New from our Research Blog: "Pinpointing the Great Schism"

If there’s anything I hope to have conveyed via the handful of articles that I’ve written on the subject, it’s that no definitive rupture occurred, or was perceived to have occurred, between the Greek and Latin churches in the year 1054. Indeed, I don’t know of any historian or theologian over the last hundred years or so who’d be willing to defend that year as the date of the Great Schism. So why does it persist in popular historical accounts of the split? In part, I think that there’s no denying the dramatic image of a cardinal of the Roman Church marching into the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia and slapping a bull of excommunication on the altar. In part, the weight of much older, Western historiography gives gravitas to the date. But I think that most of the reason we continue to use 1054 as a point of reference is that we simply haven’t come up with anything better. So, if not then, when?

Of course, assigning a date to the schism demands a more precise definition of what a schism is. Broadly speaking, it might generally be taken to signify a breakdown in liturgical concelebration, particularly of the Eucharist, but even this is subject to a wide variety of interpretations, and therefore, of dates. For Anton Michel, one of the great scholars of 11th-century, Eucharistic unity was symbolized by the inclusion of the pope’s name in the diptychs, a set of tablets in which were inscribed the names of the various patriarchs with whom the Church of Constantinople was in communion [1]. These names would have been read aloud following the Great Entrance during the celebration of the Eucharistic service, serving as a very public statement of intercommunion [2]. But even if we’re to look only at the diptychs of Constantinople (ignoring the other patriarchal sees of the East), we already run into problems of communication breakdowns, occasional lapses into heresy (on both sides: Iconoclasm, Monothelitism, Nestorianism, etc.), and interference from political authorities, none of which can be taken to indicate a break between the churches as a whole. Indeed, the last mention of a Roman pontiff in the diptychs of Constantinople occurred sometime around the year 1009. If the documents of 1054 so clearly indicate the absence of a generally-felt schism, it certainly can’t be dated to before then.

This is an excerpt from "Pinpointing the Great Schism," by Nick Kamas (Ph.D. '19). Read the full piece.