him. Cerularius, in connection with the learned Bulgarian metropolitan Leo of Achrida, addressed
in 1053 a letter to John, bishop of Trani, in Apulia (then subject to the Eastern rule), and through
him to all the bishops of France and to the pope himself, charging the churches of the West that,
following the practice of the Jews, and contrary to the usage of Christ, they employ in the eucharist
unleavened bread; that they fast on Saturday in Lent; that they eat blood and things strangled in
violation of the decree of the Council of Jerusalem (Acts, ch. 15); and that during the fast they do
not sing the hallelujah. He invented the new name Azymites for the heresy of using unleavened
bread (azyma) instead of common bread.^313 Nothing was said about the procession of the Spirit.
This letter is only extant in the Latin translation of Cardinal Humbert.^314
Pope Leo IX. sent three legates under the lead of the imperious Humbert to Constantinople,
with counter-charges to the effect that Cerularius arrogated to himself the title of "oecumenical"
patriarch; that he wished to subject the patriarchs of Alexandria and of Antioch; that the Greeks
rebaptized the Latins; that, like the Nicolaitans, they permitted their priests to live in wedlock;^315
that they neglected to baptize their children before the eighth day after birth; that, like the
Pneumatomachi or Theomachi, they cut out of the symbol the Procession of the Spirit from the
Son.^316 The legates were lodged in the imperial palace, but Cerularius avoided all intercourse with
them. Finally, on the 16th of July, 1054, they excommunicated the patriarch and all those who
should persistently censure the faith of the church of Rome or its mode of offering the holy sacrifice.
They placed the writ on the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia with the words: "Videat Deus et
judicet."
Cerularius, supported by his clergy and the people, immediately answered by a synodical
counter-anathema on the papal legates, and accused them of fraud. In a letter to Peter, the patriarch
of Antioch (who at first acted the part of a mediator), he charged Rome with other scandals, namely,
that two brothers were allowed to espouse two sisters; that bishops wore rings and engaged in
warfare; that baptism was administered by a single immersion; that salt was put in the mouth of
the baptized; that the images and relics of saints were not honored; and that Gregory the Theologian,
Basil, and Chrysostom were not numbered among the saints. The Filioque was also mentioned.^317
The charge of the martial spirit of the bishops was well founded in that semi-barbarous age.
Cerularius was all-powerful for several years; he dethroned one emperor and crowned another, but
died in exile (1059).
(^313) Azyma is fromἄζυμος, unleavened (ζύμη, leaven); henceἡ ἑορτὴ τω̑ν ἀζύμων(ἄρτων), the feast of unleavened bread
(the passover), during which the Jews were to eat unleavened bread. The Greeks insist that our Lord in instituting the eucharist
after the passover-meal used true, nourishing bread ( from ), as the sign of the new dispensation of joy and gladness;
while the lifeless, unleavened bread (ἄζυμον) belongs to the Jewish dispensation. The Latins argued thatἄρτοςmeans unleavened
as well as leavened bread, and that Christ during the feast of the passover could not get any other but unleavened bread. They
called the Greeks in turn Fermentarei in opposition to Azmitae. See Nicetas Stethatus (a cotemporary of Cerularius): De
Fermentato etAzymis, publ. in Greek by Dimitracopulos, Lips. 1866 (Βιβλιοθ. ἐκκλ.I. 18-36), and in Greek and Latin by
Hergenröther, in MonumentaGraeca, etc., p. 139-154. Comp. also the Dissertation concerning Azymes in Neale’s Eastern
Church, Introd. II. 1051 sqq.; J. G. Hermann, Hist. concertationis de pane azymo et fermentato in caena Domini, Lips. 1737;
and Hergenröther, Photius III. 739 sqq.
(^314) Baronius Annal. ad ann. 1053 no. 22; and Gieseler II. 222 sq.
(^315) "Sicut Nicolaitae carnales nuptias concedunt et defendunt sacri altaris ministris." On the other hand, Photius and the
Greeks traced to the clerical celibacy the fact that the West had "so many children who knew not their fathers."
(^316) See a full résumé of Humbert’s arguments in Hergenröther, III. 741-756.
(^317) See the documents in Gieseler II. 225 sqq.