What was the Great Schism?

When, at the end of the fourth century of the Christian Era, the Roman Empire (do not confound the Empire with the Church) became divided, Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Empire, acquired great prominence, and a conflict arose between its clergy and that of Rome, capital of the Western Empire, as to which of the two would dominate. The result was a break, and the Eastern Churches, generally adhering to the Bishop of Constantinople, founded together what is called the Greek Church, which differs but little in character from the Roman Catholic; for her parting from Rome was not through righteous and holy motives, as with Protestantism later on.

Union of the Eastern and Western Churches, A.D. 518.

In our previous sketches of the history of the church, we saw that at the close of the fifth century, there was an open rupture between the eastern and western portions of the church. The patriarch of Constantinople and the patriarch of Rome had excommunicated each other as heretics � and this breach had borne much bitter fruit. The West was mostly styled orthodox, because of maintaining the divinity of Christ; and the East was declared to be in error as touching the Person of our Lord.

The Eighth General Council is important to us in this respect, that the Greeks hold one, the Romanists another, for a general one. The Greeks one in 879, the Romans one in 869; the latter, with very few prelates and pretended envoys from the patriarchs, condemned Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, and set up Ignatius, who had been driven away. The legates of Rome were at the former, and it was so far owned of the pope that he agreed to Photius being patriarch, Ignatius being now dead; but as Constantinople would not give up Bulgaria to the jurisdiction of Rome, the pope excommunicated Photius, and he the pope, and all pretension to a Catholic church ceased. The schism between East and West was complete.

From this time out, beginning with A.D. 1122 under Callixtus, there being no imperial power of any sufficient weight remaining in the West, the popes held councils of their own and for their own interests. The first of them passed decrees about the Duchy of Benevento belonging to the pope, and forgave the sins of those who would go to war to recover Jerusalem from the Saracens. They were Western councils, and I freely admit entirely under papal influence for some centuries — centuries, as all admit, of utter darkness and wickedness. That is, as long as there were emperors, emperors called them (it was first an idea of Constantine's to make peace in the church), and when emperors ceased to call them, their power being gone, the schism between East and West was complete, and no universal church ever externally existed since. The East was overrun by the Mahomedans; the West by darkness and atrocities.

To pursue the sad history: in the eighth century, the territory, called now the estates of the Church, or the greater part of them, was given to Rome by Charlemagne, though he reserved his imperial rights; and the pope became a temporal prince. At the same time, however, the Grecian or Eastern emperor took away southern Italy, Sicily (the kingdom of the two Sicilies), and Illyricum; depriving the see of Rome of vast estates it held in the former. Hence, of course, bitter animosity. In the ninth century the emperor, refusing to restore the estates and authority, the pope took up the cause of Ignatius, patriarch of Constantinople, whom the emperor had deposed, and they excommunicated each other. The emperor was murdered; and his murderer and successor recalled Ignatius. Meanwhile the pope and the patriarch contended for supremacy over the newly-converted Bulgarians, and then Rome was accused of heresy. Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, was restored on Ignatius's death, the pope agreeing, if Bulgaria was subjected to him, which was agreed to and not executed. A legate was sent from Rome to Constantinople, cast into prison, and then, becoming pope, said Photius was properly judged and degraded before. In the eleventh century, Cerularius of Constantinople charged the pope with various heresies. Leo IX excommunicated all the Greek churches. The emperor, who needed his influence in Italy, sought to heal the controversy, and papal legates were sent to Constantinople; the Greeks would not submit. The legates excommunicated the patriarch and his adherents; and the patriarch excommunicated the legates and theirs. And thus the final schism of West and East took place.

But another important matter to remark here is, that the breach which ambition on both sides had brought about between the heads of the Roman and Greek ecclesiastical bodies now became complete. They anathematized each other, and no universal ecclesiastical body ever subsisted since. The Emperor's power in the East was reduced to a shadow by Saracens and Turks. The Western Empire, founded by Charlemagne, in which the prelates acted, as we have seen, independently of the pope while it subsisted, fell to pieces by the weakness of his successors; and the pope gradually acquired, through violent struggles with the German Emperors, at last in the person of Gregory VII, the desired supremacy. Yet he died, driven from his see by the Emperor. And mark, there was from this time, confessedly, pitch darkness in everything, as Romanists themselves confess; they are called the dark ages. And a vast number of the popes were the greatest monsters that ever disgraced the name of man, and the clergy the most corrupt of the whole population. But we have touched on this point, and what is necessary we will speak of when sanctity as proof of the true church is spoken of.

Yet up to the very end of the Apostle’s life, though we find all this evil fermenting, there was no OPEN division on record. We get great help as to what is to happen in the future when we study the addresses to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2 and 3). Looked at from the prophetic standpoint we find the stage of church history represented by Ephesus succeeded by that represented by Smyrna, and then by that represented by Pergamos, till we come to that represented by Thyatira. Of course the sad condition of Christendom in the early centuries was represented by one testimony. But there arose a conflict within the bosom of the Church. The Bishop of Constantinople sought to be the supreme head of Christendom. The bishop of Rome likewise claimed to be the supreme head, the successor of St. Peter. This resulted in the professing church at that time being divided into East and West; East bowing to the headship of the bishop of Constantinople; the West bowing to the supremacy of the pope at Rome.

The Eastern Church, finding its adherents mostly in Greece and Russia, was named the Greek Church from its geographical distribution; the Orthodox church from its vindication of dogma. The Greek church is opposed to many of the doctrine and practices of the Romish church. Both have been and are persecuting churches.

130 However, what gave them the West lost them the East, and the Greek church remained independent to this day, so that a Catholic or universal church has never subsisted in unity since the ninth century.

Still the church was not one. Rome was anxious that the East should succumb to the West by subscribing to what Rome had written: this was far from what the East intended; and all that was done was to restore peace between two churches, the East and the West. The patriarch of Constantinople was head of the eastern church, and the pontiff head of the western church. It is important to notice this, because in after times � and in our own times, indeed � the church of Rome (as a mark of being the true church) claims to be the universal church. This is not true of it now, and never was true. The eastern church never acknowledged the pontiff of Rome as the head of the eastern church. As we shall see, Rome strove to claim and to enforce this; but it was always refused. John of Constantinople accepted the title of "oecumenical patriarch" � a title which shewed plainly his independence of Rome.

Neither of them were actuated by the truth of the "one body," as revealed in scripture; nor were they "endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit." It was Rome striving for supremacy everywhere; and the East, without acknowledging that supremacy, desirous of peace between the two churches. As to how far either the one or the other was justified in calling itself the church of God, will appear as we proceed.

64 But to return; at this time, if the Church was referred to, it was only to hold their ground against heresy. In the next struggle it was only to hold it against schism, and maintain common episcopal rights against schismatic Novatians on the one side, and arrogant popes of Rome on the other. This was the Cyprian school. Augustine's was partly the same against the Donatists; but the personal sense of divine truth in him made all confusion, and led to the invention of an invisible Church known to God. After this it was merely a struggle for the destruction of the oligarchical power of the body of bishops, first by patriarchal power; and then between Rome and Constantinople for pre-eminence; the result being, as I have noticed elsewhere, the making a Roman-catholic church a falsehood in fact, as it is in sense. For the setting up of the pope as supreme over the churches (and that by imperial power), which Constantinople had been attempting to be, occasioned an entire breach; and the Church, as an outward body, ceased to be catholic everywhere when Rome attempted to make it Roman-catholic. It was split into two great camps, the Roman and the Greek, the Roman indeed the larger, but after all dependent on the rulers of the West, as the Greek on the rulers of the East; and now unable to boast even of any superiority of numbers, for the Protestant secession has made the numbers of professing Christians outside the Roman pale greater than those within it. Rome has one thing exclusively - the apostate pretension to power, setting aside the one headship of Christ, and opposing and falsifying His word; but that is all.

131 The truth is, there never was such. All the first councils in the East were called by the Emperors, and under their authority, and at the council in which the greatest number of Western prelates were found, there were not more than six of them. The later ones were called by the popes in the West, and no Eastern prelates were there. The empire was then in rapid decay, and had wholly disappeared in the West. In the ninth century the Eastern church was entirely separated from Rome. The only council where both Easterns and Westerns were found was that of Florence, in the fifteenth century; the Eastern Emperor had need of the West, being pressed by the Turks, and sent some Eastern bishops; but the steps they took were protested against then by the most eminent among them, Mark of Ephesus, and were repudiated by all the Greeks on their return.