Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization

The first, and more damaging, blow fell in 1054 and severely impaired relations with the West. The crisis that culminated that year had been building to a head for decades, and was by now nearly inevitable. Underneath the thin veneer of Christian unity that joined the lands of the old Roman Empire lay the deep divisions of an East and a West that had been drifting apart for centuries. Of the five great patriarchs of the Christian Church, four were in the East, and there the Greek love of disputation had kept the church somewhat decentralized. The patriarch of Constantinople may have been the closest to imperial power, but he was also the youngest of the patriarchs, and the older, more prestigious bishops in Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem zealously guarded their autonomy. Important decisions were made—as they always had been—by means of a council in which the whole voice of the church could be expressed. In the West, where the only patriarch was that of Rome, the pontiff had grown weary of the endless eastern speculation and heresy, and had begun to see himself as the final authority in Christendom. After all, hadn’t Christ himself “handed the keys of heaven” to Peter, the first pope, with the words “on this rock I will build my Church”? Clearly, the pope was not merely the “first among equals” as the easterners taught, but the undisputed head of the church.

The crisis was precipitated when the stubborn patriarch Michael Cerularius wrote a letter to Pope Leo IX, addressing him as “brother” instead of “father” and comparing him to Judas for adding the word fitioque to the Nicene Creed. This was an old—and rather intemperate—argument that had split the church for generations. According to the original version of the creed—the central statement of Christianity—the Holy Spirit emanated from God the Father. So it had remained until the late sixth century when the word filioque (“and the son”) was added by the Spanish church in an attempt to emphasize Christ’s divinity to their Arian, Visigothic overlords. The Eastern Church could, of course, sympathize with the spirit of the Spanish addition (they had after all fought the same battle against the Arians), but to their minds only the authority of a full council could alter the creed, and this arbitrary addition was therefore a vile heresy made all the more shocking when the pope officially endorsed it.^* The Scriptures are mostly silent on the topic of the Trinity, making it virtually impossible to resolve an argument about the relationship of its members. Both sides dug in their heels on the issue, and now the patriarch’s letter to the pope ripped aside the church’s veil of unity to expose its deep-seated divisions for the entire world to see.†

It was at this moment of rancor that the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX invited the pope to send some legates to Constantinople to discuss a military alliance against their mutual enemies. The pope accepted the invitation, but, unfortunately for everyone involved, he chose a virulently anti-Greek cardinal named Humbert to act as his representative. Humbert arrived in Constantinople ready to be insulted, and was soon given ample opportunity when the equally insufferable Patriarch Cerularius refused to see him. Annoyed by the oily Greek food, drafty accommodations, and poor hospitality, Humbert spent his time castigating his hosts for the eastern practices of allowing priests to marry, using leavened bread in the Eucharist, and eating meat during Lent. Tempers were soured further when news arrived in late April that the pope had died, depriving Humbert of what little authority he had, and making his entire infuriating mission pointless. Demanding an audience with the patriarch, the cardinal requested permission to leave, but Cerularius gleefully refused, keeping the enraged Humbert under virtual house arrest. For two months, the papal legate fumed in Constantinople, but by July 16, 1054, with no end to his containment in sight, he had had enough. Marching into the Hagia Sophia, Humbert solemnly placed a note of excommunication on the high altar. Turning around, he shook the dust symbolically off his feet and left the building, vowing never to return. The damage done in that moment was equaled only by its tragically unnecessary circumstances. Christendom would never be united again, and it was the disgruntled representative of a dead pope without a single shred of authority who had dealt the blow.

A few weeks later, the patriarch returned the favor by convening a council that excommunicated the West right back. Each side hoped the other would back down, but it was too late—relations were permanently sundered. The pope maintained that the Latin Church was the “Catholic” or “universal” one, while the patriarch made the same claim, arguing that the Greek rite was “Orthodox” or “true.”