1054 & All That

Dating the Orthodox/Catholic Schism
by Gary Jenkins

The year is 1273, and the Byzantine emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos (ruled 1258–1282), exasperated with an obstinate synod of bishops, has turned to violence. The bishops had withstood his ecclesiastical plans of a reunion with the church of Rome, designs necessary to spare the empire the certain invasion and probable conquest of the city at the hands of papal champion Charles of Anjou, king of the two Sicilies. In his frustration Michael decided to make an example of Manuel Holobolus, one of the leading opponents of the union, an orator and the former head of the patriarchal school. Michael had already mutilated and imprisoned the monk for his opinions, but now the emperor had him taken from prison, flogged, and chained to nine other poor souls (including Holobolus’s niece), whom he then paraded through Constantinople. Holobolus’s neck was wrapped with a sheep’s intestines, and an “executioner” beat his head with the animal’s liver as the convicts walked through the streets, going around the quarters of the great church, Hagia Sophia.

When Michael VIII recaptured Constantinople in 1261, he opened probably the most bitter episode of the several attempts at healing the schism between the Catholics and the Orthodox, the Latins and the Greeks. Michael hoped that a union of the churches would spare his weak and feeble empire, and, under the sympathetic eye of Pope Gregory X, he agreed to such a union. Rome accepted that the emperor was able to control the Byzantine church, at least on some level, and expected Michael to enforce the union. But, as Michael informed Pope Gregory, the union enjoyed no popularity among the clergy or the people of Constantinople. The main defender of Michael’s position was the former cartophylax John Bekkos, who had been imprisoned at one point for his obstreperous resistance to the idea of the union. But fed a steady diet of Latin polemics, Bekkos eventually came to the Latin position on the key question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. However brilliant Bekkos was, the Synod of Constantinople dug in its heels.

THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:

Gary Jenkins Ph.D., is the Van Gordon Professor in History (retired) at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, and the current director of the St. Basil Center for Orthodox Thought and Culture (also at EU).

subscription options

Order
Print/Online
Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Order
Online Only
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

Give a Gift Subscription

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.

more on Catholic from the online archives

32.6—November/December 2019

Reformation Redux?

on Taking Heed of the Parallels Between the Crises of Yesterday & Today by Korey D. Maas

31.6—November/December 2018

Enduring Sacrilege

The Slow Vindication of Leon Podles by S. M. Hutchens

24.5—Sept/Oct 2011

A Many-Storied Monastic

A Critical Memoir of Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey by Patrick Henry Reardon