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 SCHISM

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SCHISM

capital. It was as the emperor's bishops, as func- tionaries of the imperial Court, that they rose to the second place in Christendom. The legend of St. An- drew founding their see was a late afterthought ; it is now abandoned by all scholars. The claim of Con- stantinople was always frankly the purely Erastian one that as Cajsar could establish his capital w^here he liked, so could he, the civil governor, give ecclesiasti- cal rank in the hierarchy to any see he liked. The 28th canon of Chalcedon says so in so many words. Constantinople has become the New Rome, therefore its bishop is to have like honour to that of the patriarch of Old Rome and to be second after him. It only needed a shade more insolence to claim that the em- peror could transfer all papal rights to the bishop of the city where he held his court.

Let it be always remembered that the rise of Con- stantinople, its jealousy of Rome, its unhappy influ- ence over all the East is a pure piece of Erastianism, a shameless surrender of the things of God to Ca>sar. And nothing can be less stable than to establish eccle- siastical rights on the basis of secular politics. The Turks in 1453 cut away the foundation of Byzantine ambition. There is now no emperor and no Court to justify the oecumenical patriarch's position. If we were to apply logically the principle on which he rests, he would sink back to the lowest place and the patri- archs of Christendom w<nild reign at Paris, London, New* York. Meanwhile the old and really canonical principle of the superiority of Apostolic sees remains untouched by political changes. Apart from the Di- vine origin of the papacy, the advance of Constanti- nople was a gross violation of the rights of the Apos- tolic Sees of Alexandria and Antioch. We need not wonder that the popes, although their first place was not questioned, resented this disturbance of ancient rights by the ambition of the imperial bishops.

Long before Photius there had been schisms be- tween Constantinople and Rome, all of them healed up in time, but naturally all tending to weaken the sense of essential unity. From the beginning of the See of Constantinople to the great schism in S67 the list of these temporary breaciies of communion is a formidable one. There were fifty-five years of schism (343-98) during the Arian troubles, eleven because of St. John Chr>'sostom's deposition (404-15), thirty- five years of the Acacian schism (484-519), forty-one years of Monothelite schism (640-81), sixty-one years because of Iconoclasm. So of these 544 years (323-867) no less than 203 were spent by Constanti- nople in a state of schism. We notice too that in every one of these quarrels Constantinople was on the wrong side; by the consent of the Orthodox, too, Rome in all stood out for right. And already we see that the influence of the emperor (who naturally al- ways supported his court patriarch) in most cases dragged a great number of other Eastern bishops into the same schism.

III. Photius and Coerularius. — It was natural that the great schisms, which are immediately responsible for the present state of things, should be local quarrels of Constantinople. Neither was in any sense a gen- eral grievance of the East. There was neither time any reason why other bishops should join with Con- stantinople in the quarrel against Rome, except that already they had learned to look to the imperial city for orders. The quarrel of Photius was a gross defi- ance of lawful church order. Ignatius was the right- ful bishop without any question; he had reigned peaceably for eleven years. Then he refused Com- munion to a man guilty of open incest (857). But that man was the regent Bardas, so the Government professed to depose Ignatius and intruded Photius into his see. Pope Nicholas I had no quarrel against the Eastern Church; he had no quarrel against the Byzantine see. He stood out for the rights of the law- ful bishop. Both Ignatius and Photius had formally

appealed to him. It was only when Photius foUllcJ that he had lost his case that he and the Government preferred schism to submission (867). It is even doubtful how far this time there was any general Eastern schism at all. In the council that restored Ignatius (869) the other patriarchs declared that they had at once accepted the pope's former verdict.

But Photius had formed an anti-Roman party which was never afterwards dissolved. The effect of his quarrel, though it was so purely personal, though it was patched up when Ignatius died, and again when Photius fell, was to gather to a head all the old jealousy of Rome at Constantinople. We see this throughout the Photian Schism. The mere question of that usurper's pretended rights does not account for the outburst of enmity against the pope, against everything Western and Latin that we notice in gov- ernment documents, in Photius's letters, in the Acta of his synod in 879, in all the attitude of his party. It is rather the rancour of centuries bursting out on a poor pretext; this fierce resentment against Roman interference comes from men who know of old that Rome is the one hindrance to their plans and ambi- tions. Moreover, Photius gave the Byzantines a new and powerful weapon. The cry of heresy was raised often enough at all times; it never failed to arouse popular indignation. But it had not yet occurred to any one to accuse all the West of being steeped in per- nicious heresy. Hitherto it had been a question of resenting the use of papal authority in isolated cases. This new idea carried the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance. Photius's six charges are silly enough, so silly that one wonders that so great a scholar did not think of something cleverer, at least in appearance. But they changed the situation to the Eastern advantage. When Photius calls the Latins "liars, fighters against God, forerunners of Anti- christ", it is no longer a question merely of abusing one's ecclesiastical superiors. He now assumes a more effective part ; he is the champion of orthodoxy, indignant against heretics.

After Photius, John Bekkos says there was "perfect peace" between East and West. But the peace was only on the surface. Photius's cause did not die. It remained latent in the party he left, the party that still hated the West, that was ready to break the union again at the first pretext, that remembered and was ready to revive this charge of heresy against Latins. Certainly from the time of Photius hatred and scorn of Latins was an inheritance of the mass of the Byzantine clergy. How deeply rooted and far- spread it was, is shown by the absolutely gratuitous outburst 150 years later under Michael Cserularius (1043-58). For this time there was not even the shadow of a pretext. No one had disputed Caeru- larius's right as patriarch; the pope had not inter- fered with him in any way at all. And suddenly in 1053 he sends of? a declaration of war, then shuts up the Latin churches at Constantinople, hurls a string of wild accusations, and shows in every possible way that he wants a schism, api)arently for the mere pleas- ure of not being in communion with the West. He got his wish. After a series of wanton aggressions, unparalleled in church history, after he had begun by striking the pope's name from his diptychs, the Ro- man legates excommunicated him (16 July, 1054). But still there was no idea of a general excommuni- cation of the Byzantine Church, still less of all the East. The legates carefully provided against that in their Bull. They acknowledged that the emperor (Constantine IX, who was excessively annoyed at the whole quarrel), the Senate, and the majority of the inhabitants of the city were "most pious and ortho- dox". They excommunicated Cajrularius, Leo of Achrida, and their adherents.

This quarrel, too, need no more have produced a per- manent state of schism than the excommunication of