twice as strong, without counting the Protestant secession. At the same time the Eastern church
still may look forward to a new future among the Slavonic races which she has christianized. What
she needs is a revival of the spirit and power of primitive Christianity.
When once the two churches were alienated in spirit and engaged in an unchristian race for
supremacy, all the little doctrinal and ritualistic differences which had existed long before, assumed
an undue weight, and were branded as heresies and crimes. The bishop of Rome sees in the Patriarch
of Constantinople an ecclesiastical upstart who owed his power to political influence, not to apostolic
origin. The Eastern patriarchs look upon the Pope as an anti-christian usurper and as the first
Protestant. They stigmatize the papal supremacy as "the chief heresy of the latter days, which
flourishes now as its predecessor, Arianism, flourished in former days, and which like it, will in
like manner be cast down and vanish away."^306
§ 70. The Patriarch and the Pope. Photius and Nicolas.
Comp. § 61, the Lit. in § 67, especially the letters of Photius and Nicolas.
Hergenröther: Photius (Regensb. 1867–69, vol. I. 373 sqq.; 505 sqq.; and the second vol.), and his
Monumenta Graeca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia (Ratisb. 1869, 181 pages). Milman:
Hist. of Latin Christianity, bk. V. Ch. IV. Hefele IV. 224 sqq.; 384 sqq.; 436sqq. The chief
documents are also given by Gieseler II. 213 sqq. (Am. ed.)
The doctrinal difference on the procession of the Holy Spirit will be considered in the chapter
on the Theological Controversies. Although it existed before the schism, it assumed a practical
importance only in connection with the broader ecclesiastical and political conflict between the
patriarch and the pope, between Constantinople and Rome.
The first serious outbreak of this conflict took place after the middle of the ninth century,
when Photius and Nicolas, two of the ablest representatives of the rival churches, came into collision.
Photius is one of the greatest of patriarchs, as Nicolas is one of the greatest of popes. The former
was superior in learning, the latter in statesmanship; while in moral integrity, official pride and
obstinacy both were fairly matched, except that the papal ambition towered above the patriarchal
dignity. Photius would tolerate no superior, Nicolas no equal; the one stood on the Council of
Chalcedon, the other on Pseudo-Isidor.
The contest between them was at first personal. The deposition of Ignatius as patriarch of
Constantinople, for rebuking the immorality of Caesar Bardas, and the election of Photius, then a
mere layman, in his place (858), were arbitrary and uncanonical acts which created a temporary
schism in the East, and prepared the way for a permanent schism between the East and the West.
Nicolas, being appealed to as mediator by both parties (first by Photius), assumed the haughty air
of supreme judge on the basis of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, but was at first deceived by his
own legates. The controversy was complicated by the Bulgarian quarrel. King Bogoris had been
converted to Christianity by missionaries from Constantinople (861), but soon after applied to
Rome for teachers, and the pope eagerly seized this opportunity to extend his jurisdiction (866).
(^306) Encycl. Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1844, § 5.