The East-West Schism

THE POST-ROMAN WEST and THE CRUSADING MOVEMENT HIST 1301 | History The East-West Schism A difficult situation between secular monarchs and the Christian Church resulted from the chaotic aftermath of the fall of the Carolingian Empire. German law gave lords the authority to manage everything on their property, including monasteries and churches. This authority even encompassed the appointment of church officials to roles like bishop or abbot. Lords filled these positions with members of their families or even sold them to the highest bidder in order to guarantee they had the allegiance of church authorities. As a result, people who were not ordained in religion or who did not even understand Christian theory may be appointed to positions of authority in churches. It is even possible for the pope, who is the Roman bishop, to be put up for sale. Outrage over this handling of ecclesiastical authority sparked a reform movement aimed at reducing the power of secular rulers in church governance. The French monastery of Cluny, which succeeded in gaining independence from the local nobleman, is sometimes linked to the movement. The Cluniac reform movement began when other monks all across France clamoured to share in the rights and benefits that Cluny had meritoriously obtained. Eventually, more clergy who desired that the church pick bishops without interference from the outside world joined the Cluniac movement. Finally, the bishop of Rome and the Catholic Church came to share this yearning for freedom. The Cluniac movement finally encouraged the bishops of Rome to reform the church. They maintained that bishops should be chosen by clergy, not by lords, and denounced the selling of posts as a sin known as simony. It was possible to remove any clergy member who had purchased an office or had one purchased for them. Priests were instructed to maintain celibacy and were prohibited from marrying in order to put a stop to the custom of viewing church offices as a fief that should be passed down to the officeholder's offspring. Although celibacy was not a novel idea in the Catholic Church, it was vigorously enforced by reforming monks and popes. The church decided that a monarch who attempted to name a bishop or demanded a bribe may be excommunicated—that is, removed from the church, its communion, and the sacraments—in an effort to try to change the offending individual. This decision was made because the modifications generated severe disagreement with the European kings. Excommunication may put the king's authority in jeopardy and spark uprisings. The reformers also wanted to define what constituted lawful and illegitimate combat in order to completely Christianize society. The church maintained that knights and other Christian troops need to adhere to a code of behaviour that embodied the church's principles. They shouldn't, for instance, rob monasteries or kidnap clergy members. They ought to defend women and the weak in addition to the church. They ought to respect times when armistices are openly announced and refrain from hostilities on holy days such as Easter. The ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct intended to Christianize knightly violence and behaviour, derived from these concepts. Images of Christian knights helped popes justify their orders for the military classes of Europe to act against peoples deemed to be enemies of the church and therefore also of God, even though the idea of Christianized warfare was never successful in reducing violence. This was just one thread of a larger, secular interest in a newly defined chivalric culture of knighthood. The church's moral standing was elevated by the reform movement, but tensions between the eastern and western branches of the church deteriorated as a result of the pope's increasing authority. Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, and Constantinople were acknowledged as the five most prestigious Christian cities by the Middle Ages. A bishop with the honorific title of "patriarch" oversaw each. Only Rome and Constantinople were outside of Muslim rule in the tenth century. Language and cultural barriers contributed to the rift between the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope in Rome, despite the latter's holding many of the same beliefs. For instance, the western church mandated a celibate priesthood, conducted operations in Latin, and regarded the pope as the ultimate authority on all things pertaining to the church worldwide. The eastern church spoke Greek, allowed priests to be married (though it was customary for bishops to remain single), and acknowledged the primacy of other patriarchs over the pope. Inadvertently, the reform effort exacerbated divides. To address the divisions between the two branches of the church, the pope dispatched delegates to the patriarch of Constantinople in 1054. The head of the pope's delegation sent out a letter excommunicating the patriarch and his adherents because he believed the patriarch was not assisting or even acknowledging the mission. The pope's delegates were immediately excommunicated by the patriarch in a letter of his own. The eastern church became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western half as the Catholic Church after the Great Schism in 1054. Given that conflicts and tensions had been escalating throughout time, the Great Schism was not the primary factor in their separation. However, it did serve to illustrate the ways that various influences were influencing Christianity in various regions of Europe. From this point on, the popes intended to force their reformation vision of the church upon the Orthodox Church and bring the two halves back under their control. Although the pope was acknowledged as "first among equals" by Orthodox bishops, the pope maintained that it was the highest authority inside the church.