The great schism of 1054 that divided the eastern and western churches provides a plethora of lessons for today’s believers on the causes of splits and schisms and offers them an opportunity to learn how to prevent such splits and schisms from happening within their local congregations and the global body of Christ. As a student of conflict resolution and peacemaking, the lessons to be learned from the great schism won’t just help to prevent splits within both local and global expressions fo the church but would help prevent conflict within any relationship.
In this post, we will first look at the causes of the great schism and then we will look at lessons that can be drawn from the schisms and applied to prevent splits today.
Part I. Causes of the Great Schism
When we look at the causes of the Great Schism, one may blame the distinct religious culture, cultural, language, theological, and liturgical differences that existed between the West and the East. While accurate, such blame would be unhelpful. Such differences just a part of life that is often out of our control. How we handle them, though, is within our control. The leaders of the East and West had to choose to respond in ways that bridge the differences or simply complain or magnify them.
Here are some other differences that Mark Noll points out in chapter 6 of his book, Turning Points [1].
- “A sharp dispute during the second half of the ninth century between two capable leaders, Pope Nicholas I (858–67) and Photius, the patriarch of Constantinople (intermittently 858–86), strained connections between the churches.” Lane, chapter 6
- The West’s addition filioque to the Nicene Creed. This violated both the spirit and the letter of what had transpired at Nicea. “The spirit by acting unilaterally in making the change, and the letter by violating an explicit canon of the council that the wording of its formula was not to be changed.” This is worsened by the fact that the East believes that this “Western addition was a grievous theological error.”
- A very long and tortuous history of suspicion, disengagement, and estrangement
- “Tangled political–ecclesiastical strife precipitated the crisis”
- The Pope’s political games to go behind the back the Eastern patriarch and regain authority over the few Greek churches in Italy. Just like the western emperor and pope were negotiating, the Eastern emperor and patriarch should have been at the table.
- The Eastern Patriarch’s revenge to shut down the Latin churches in the East when they refused to his demands to conform to eastern rites. He wanted to reciprocate the takeover of the Greek churches in Italy.
- Mutual excommunication, started by the West and reciprocated by the East
- “Centuries of East-West cultural disengagement, theological differences, and ecclesiastical suspicion.”
- The Crusades, ventures from the West, sealed the schism.
- The Western pope’s demands for papal supremacy over the Eastern patriarchs and the Western pope’s choice to make decisions unilaterally without even consulting the Eastern patriarchs for input and then trying to impose those ideas on them and their churches. The popes did so in spite of the fact that the Eastern patriarchs where generously willing grant preference (“first among equals”) to the bishop of Rome. And there was no indication that the Eastern Bishops played any part in the selection of this pope who was trying to govern as a monarch, instead of as first among equals.
- The Muslim capture of Constantinople and the coming of orthodoxy to Russia.
Part II. Lessons about schisms and splits in churches that believers today can learn from the Great Schism that would help them to prevent splits and schism in churches
Cultural and religious differences don’t have to lead to schism. Cultural and religious differences will always occur. They don’t by themselves have to lead to schism. How we go about it will determine whether schism occurs or not.
Diversity is actually a strength and not a weakness. Diversity and differing viewpoints should be viewed as strengths, not threats. And we should humbly seek to learn from each other. In today’s business climate, it’s almost universally accepted that diversity when handled correctly is the mother of innovation. And innovative companies thrive and succeed. That too can be true of the church. No wonder God has created people of different colors and cultures, etc.
Trust is the currency of all effective human relationships. If you break trust, conflict and splits are bound to happen unless that bridge of trust is repaired through repentance and forgiveness. In my view, even though both sides sinned, the Western church was the most egregious perpetrators. A lot of their argument for the pope succeeding Peter and so controlling everyone else is not only ludicrous but also disingenuous. The West’s addition of filioque in violation of the spirit and letter of the agreement would be a done deal. The whole point in making a deal with someone is that you believe they will have the dignity to honor it. But if they go behind and change it without consulting you as agreed, how does one trust them? I wouldn’t even eat with them until they scrape that off completely. The obvious lesson for the church today is that to avoid strife and conflict, we need to keep our word. We need to make and keep promises.
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil….Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” Romans 12:17-21 NIV. This is a good rule to keep in mind when there is a conflict and we get angry and tempers want to flare. The acrimonious fashion in which the leaders of the Western and Eastern churches responded to each other indicates that like we often do, they had forgotten of this admonition from the scriptures.
Do not do anything that seeks to violate the autonomy of others.
Daniel Pink wrote a well-researched book, titled Drive, in which he shares that the three things that motivate humans are mastery, autonomy, and purpose. [2] When you violate people’s autonomy, they are wired to fight back. When the Western pope seeks to control the Eastern church, he is violating this innate drive. The only way they could do that is through coercion and ungodly sleight of hand, which didn’t succeed. We will do well in our churches to govern by the consent of the governed and to allow God to work on people’s hearts.
Avoid evil desires and ambition and lead by consensus.
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4:1-3
In my view, the Bishop of Rome’s quest to rule over all the other bishops was an evil desire that battled within the hearts of these pops for generations. And they did heinous things to achieve it. I think they couldn’t get it by prayer because God wouldn’t answer them because of their motives. We can learn from them to avoid selfish ambition which always leads to conflicts and splits. We need to learn a lesson in humility from Moses (who didn’t want to lead and didn’t feel qualified when God called him) and from St. Augustine. Writing about Augustine, Tony Lane says,
“Augustine is the greatest Christian theologian since the apostles. He is the Father of the Western Church. His thought dominated the Middle Ages – the good and the bad alike. In the sixteenth century, the Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation were both rediscoveries of Augustine. B. B. Warfield called the Reformation ‘the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the church’”. [3]
Lane continues that, “In 388 Augustine returned to Africa. There he took care to avoid towns without a bishop, since he was aware of the danger of being forced into the office. But in 391, while visiting Hippo, he was spotted and ‘forcibly’ ordained as presbyter or priest. When the bishop died, in 396, Augustine succeeded him. He remained bishop of Hippo until his death in 430.” [4]
Augustine didn’t desire to lead. He had to be “forced” to.
Church Splits don’t happen in a day. Distrusts builds up over time.
It took centuries of distrust, suspicion, and strife before the Great schism happened. In our churches, we can learn from that and prevent splits and schisms by working to resolve our differences quickly. We may not have centuries to spare.
Cultural differences shape our understanding.
Within America, the black church and the white church have different cultures. It’s been said that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America. So learning lessons about cultural sensitivity and diversity are not only good for preventing a church split within a small congregation but also important in preventing church splits or separation within the global body of Christ. The Great Schism wasn’t a split within a single congregation like the former Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church church split but a split between two geographic parts of the body of Christ. Today, being culturally sensitive, keeping our word, and doing the other things that build trust would help the body of Christ and his church that exists on different continents.
FootNotes
- Mark A Noll. Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), chap. 6, https://app.wordsearchbible.com/reader.
- Daniel H. Pink. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (New York: Riverhead Books, 2009), chap. 4, Kindle.
- Tony Lane. A Concise History of Christian Thought. Rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 47.
- Ibid.
