Lecture 28: The Great Divorce between East and West

The Great Divorce between East and West

Lecture 28

I

n the 11th century, relations between Christianity in the East and in the

West, between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, were severed and remain

so to the present. The two earliest forms of Christianity have been

in a state of schism for more than 1,000 years. The symbolic date for the

split is 1054, but as with so many divorces, this one built on centuries of

growing alienation. And like other divorces, this one was undoubtedly sad

in the experiencing; it is surely one of the most depressing sequences in

Christianity’s long history to recount, testimony to the consequences of a

religion deeply overinvolved with politics.

Administrative Division and Rivalry

•    The story begins with the administrative division of the Roman

Empire that was initiated by Diocletian and perfected by

Constantine. It institutionalized the possibility of faction among

and between strong leaders, and insofar as emperors were regarded

as “bishops for external affairs,” religious policy could differ

dramatically in the East and the West.

•    The ecclesiastical rivalry among the four patriarchates (Alexandria,

Antioch, Rome, and Constantinople) that mirrored such

administrative “spheres of influence” stimulated and expressed

polemical views on doctrinal matters.

o After the Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, only

Rome and Constantinople remained as functioning patriarchies.

o This did not diminish but exacerbated the rivalry between the

two most politically defined centers of Christianity.

•    Even more than these simple political, structural elements, the

historical and cultural developments in the East and West were

dramatically different.