The Historians' History of the World 08

Photius was the first to determine on an appeal to Rome. The pope, he thought, would hardly resist the acknowledgment of his superiority, with the tempting promise of the total extirpation of the hated iconoclasts. Not merely did the pope address two lofty and condemnatory letters to the emperor and to Photius, but a third also to “the faithful in the East,” at the close of which he made known to the three Eastern patriarchs his steadfast resolution to maintain the cause of Ignatius, to refuse the recognition of the usurper Photius. The restoration of Ignatius was commanded even in more imperious language, and under more awful sanctions. “We, by the power committed to us by our Lord through St. Peter, restore our brother Ignatius to his former station, to his see, to his dignity as patriarch, and to all the honours of his office. Whoever, after the promulgation of this decree, shall presume to disturb him in the exercise of his office, separate from his communion, or dare to judge him anew, without the consent of the apostolic see, if a clerk, shall share the eternal punishment of the traitor Judas; if a layman, he has incurred the malediction of Canaan; he is excommunicate, and will suffer the same fearful sentence from the eternal Judge.”

Never had the power of the clergy or the supremacy of Rome been asserted so distinctly, so inflexibly. The privileges of Rome were eternal, immutable, anterior to, derived from no synod or council, but granted directly by God himself; they might be assailed, but not transferred; torn off for a time, but not plucked up by the roots. An appeal was open to Rome from all the world, from her authority lay no appeal. The emperor and Constantinople paid no regard to these terrible anathemas of the pope.

SYNOD AT CONSTANTINOPLE

[867 A.D.]

In the year 867 Photius had summoned a council at Constantinople; the obsequious prelates listened to the arraignment, and joined in the counter excommunication of Pope Nicholas. Photius drew up eight articles inculpating in one the faith, in the rest the departure, of the see of Rome from ancient and canonical discipline. Among the dreadful acts of heresy and schism which were to divide forever the churches of the East and West were: (1) the observance of Saturday as a fast; (2) the permission to eat milk or cheese during Lent; (4) the restriction of the chrism to the bishops; (6) the promotion of deacons at once to the episcopal dignity; (7) the consecration of a lamb, according to the hated Jewish usage; (8) the shaving of their beards by the clergy. The fifth only of the articles objected to by Photius, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, was an error so awful as to deserve a thousand anathemas. The third, condemning the enforced celibacy of the clergy, was alone of high moral or religious importance. “From this usage we see in the West,” says Photius, “so many children who know not their fathers.” These, however, were but the pretexts for division. The cause lay deeper, in the total denial of the papal supremacy by the Greeks; their unequivocal assertion that with the empire that supremacy had passed to Constantinople.

The decree of the council boasted the signature of the emperor (obtained, it was said, in an hour of drunkenness); of Basil the Macedonian, averred (most improbably) to have been forged; of the three eastern patriarchs; of the senate and the great officers; of abbots and bishops to the number of nearly one thousand. But the episcopal messenger who was to bear to Rome this defiance of the church of Constantinople and the counter-excommunication of the pope, had proceeded but a short way on his journey when he was stopped by the orders of the new emperor. A revolution in the palace was a revolution in the church of Constantinople. The first act of Basil the Macedonian was to depose Photius. Photius is said to have refused the communion to the murderer Basil. From this time a succession of changes agitated the empire; Photius rose or fell at each successive change.

Leo the Philosopher, the son of Basil, once more ignominiously expelled him from his throne. Yet, though accused of treason, Photius was acquitted and withdrew into honoured retirement. He did not live to witness or profit by another revolution. Though the schism of thirty years, properly speaking, expired in his person, and again a kind of approximation to Rome took place, yet the links were broken which united the two churches. The articles of difference, from which neither would depart, had been defined and hardened into rigid dogmas. During the dark times of the papacy which followed the disruption, even the intercourse became more and more precarious. The popes of the next century were too busy in defending their territories or their lives to regard the affairs of the East. The darkness which gathered round both churches shrouded them from each other’s sight.

[860-867 A.D.]