I think your history is a little faulty. First of all, the patriarch and all of the Greeks were excommunicated in 1054 by Cardinal Humbert because they did not have the filioque in the creed and when Humbert went to Constantinople he placed a bull of excommunication on the altar at hagia sophia. Patriarch Michael Cerularius returned with an excommunication on Humbert. The matter of the Eucharist which you speak of was after this event as far as I am aware. And to clarify, his actions weren’t meant to be an affront to the Eucharist but were basically a statement that the Latin use of unleavened bread was invalid and it was not the Eucharist. He was certainly wrong in what he did and it was an evil thing that he did but the fact is that it was not out of hate for the Eucharist as could be inferred from your post.
No, the Patriarch of Constantinople wasn’t trying to be a pope without the title pope. That is like an Orthodox Christian claiming that Catholics teach that the pope represents a higher level of ordination than bishop, which is false.
I must disagree with you. Only the patriarch was excommunicated, not all the Greeks. In fact, the way I see the history here, the Latins were hoping that the Greeks would stand up to the patriarch and not let him get away with these kinds of attacks on religious matters. However, the issue in Greece became one of Greeks against the outsiders and we all see where that kind of prejudice got us.
The other thing is that the excommunication was not because of the Filioque. It is true that the Filioque was a small part of what started the trip to Greece but it was not even close to the main issue, just a footnote. In all of the times that the Legets and the patriarch actually met, they never once even mention the Filioque. The real issue was over ecclesiatical territory that was vailed as a dispute over leaven or unleaven bread. The Filioque was not an issue that the Greeks held against the Latins until all the Greeks came to agree that unleaven bread was also valid the same as leaven bread, just as the pope had always taught. Once that happened, the Filioque which is a Latin translation of a phrase used in the East to begin with, was the new banner to take up to justify not coming back into communion because they wanted to remain separated from the Latin and would take any issue to do it.
The last thing that I will mention is that the patriarch was not excommunicated over the Filioque. They hardly mentioned it. It wasn’t an issue. On top of that, he was not excommunicated because he would not submit to the authority of the Pope, nor was he excommunicated for not working with the Pope to resolve the issue in southern Italy. Nor was he excommunicated for closing down the small number of Latin churches in Constantinople. He was excommunicated specifically and only for the action of breaking open a tabernacle, throwing Jesus on the floor and stepping on him.
Another point to note, any Bishop could and should have excommunicated the patriarch for this action. This is exactly the kind of action that should cause all Christians to shun a person so that the person repents and is reconciled with the Church. Even is the Pope did this kind of action, he would be in danger of being validly excommunicated and having his office taken from him.
It is so very unfortunate for all of us that these trajedies of a personal nature should extend and cause a schism between two sides of the same ONE Church. At this point in time all of the theological issues have been resolved, includeing the Filioque which has been resolved eight times so far. Yet, we are still in a practical sense separated. Our leaders can come together over and over again and say that we are one Church but our peoples don’t accept it.
Sometimes in all of this I get the feeling to tell some on this issue of schism what gets directed at Americans a lot of the time,“there is a world outside your boarders you know.”
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