I found from history that when Portuguese colonialists came to Kerala, India in 15th century, they found christians there using Jewish practices. The portuguese spread the fact that Jews are responsible for the death of our Lord.
Dear syro Malankara
then why the orthodox bishops use black dresses and beards and they lead an acetic life completely different from Roman catholic bishops?
Hi Mathew,
Please don’t get me wrong, but you can not interpret the whole history of the Church with today’s mind set.
The Eastern Christianity was influenced by the Platonical philosophy. The Western one, with Albert the Great and Thomas d’Aquino, it was influenced by the Aristotle. Each philosopher has a different view about the body and the way man should relate to the world.
Plato said that this world is just a projection of the “world of ideas” therefore is not real and it should be ignored. Also, Plato said that true knowledge comes just by reasoning, therefore any empirical knowledge that comes thru senses is not real.
Aristotle, on the other side, said that the knowledge comes from both reasoning and senses (empirical) and you have to take both of them in consideration when you make judgments.
While Plato ignored the material world focusing just on the spiritual one, Aristotle took both of them in consideration.
Why is this important?
Because Plato had and still has a BIGGGG impact over the Eastern Christianity and you have to understand his philosophy in order to understand the difference between the East and the West.
In East for example, because of the Plato’s philosophy, many Christians went in the desert, deep in the desert, away from the world, which was considered sinful, unworthy fighting for or living in, etc. Many of them even disregarded the minimum needs for their body. There are stories about monks from early centuries of Christianity that didn’t wash for years, or that lived their entire life in a tree, or in a cave, they didn’t cut their hair or beard, etc. Even today there are orthodox monks living like that on the Mount Athos.
In the West, when the Aristotle’s philosophy entered in Europe thru Spain with the Arabs, it changed the whole way of thinking. Check when the first universities appeared in the Western Europe, the big studies, the development of the science, etc.
Besides the difference between East and West caused by the philosophy, there was a LOTTT of political implications as well. The Patriarch from Constantinople always wanted to be equal with the one from Rome. That is the reason why they called Constantinople the “second Rome”. In 1054 when the East “officially” broke the connection with Rome, the Pope was the biggest issue. The Patriarch of Constantinople considered himself equal with the Pope. Well, later, when Constantinople fell under turks, the russians spited from Constantinople and proclaimed Moscow as the “third Rome”. Than later the bulgarians did the same, and the romanians, and others. Luther and the other reformers just took the example from East when they left the Catholic Church about 400 later.
There is much more to say WHY there are differences between East and West, but the situation is not that simple as it appears at the first glance.