Conciliengesch. (IV. 464 sqq.), treats this Aftersynode, as he calls it, no better. Both follow in the
track of their old teacher, Dr. Döllinger who, in his History of the Church (translated by Dr. Edward
Cox, London 1841, vol. III. p. 100), more than forty years ago, described this Synod "in all its parts
as a worthy sister of the Council of Robbers of the year 449; with this difference, that in the earlier
Synod violence and tyranny, in the later artifice, fraud, and falsehood were employed by wicked
men to work out their wicked designs." But when in 1870 the Vatican Council sanctioned the
historical falsehood of papal infallibility, Döllinger, once the ablest advocate of Romanism in
Germany, protested against Rome and was excommunicated. Whatever the Latins may say against
the Synod of Photius, the Latin Synod of 869 was not a whit better, and Rome understood the arts
of intrigue fully as well as Constantinople. The whole controversy between the Greek and the
Roman churches is one of the most humiliating chapters in the history of Christianity, and both
must humbly confess their share of sin and guilt before a reconciliation can take place.
§ 71. Progress and Completion of the Schism. Cerularius.
Hergenröther: Photius, Vol. III. 653–887; Comp. his Kirchengesch. vol. I. 688 sq.; 690–694. Hefele:
Conciliengesch. IV. 587; 765 sqq.; 771, 775 sqq. Gieseler: II. 221 sqq.
We shall briefly sketch the progress and consolidation of the schism.
The Difference About Tetragamy.
The fourth marriage of the emperor Leo the Philosopher (886–912), which was forbidden
by the laws of the Greek church, caused a great schism in the East (905).^311 The Patriarch Nicolas
Mysticus solemnly protested and was deposed (906), but Pope Sergius III. (904–911), instead of
siding with suffering virtue as Pope Nicolas had done, sanctioned the fourth marriage (which was
not forbidden in the West) and the deposition of the conscientious patriarch.
Leo on his death-bed restored the deposed patriarch (912). A Synod of Constantinople in
920, at which Pope John X. was represented, declared a fourth marriage illegal, and made no
concessions to Rome. The Emperor Constantine, Leo’s son, prohibited a fourth marriage by an
edict; thereby casting a tacit imputation on his own birth. The Greek church regards marriage as a
sacrament, and a necessary means for the propagation of the race, but a second marriage is prohibited
to the clergy, a third marriage is tolerated in laymen as a sort of legal concubinage, and a fourth is
condemned as a sin and a scandal. The pope acquiesced, and the schism slumbered during the dark
tenth century. The venal Pope John XIX. (1024) was ready for an enormous sum to renounce all
the claim of superiority over the Eastern patriarchs, but was forced to break off the negotiations
when his treasonable plan was discovered.
Cerularius and Leo IX.
Michael Cerularius (or Caerularius),^312 who was patriarch from 1043 to 1059, renewed and
completed the schism. Heretofore the mutual anathemas were hurled only against the contending
heads and their party; now the churches excommunicated each other. The Emperor Constantinus
Monachus courted the friendship of the pope for political reasons, but his patriarch checkmated
(^311) Leo himself had forbidden not only tetragamy, but even trigamy. His four wives were Theophano, Zoë (his former
mistress), Eudokia, and Zoë Karbonopsyne, who in 905 bore him a son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus (or Porphyrogennetos,
d. 959). See Hergenröther, Phot. III. 656 sq.
(^312) Κηρουλάριος, probably from the Latin cerula (κηρίολος), ceriolarium, a candelabrum for wax-tapers.