantinople.  The Patriarch accused the papacy of introducing “judaizing” practices into Christianity, most notably the use of unleavened bread into the Eucharist.  (The practice in the Church, both East and West, had long been to use leavened bread for the Eucharistic celebration, but in the tenth and eleventh century the West gradually began using unleavened bread—as would have been used by Christ at the Last Supper.  The concern for the form of the bread itself corresponds to an increasing appreciation of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that began as a result of the Eucharistic controversies in the Abbey of Corbie in the ninth century.  But note, there was no continuing tradition from the Last Supper of using unleavened bread.  Leavened bread had become the norm and then the West began introducing unleavened bread.) 
     There were other issues as well—the West had made an unilateral change in the Creed of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople, proclaiming that the Holy Spirit “proceeded” from the Father and the Son whereas the Conciliar formula said only that the Spirit proceeded from the Father.  This is a very difficult theological point to explain, but suffice it to say that the issue was that the West had altered a formula of faith and altering a formula of faith challenges the orthodoxy of the doctrine.  This in fact is a far more significant problem than leavened/unleavened bread. 
     A third issue was that the West was beginning to impose celibacy on the clergy while in the East married men were allowed to become deacons and priests (though not bishops, at least until they were widowed).
     The Pope, Leo IX, resented the Patriarch’s sending a letter of complaint to a Bishop in the West and the Patriarch’s request that the letter be forwarded to the other bishops of the Western Church.  Leo saw this as an attack on his authority over his own patriarchate and he sent a delegation to Constantinople demanding an acknowledgement by the Patriarch of Papal Supremacy.  This would have been an innovation—the Pope may have been first but he was first among equals.  The Patriarch was not going to give in on that point.  The head of the legation, the Cardinal Bishop of Silva Candida, Humbert, marched into the Hagia Sophia during a Patriarchal Liturgy and, in the name of Leo IX, laid a bull of excommunication on the altar.  The Patriarch then in turn excommunicated the Legate.  The Patriarchal Sees of Rome and Constantinople were no longer in communion with one another, nor were the various Churches comprising their patriarchates.   As far as I can ascertain from my sources, the Patriarch’s pronouncement of excommunication was directed only towards the Legates and not towards either the Pope nor the Western Church.  As for the Bull that Humbert laid on the altar—it was not valid for it was issued in the name of Leo IX and Leo was, unknown yet in Constantinople, dead.   Well, more on this in the next entry.  But the chief point we need to pay attention to is that the schism of East and West is not a rebellion against Papal Authority for the Pope never did have authority over the Eastern Churches.  It was a break of communion as the unity of the Church was shattered as Churches equal in dignity and authority set themselves on different courses. 

Roots of the Reformation V: Ecumenical Councils and Papal Monarchy

What happens when no one is sure who the Pope is?  What happens if there are two fellows—or even three—parading around in tiaras and extending the foot to be kissed—who is the real pope?  How can you tell?  How do you know?  What happens when you have One Pope in Delia, Kansas and another in Springdale, Washington?  How can you tell who the real pope is? O wait, the Pope in Springdale died.  OK, so we have a Pope in Delia Kansas, and one in Hertfordshire.  (That’s in England.)  Oh—and then there seems to be two more in Brussels.  And apparently thee is one each in Lucerne and Angoulême.  What’s a Catholic to do?  OK, we will leave aside those who have arranged their own conclaves in the back room of a store or whom Jesus personally ordained, consecrated, and crowned in a mystical vision and focus on just three popes:  one in Rome; one in Avignon; and one in Pisa.  That is the situation in which the Church found itself in the fifteenth century, specifically in 1414 when a (Ecumenical) Council opened in Konstanz, Switzerland.  The King of Hungary and Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund had summoned the bishops to end a schism which saw three men—all with somewhat sound claims (certainly sounder than the formerly mentioned visionaries and psychotics) to be the legitimate heir of Peter the Apostle.

You have a Roman claimant, Gregory XII, who traced his lineage back through Urban VI, who was elected pope upon the death of Gregory XI in 1378.  Gregory was the pope who moved the papacy back to Rome at the end of the Avignon papacy.  He was duly elected by the Cardinals—all the Cardinals, French and Italian—and his coronation was carried out with great detail so there would be no doubt of his legitimacy.   Sound like the Pope, doesn’t he?

Problem—five months  later the French Cardinals met at Fondi—a town between Rome and Naples—and elected one of their own, Robert of Geneva Pope, claiming that the election of Urban was invalid because they had been coerced by the Roman mob into choosing an Italian pope.  The charge was true and they had a point.  Of course, the fact that the King of France put the French Cardinals up to this colors the story a bit too.  But if the Cardinals were coerced by fear and the election were not to be a free election, would it be valid?  This is not an abstract question.  There are some fringe groups in the Church that claim that the 1958 and 1963 conclaves were prevented under threats from electing the late Cardinal Giuseppe Siri  (or that Siri was elected and prevented from taking the papal office by outside threats). 

How do you solve the problem of who is pope when you have two of them?  Who has the authority to decide? To break the stalemate?  The theology faculties of various universities including Paris (at the time, the leading theology faculty of Europe), leading theologians of the day (including Jean de Charlier de Gerson and Conrad of Gelnhausen), the town councils of cities across Europe, crowned heads, agreed—it would take an Ecumenical Council to cut the Gordian knot.  A delegation of Avignon-obedience cardinals met with a delegation of Roman-obedience cardinals and agreed upon a Council.  Their respective popes weren’t happy and each called his own rival Council: The Avignon Benedict XIII for Perpignan and the Roman Gregory XII for Aquilea.  Almost no one went to Aquilea or Perpignan, but 22 cardinals, 80 bishops, proxies for another hundred bishops, 87 Abbots, 41 priors or general superiors of religious orders, and 300 doctors of theology or doctors of canon law showed up in Pisa where they proceeded to declare both Gregory and Benedict deposed and elected Alexander V as pope.  The story is a little more complicated, but we will save it for another day.  Neither Gregory nor Benedict would abdicate, so now there were three popes.   

It ended up with Sigismund calling another Council—this one for Konstanz—and the results were somewhat similar except that this time the  Roman claimant, Gregory, sent proxies who convoked the council in his name and then submitted—again in his name—his abdication.  It was a clever, and I suspect sincere, move for it preserved the authority (and thus the legitimacy) of the Roman line even though it lost the papacy for Gregory himself.  In other words, by not refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Council but imposing his “convocation” of it over the Emperor’s original summons, it forced the Council into acknowledging the authority of the Pope—and in this case, the Roman Pope—to call a Council.  It thus disposed the Council to recognize the legitimacy of the Roman claim as neither the Avignon nor Pisan pope had given their authority to holding the assembly.  By abdicating Gregory did not allow the Council to depose a pope; and by abdicating while his rivals would not, he forced the Council to depose them which, again, asserted the legitimacy of the Roman line. 

It sounds like it all wrapped up neatly.  Unfortunately that is not quite true.  They always say that the winners write the history books, but they are wrong.  Whoever writes the history book is the winner.  The war is not won on the field, but in the telling of the story.  The Roman popes told the story pretty much as I have.  The pope convoked the Council.  The pope abdicated.  A new pope was elected.  But many of the Council participants told the story differently.  They had gathered in Council on the initiative of the Emperor at the request of the Church (not the pope, but the bishops, the theologians, the universities, the towns, and others who had petitioned the Emperor for a Council), and in Council they accepted the abdication of the Roman claimant and deposed the two refusniks (to use a term from the late twentieth century), and they elected a new pope.  Note—the cardinals did not elect the pope—the council did.  The conclave consisted of the cardinals present and thirty representatives of the Council. 

Konstanz ended and everybody went home but some went home with the opinion that a Council could depose and/or elect a pope.  In this case, the pope was not the highest authority in the Church.  Others went home with the idea that it takes a pope to convoke a Council and a pope can resign but only anti-popes, that is false claimants, can be deposed.   This argument would go on for a long time—and would cause confusion and division at the time of Luther and the Protestant Reformations.