2.4 A HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

Holy, Orthodox, Byzantine Empire

CONSTANTINOPLE: THE NEW ROME

Even as the power of Rome declined in the 4th century, the power of Constantinople was on the rise.

In 330 CE, Constantine had moved his seat of power to the East.

Byzantium, renamed Constantinople, became the centre of arts, commerce and religion.

In 375 CE, Emperor Theodosius split the Empire into two, with two seats of power- Rome and Constantinople, but with Constantinople, not Rome, being the capital.

Only the Western Empire, from the Adriatic Sea west, fell in 410 CE.

BYZANTINE EMPIRE, ORTHODOX FAITH The Byzantine Empire was to become

the longest empire in European history.

Christianity, as it was practised in the East, was the mortar which held Byzantine life together.

State holidays were religious holidays; contracts were sealed with the sign of the cross; races and sport at the Hippodrome began with prayers and hymns.

In the Byzantine Empire, the Emperor was the Icon of God on earth. The Emperor ruled on earth as God rules in heaven. There is one God in heaven; one emperor on earth. One universal Empire, one universal emperor, one universal, Orthodox Christian faith. But not according to the Roman church.

JUSTINIAN’S DREAM

Emperor Justinian I (ruled 527-565) dreamed of a reunited church and empire.

With his wife Theodora, he sought to mollify the the Orthodox and Monophysite dispute.

He built the Hagia Sophia and other great buildings as apart of his attempt to build a Christian empire of unsurpassed glory.

He recaptured Europe for Christianity.

But he was unable to reunite the Byzantine church, nor the power disputes between the church of East and West.

UNITY OF EMPIRE, DISUNITY OF CHURCH In the East, the Orthodox

faith was soon shaken by new ideas.

Christians fighting over theology and belief were bringing instability to the Empire.

The Emperors pressured Church leaders to call seven Ecumenical Councils between 325CE and 787 CE in order to try to bring unity of faith to the disputing Christian groups.

It seemed the more Councils tried to define key Christian beliefs, the more division, not unity, grew.

THREATS TO THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (1)

One of the greatest threats to unity in the Byzantine Church was the Monophysite debate which divided the church in Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

The debate centred around whether Christ was equally human and divine. Monophysites agued that he was fully human and divine, but his nature was divine. The Orthodox argued he was equally human and divine.

Ecumenical Councils were called (Chalcedon, 451; 533) to solve the dispute, but their outcomes supporting Orthodoxy were rejected by the Monophysites.

Orthodox soldiers were sent to enforce Orthodoxy, by burning and killing, but it survived to the present day. (See Coptic church)

Sadly, differences appeared to be terminological rather than actual.

THREATS TO THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (2) In 610 CE in Arabia, the prophet

Mohammed wrote the Qu’ran and begins preaching a new message: “there is no God but God”.

In 622 Mohammed flees Mecca to Medina. Islam becomes a new religion and bedouin tribes are converted by the sword.

By 652, the entire Arab world is Muslim.

The great centres of Christian learning- Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage and Antioch fall to Islam. Only Constantinople and Rome are left.

The Church of the East and West were cut off by the armies of Islam.

Ironically, the Monophysite Christians were given greater freedom under their Muslim overlords and survive to this day as the Coptic Christians.

THREATS TO THE BYZANTINE CHURCH (3) The Iconoclast debate arose in

this uncertainty and was another step in the permanent split in the Church that was to come.

Emperor Leo III (717-741 CE) came to the conclusion that the Muslim conquest was a result of God’s retribution for the worship of Icons- images of saints, Christ and God used in worship.

He, and his son after him, suppressed the use of Icons and ordered his troops to destroy them. (Iconoclasm)

The second council of Nicea in 787CE (called by Pope Adrian I) resolved the dispute, which resulted in the condemnation of Iconoclasm and the approval of depictions of Christ, Mary, angels and the saints.

GAINS FOR THE ORTHODOX TRADITION While Otto III was once again folding pagan

empires into the Holy Roman Empire of the West, the Bulgarian Empire converted in 926CE; the Serbians in 974CE and the Russians in 988 CE.

By the year 1000 CE it seemed that God’s Kingdom on Earth was to be realised; but two perennial conflicts remained: The supremacy of church or state; and the supremacy of Rome or Constantinople.

THE INEVITABLE SCHISM

The East-West Schism (split) of the Catholic Church was caused by cultural, geographical, and political differences.

The beginnings of the schism dates back to as early as the division of the Roman Empire in 375 CE by Emperor Theodosius. He divided the empire into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and moved the capital city from Rome to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey).

As a result of this division, an informal split within the Catholic Church took place leading to the formation of an Eastern Church in Constantinople and a Western Church in Rome.

TWO DIFFERENT CHURCHES

The immediate causes of the East/West schism were over the issue of Roman Papal authority in the East; the wording of the Creed on the Holy Spirit (the filioque clause); and cultural and political differences.

The way each of these expressions of being church saw itself as part of the secular state also contributed.

In the West, the Papacy believed itself to have authority over secular princes. In the East, the church saw itself part of a Holy Empire where the Emperor was the Icon of God, ruling as God would.

TWO STRONG LEADERS

In 1048 a French bishop was elected as Pope Leo IX. He and the clerics who accompanied him to Rome were intent on reforming the papacy and the entire church. Five years earlier in Constantinople, the rigid and ambitious Michael Cerularius was named Patriarch.

Problems arose in Southern Italy (then under Byzantine rule) in the 1040s, when Norman warriors conquered the region and replaced Greek [Eastern] bishops with Latin [Western] ones.

People were confused, and they argued about the proper form of the liturgy and other external matters. Differences over clerical marriage, the bread used for the Eucharist, days of fasting, and other usages assumed an unprecedented importance.

ATTACK AND COUNTER ATTACK

When Cerularius heard that the Normans were forbidding Greek customs in Southern Italy, he retaliated, in 1052, by closing the Latin churches in Constantinople.

He then induced bishop Leo of Ochrid to compose an attack on the Latin use of unleavened bread and other practices.

In response to this provocative treatise, Pope Leo sent his chief adviser, Humbert, a tactless and narrow-minded man with a strong sense of papal authority, to Constantinople to demand the Patriarch recognise Rome as the head of all churches.

MUTUAL EXCOMMUNICATION

But the Patriarch ignored the papal legate, and an angry Humbert stalked into Hagia Sophia and placed on the altar the bull of excommunication.

Cerularius in turn excommunicated the Cardinal and his legates.

DIVIDED BUT NOT ENEMIES

Dramatic though they were, the events of 1054 were not recorded by the chroniclers of the time and were quickly forgotten.

Negotiations between the pope and the Byzantine emperor continued, especially in the last two decades of the century, as the Byzantines sought aid against the invading Turks.

In 1095, to provide such help, Pope Urban II proclaimed the Crusades; certainly there was no schism between the churches at that time. Despite episodes of tension and conflict, Eastern and Western Christians lived and worshipped together.

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

In the latter half of the twelfth century, however, friction between the groups increased, caused not so much by religious differences as by political and cultural ones.

Violent anti-Latin riots erupted in Constantinople in 1182 CE, and in 1204 CE Western knights brutally ravaged Constantinople itself.

The tension accelerated, and by 1234 CE, when Greek and Latin churchmen met to discuss their differences, it was obvious they represented different churches.

END OF SECTION 2 PART 4

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