1000 years ago the Christian Church, the only one around at the time, experienced a schism.
The Eastern part of the church broke from the Western part because of such issues as the source of the Holy Spirit, whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist –Rome wanted unleavened, the Eastern branch leavened, which explains the wafer vs the cube–, and the big one, the Pope’s claim to universal jurisdiction over all Christians.
It was the Roman Empire vs the Byzantine Empire.
The Eastern branch accepted that the pope was the bishop of Rome, but beyond that was not the big boss of everything.
The infighting came to a head when the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople in response to the Greek churches in southern Italy having been forced to either close or conform to Latin practices.
The split was along doctrinal, theological, linguistic, political, and geographical lines, and the fundamental breach has never been healed, with each side sometimes accusing the other of having fallen into heresy and of having initiated the division.
There was also a concern about fashion.
The present patriarch and the present pope met in Cuba this past week, a meeting 1000 years in the making.
It was the time to address the differences that divided them.
It was the time to see if anything could be done to heal the schism, or at last tone down the rhetoric.
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And so, in light of history and what the schism has produced over the years, both the leaders addressed what they apparently feel is the one most pressing issue, Gay marriage.
They denounced it.
According to the New York Times:
“As he approached the Russian patriarch amid the clicking of news cameras, Francis was overheard to say, ‘Brother.’ A moment later, he added, ‘Finally.’
The two men embraced, kissing each other twice on the cheeks and clasping hands before taking seats. ‘Now things are easier,’ Patriarch Kirill said. Francis responded, ‘It is clear now that this is the will of God.’
The meeting was richly symbolic: Francis, leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, stood with Patriarch Kirill, leader of the largest church in the Eastern Orthodox world, with an estimated 150 million followers.But it was also about geopolitics, rivalries among Orthodox leaders and, analysts say, the maneuverings of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — who is closely aligned with the conservative Russian church.
For Francis, the meeting was an ecumenical and diplomatic coup that eluded his predecessors but that also opened him to criticism that his embrace of the Russian patriarch would indirectly give a boost to Mr. Putin as he wages a war in Syria and continues to meddle in Ukraine.”
As a result of their meeting, the pope and the patriarch issued a joint statement. The big boys said,
“The family is the natural centre of human life and society. We are concerned about the crisis in the family in many countries. Orthodox and Catholics share the same conception of the family, and are called to witness that it is a path of holiness, testifying to the faithfulness of the spouses in their mutual interaction, to their openness to the procreation and rearing of their children, to solidarity between the generations and to respect for the weakest.
The family is based on marriage, an act of freely given and faithful love between a man and a woman. It is love that seals their union and teaches them to accept one another as a gift. Marriage is a school of love and faithfulness. We regret that other forms of cohabitation have been placed on the same level as this union, while the concept, consecrated in the biblical tradition, of paternity and maternity as the distinct vocation of man and woman in marriage is being banished from the public conscience.”
The Schism’s major cause, newly discovered, apparently has been addressed.
I went to Catholic grammar school where the nuns explained the Great Schism. They did it more than once, and when it came to the church, the nuns didn’t skimp on what were considered the facts about the history of the church.
Unless Sister Mary Tabernacle Door Left Halfway Open hid some facts from us, we were never told that the Great Schism was caused by two men wanting to get married.