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Because a majority of non-Greek speaking
Christians of the Middle East rejected the Council of Chalcedon, and because,
after the 8th century, most of the area where Christianity was born remained
under the rule of Muslims, the Orthodox patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch,
and Jerusalem kept only a shadow of their former glory. Constantinople, however,
remained, during most of the Middle Ages, by far the most important center of
Christendom. The famous Byzantine missionaries, Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius,
translated Scripture and the liturgy into Old Church Slavonic in about 864, and
many Slavic nations were converted to Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. The
Bulgarians, a people of mixed Slavic and Turkic origin, embraced it in 864. The
Russians, baptized in 988, remained in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the
patriarchate of Constantinople until 1448. The Serbs received ecclesiastical
independence in 1219.
Between Constantinople and Rome, tensions
periodically arose after the 4th century. After the fall of Rome (476) to
Germanic invaders, the Roman pope was the only guardian of Christian
universalism in the West. He began more explicitly to attribute his primacy to
Rome’s being the burial place of Saint Peter, whom Jesus had called the “rock”
on which the church was to be built (Matthew 16:18). The Eastern Christians
respected that tradition and attributed to the Roman bishop a measure of moral
and doctrinal authority. They believed, however, that the canonical and
primatial rights of individual churches were determined above all by historical
considerations. Thus, the patriarchate of Constantinople understood its own
position to be determined exclusively by the fact that Constantinople, the “new
Rome,” was the seat of the Roman emperor and the Senate.
The two interpretations of primacy—“apostolic” in the West, “pragmatic” in the
East — coexisted for centuries, and tensions were resolved in a conciliar way.
Eventually, however, conflicts led to permanent schism. In the 7th century the
universally accepted creed was interpolated in Spain with the Latin word
filioque, meaning “and from the Son,” thus rendering the creed as “I believe …
in the Holy Spirit … who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The
interpolation, initially opposed by the popes, was promoted in Europe by
Charlemagne (crowned emperor in 800) and his successors. Eventually, it was also
accepted in Rome in about 1014. The Eastern church, however, considered the
interpolation heretical. Moreover, other issues became controversial: For
instance, the ordination of married men to the priesthood and the use of
unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Secondary in themselves, these conflicts
could not be resolved because the two sides followed different criteria of
judgment: The papacy considered itself the ultimate judge in matters of faith
and discipline, whereas the East invoked the authority of councils, where the
local churches spoke as equals.
It is often assumed that the anathemas exchanged in Constantinople in 1054
between the patriarch Michael Cerularius and papal legates marked the final
schism. The schism, however, actually took the form of a gradual estrangement,
beginning well before 1054 and culminating in the sack of Constantinople by
Western Crusaders in 1204.
In the late medieval period, several attempts made at reunion, particularly in
Lyons (1274) and in Florence (1438-1439), ended in failure. The papal claims to
ultimate supremacy could not be reconciled with the conciliar principle of
Orthodoxy, and the religious differences were aggravated by cultural and
political misunderstandings.
After the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman
government recognized the Ecumenical Patriarch of that city as both the
religious and the political spokesman for the entire Christian population of the
empire. The patriarchate of Constantinople, although still retaining its
honorary primacy in the Orthodox Church, ended as an ecumenical institution in
the 19th century when, with the liberation of the Orthodox peoples from Ottoman
rule, a succession of autocephalous churches was set up: Greece (1833), Romania
(1864), Bulgaria (1871), and Serbia (1879).
The Orthodox Church in Russia declared its independence from Constantinople in
1448. In 1589 the patriarchate of Moscow was established and formally recognized
by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople. For the Russian church and the
tsars, Moscow had become the third Rome, the heir to the imperial supremacy of
ancient Rome and Byzantium. The patriarchate of Moscow never had the autonomy of
the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire. Except for the brief
reign of Patriarch Nikon in the mid-17th century, the patriarchs of Moscow and
the Russian church were entirely subordinate to the tsars. In 1721 Tsar Peter
the Great abolished the patriarchate altogether, and thereafter the church was
governed through the imperial administration. The patriarchate was reestablished
in 1917, at the time of the Russian Revolution, but the church was violently
persecuted by the Communist government. As the Soviet regime became less
repressive and, in 1991, broke up, the church regained its vitality. (The
Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe had a similar but foreshortened history,
restricted by Communist governments after World War II ended in 1945 but
regaining their authority in the 1990s.)
The Orthodox Church has always seen itself as the
organic continuation of the original apostolic community and as holding a faith
fully consistent with the apostolic message. Orthodox Christians have, however,
adopted different attitudes through the centuries toward other churches and
denominations. In areas of confrontation, such as the Greek islands in the 17th
century, or the Ukraine during the same period, defensive Orthodox authorities,
reacting against active proselytism by Westerners, declared Western sacraments
invalid and demanded rebaptism of converts from the Roman or Protestant
communities. The same rigid attitude prevails, even today, in some circles in
Greece. Nevertheless, the mainstream of Orthodox thought has adopted a positive
attitude toward the modern ecumenical movement. Always rejecting doctrinal
relativism and affirming that the goal of ecumenism is the full unity of the
faith, Orthodox churches have been members of the World Council of Churches
since 1948. They generally recognize that, before the establishment of full
unity, a theological dialogue leading in that direction is necessary and that
divided Christian communities can cooperate and provide each other with mutual
help and experience, even if sacramental intercommunion, requiring unity in
faith, appears to be distant.
The Protestant majority in the World Council of Churches has occasionally made
Orthodox participation in that body awkward, and the ecumenical attitude adopted
during the reign of Pope John XXIII by the Roman Catholic Church (which does not
belong to the council) was welcomed by Orthodox officials and led to new and
friendlier relations between the churches. Orthodox observers were present at
the sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), and several meetings
took place between popes Paul VI and John Paul II on the one side and patriarchs
Athenagoras I and Demetrios on the other.
In another symbolic gesture, the mutual anathemas of 1054 were lifted by both
sides in 1965. The two churches established a joint commission for dialogue
between them. Representatives have met on a number of occasions from 1966 on to
discuss differences in doctrine and practice. The claim to authority and
infallibility made by the pope is generally seen as the primary obstacle to full
reconciliation. At the the end of the year 2000, 14 of the 15 Orthodox leaders
called for an end to the schism. Only Patriarch Alexey II of Russia withheld his
signature from the resolution, indicating a divide remained within the Orthodox
Church. In an effort to heal such divisions, leaders of the 15 independent
branches of Eastern Orthodoxy assembled in Jerusalem early in 2000 for the first
Orthodox synod in 60 years.
Sources: Encyclopedia Britanica, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
John of Damascus, Writings; G Maloney, A History of
Orthodox Theology Since 1453; V Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern
Church; J Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology; J Pelikan, The Christian Tradition
III, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom; The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the
Undivided Church, N P N F , XIV; P Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, II,
445 - 542; A Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy; N Zernov,
Eastern Christendom; K Ware, The Orthodox Way.
