February 16 - Schism!

February 16 – Schism!

We believe in one holy and catholic (universal) church.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The church had gotten to a point where the powers that ruled would no longer see eye to eye and they weren’t about to come together in any conciliatory fashion. Each was wrong and that was all there was to it.

There were many differences in what the Roman Church and the Eastern Church taught. Pope Leo IX felt that priests shouldn’t be able to pass their position to their children, so he banned priests from marrying. He didn’t want outside influence on the church, so he pulled the Roman church free from outside control. He believed that God had given the pope authority over all Christians.

Michael was the patriarch of Constantinople. Leo wanted him to submit to Rome. Michael refused and then closed every Roman affiliated church in Constantinople. Leo sent envoys. Michael refused to meet with them. But, Leo’s chief envoy was a man named Humbert. Before he had left Rome, he had written a bull (a bull is a notice written in the pope’s name. Bull is Latin from where we get the word bulletin) denouncing the Eastern church. He marched into the Hagia Sophia (Church of the Holy Wisdom) during the Lord’s supper, slammed it down on the communion table, walked out, shook the dust from his feet and said, “Let God look and judge.”

Then he excommunicated Michael, who in turn excommunicated the envoys.

All of this happened after the churches had disagreed about the wording of the Nicene Creed. They continued to disagree about things such as marriage for priests.

After the creedal disagreement, the bull and excommunication were the second crack in the unity of the church. The two bishops – a pope and a patriarch – had created a schism. One more thing was needed to separate the East and West. One more event would cement the separation. We’ll read about that tomorrow.

In later years, attempts were made to reunite the two, but none have been successful. It’s about power. Who is in control. The East and West couldn’t agree and the church was forever split.