Who was really to blame for the east-west schism and can it be reversed?

[steve_b]

The massacre of Latins in Constantinople by the Greeks also happened because 1st and 2nd Crusade massacred Greeks and other Orthodox in Antioch and Jerusalem. Also Latin princess that ruled Constantinople was favoring Latin population in the city, so Greeks took revenge when they got rid of her. Then in 1204 Latins took revenge on Greeks. And it goes like this all the way to 2nd world war, even Yugoslav civil war in 1990s, and even today in Ukraine.

Zakon:

#[4 (http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14241694&postcount=4)

1. • JPII asked forgiveness for the sacking of Constantinople. He didn’t really have to do that. The issue was already settled. But he did it in good gesture wwrn.org/articles/14825/?&place=greece-cyp-malta & the apology was accepted by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=28935 And since the pope can speak for ALL Catholics, that’s a powerful apology.
   • Now for some context. Re: the slaughter of 50,000 Catholics in 1182, which was only 22 years earlier in Constantinople by the Orthodox archive.is/81CV Read that link for explanation.
   • Re: 1204, The Crusaders (who were going to Jerusalem) didn’t just sack Constantinople for no reason. Alexius requested them, promising to pay them, to restore him to power as emperor. After all, why waste a good army at your doorstep when you can use them. And the crusaders restored him to power. But Alexius didn’t pay them. So the army took their payment by sacking Constantinople. 2000 people were killed in that episode vs 22 years earlier in Constantinople, where 50,000 Latins were slaughtered and their children sold into slavery to the muslims by the Orthodox.
   • So WHERE is the apology from the ORTHODOX for 1182? The patriarch was standing right there with JPII. Where is Christodoulos apology to correspond with JPII’s apology? If you have a link showing his apology please quote it. Just as JPII made the apology so could Christodoulos or Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople could make the same gesture in return.
     
     btw, when news of that 1204 episode reached the pope, pope Innocent excommunicated all the crusaders.
   Looking at this objectively,
   • that intrigue in Constantinople 1204, happened because Alexius struck a quid pro quo deal with the crusaders. The Crusaders restore Alexius to emperor, for an agreed sum of money he would pay the crusaders. The crusaders did their job and Alexius didn’t pay them. So the crusaders took their pay out on the city.
   • One could surmise, without Alexius, the Crusaders would have bypassed the city and gone on to Jerusalem.
     
     Orthodox Theologian David Bentley Hart “the myth of schism”
   makes interesting points about these events
   
   “As regards my own communion, I must reluctantly report that there are some Eastern Christians who have become incapable of defining what it is to be Orthodox except in contradistinction to Roman Catholicism; … For such as these,there can never be any limit set to the number of grievances that need to be cited against Rome, nor any act of contrition on the part of Rome sufficient for absolution. There was something inherently strange in the spectacle of John Paul asking pardon for the 1204 sack of Constantinople and its sequel; but there is something inherently unseemly in the refusal of certain Eastern polemicists to allow the episode to sink back to the level of utter irrelevancy to which it belongs. (In any event, I eagerly await the day when the Patriarch of Constantinople, in a gesture of unqualified Christian contrition, makes public penance for the brutal mass slaughter of the metic Latin Christians of Byzantium - men, women and children - at the rise of Andronicus I Comnenus in 1182, and the sale of thousands of them into slavery to the Turks. Frankly, when all is said and done, the sack of 1204 was a rather mild recompense for that particular abomination, I would think).”
   
   For full context clarion-journal.com/clari…tley-hart.html
   
   Re: the Filioque
   
   It’s a tempest in a teapot Eastern Orthodoxy

 

[Tomdstone]

1. • JPII asked forgiveness for the sacking of Constantinople. He didn’t really have to do that. The issue was already settled. But he did it in good gesture wwrn.org/articles/14825/?&place=greece-cyp-malta & the apology was accepted by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=28935 And since the pope can speak for ALL Catholics, that’s a powerful apology.
   • Now for some context. Re: the slaughter of 50,000 Catholics in 1182, which was only 22 years earlier in Constantinople by the Orthodox archive.is/81CV Read that link for explanation.
   • Re: 1204, The Crusaders (who were going to Jerusalem) didn’t just sack Constantinople for no reason. Alexius requested them, promising to pay them, to restore him to power as emperor. After all, why waste a good army at your doorstep when you can use them. And the crusaders restored him to power. But Alexius didn’t pay them. So the army took their payment by sacking Constantinople. 2000 people were killed in that episode vs 22 years earlier in Constantinople, where 50,000 Latins were slaughtered and their children sold into slavery to the muslims by the Orthodox.
   • So WHERE is the apology from the ORTHODOX for 1182? The patriarch was standing right there with JPII. Where is Christodoulos apology to correspond with JPII’s apology? If you have a link showing his apology please quote it. Just as JPII made the apology so could Christodoulos or Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople could make the same gesture in return.
     
     btw, when news of that 1204 episode reached the pope, pope Innocent excommunicated all the crusaders.
   Looking at this objectively,
   • that intrigue in Constantinople 1204, happened because Alexius struck a quid pro quo deal with the crusaders. The Crusaders restore Alexius to emperor, for an agreed sum of money he would pay the crusaders. The crusaders did their job and Alexius didn’t pay them. So the crusaders took their pay out on the city.
   • One could surmise, without Alexius, the Crusaders would have bypassed the city and gone on to Jerusalem.
     
     Orthodox Theologian David Bentley Hart “the myth of schism”
   makes interesting points about these events
   
   “As regards my own communion, I must reluctantly report that there are some Eastern Christians who have become incapable of defining what it is to be Orthodox except in contradistinction to Roman Catholicism; … For such as these,there can never be any limit set to the number of grievances that need to be cited against Rome, nor any act of contrition on the part of Rome sufficient for absolution. There was something inherently strange in the spectacle of John Paul asking pardon for the 1204 sack of Constantinople and its sequel; but there is something inherently unseemly in the refusal of certain Eastern polemicists to allow the episode to sink back to the level of utter irrelevancy to which it belongs. (In any event, I eagerly await the day when the Patriarch of Constantinople, in a gesture of unqualified Christian contrition, makes public penance for the brutal mass slaughter of the metic Latin Christians of Byzantium - men, women and children - at the rise of Andronicus I Comnenus in 1182, and the sale of thousands of them into slavery to the Turks. Frankly, when all is said and done, the sack of 1204 was a rather mild recompense for that particular abomination, I would think).”
   
   For full context clarion-journal.com/clari…tley-hart.html
   
   Re: the Filioque
   
   It’s a tempest in a teapot Eastern Orthodoxy

1. 
   The brutality against the Orthodox did not stop with the sack of Constantinople. It continued down to the twentieth century. Have you heard of the Jasenovac concentration camp and Father Miroslav Filipovic and the bloody killing of Serbian Orthodox children? My understanding is that Pope John Paul II was invited to the Jasenovac site and to meet with the Serbian Orthodox prelates, but he did not go.

 

[Tomdstone]

JPII asked forgiveness for the sacking of Constantinople. He didn’t really have to do that.

The sack was pretty brutal according to the historians:
". . . How shall I begin to tell of the deeds wrought by these nefarious men! Alas, the images, which ought to have been adored, were trodden under foot! Alas, the relics of the holy martyrs were thrown into unclean places! Then was se en what one shudders to hear, namely, the divine body and blood of Christ was spilled upon the ground or thrown about. They snatched the precious reliquaries, thrust into their bosoms the ornaments which these contained, and used the broken remnants for pans and drinking cups,-precursors of Anti-Christ, authors and heralds of his nefarious deeds which we momentarily expect. Manifestly, indeed, by that race then, just as formerly, Christ was robbed and insulted and His garments were divided by lot; only one thing was lacking, that His side, pierced bv a spear, should pour rivers of divine blood on the ground.

Nor can the violation of the Great Church [note: Hagia Sophia] be listened to with equanimity. For the sacred altar, formed of all kinds of precious materials and admired by the whole world, was broken into bits and distributed among the soldiers, as was all the other sacred wealth of so great and infinite splendor.

When the sacred vases and utensils of unsurpassable art and grace and rare material, and the fine silver, wrought with gold, which encircled the screen of the tribunal and the ambo, of admirable workmanship, and the door and many other ornaments, were to be borne away as booty, mules and saddled horses were led to the very sanctuary of the temple. Some of these which were unable to keep their footing on the splendid and slippery pavement, were stabbed when they fell, so that the sacred pavement was polluted with blood and filth.

Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their guilt, a minister of the furies, a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the patriarch’s seat, singing an obscene song and dancing frequently. Nor, indeed, were these crimes committed and others left undone, on the ground that these were of lesser guilt, the others of greater. But with one consent all the most heinous sins and crimes were committed by all with equal zeal. Could those, who showed so great madness against God Himself, have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or the virgins consecrated to God?

Nothing was more difficult and laborious than to soften by prayers, to render benevolent, these wrathful barbarians, vomiting forth bile at every unpleasing word, so that nothing failed to inflame their fury. Whoever attempted it was derided as insane and a man of intemperate language. Often they drew their daggers against any one who opposed them at all or hindered their demands.

No one was without a share in the grief. In the alleys, in the streets, in the temples, complaints, weeping, lamentations, grief, the groaning of men, the shrieks of women, wounds, rape, captivity, the separation of those most closely united. …All places everywhere were filled full of all kinds of crime. Oh, immortal God, how great the afflictions of the men, bow great the distress!"
sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/choniates1.asp

 

[PJM]

I am curious, because I have read into it a lot and it seems like both the Latin west and Greek east both seemed to have caused it, thus I don’t really see there being a side who was in the right or the wrong. I know in the past half century a lot of progress has been made to repair relations between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, who both claim to be the true Church Christ established. I was curious as to what exactly the two differ on in regards to theology? Is it possible that some day the two would be in communion with each other again? I know this would most likely result in some Papal authority being given however I think even in the time before the Churches split the Bishop of Rome was the first among equals, I believe after the schism the Patriarch of Constantinople took that role. I was just curious to thoughts. I know it probably wouldn’t happen in our lifetime but it would be nice to see the two become one again.

IMO

PRIDE & YES with humility and Prayers

 

[commenter]

They have the Ecumenical Patriarch
ec-patr.org/default.php?lang=en

True, they have always had the Ecumenical Patriarch. They are more unified than they would be without him. But are they more unified than they were 50 years ago? The Russian Orthodox Church is more independent from the government than they used to be. Are they moving in the direction of becoming more collaborative with the Ecumenical Patriarch and other EO bodies? I am looking at the context of the Crete 2016 conference.

 

[steve_b]

The brutality against the Orthodox did not stop with the sack of Constantinople. It continued down to the twentieth century. Have you heard of the Jasenovac concentration camp and Father Miroslav Filipovic and the bloody killing of Serbian Orthodox children? My understanding is that Pope John Paul II was invited to the Jasenovac site and to meet with the Serbian Orthodox prelates, but he did not go.

Just a couple of quick comments

1. My response #21 . directly addressed the specific points you posted

The sack was pretty brutal according to the historians:
". . . How shall I begin to tell of the deeds wrought by these nefarious men! Alas, the images, which ought to have been adored, were trodden under foot! Alas, the relics of the holy martyrs were thrown into unclean places! Then was se en what one shudders to hear, namely, the divine body and blood of Christ was spilled upon the ground or thrown about. They snatched the precious reliquaries, thrust into their bosoms the ornaments which these contained, and used the broken remnants for pans and drinking cups,-precursors of Anti-Christ, authors and heralds of his nefarious deeds which we momentarily expect. Manifestly, indeed, by that race then, just as formerly, Christ was robbed and insulted and His garments were divided by lot; only one thing was lacking, that His side, pierced bv a spear, should pour rivers of divine blood on the ground.

Nor can the violation of the Great Church [note: Hagia Sophia

] be listened to with equanimity. For the sacred altar, formed of all kinds of precious materials and admired by the whole world, was broken into bits and distributed among the soldiers, as was all the other sacred wealth of so great and infinite splendor.

When the sacred vases and utensils of unsurpassable art and grace and rare material, and the fine silver, wrought with gold, which encircled the screen of the tribunal and the ambo, of admirable workmanship, and the door and many other ornaments, were to be borne away as booty, mules and saddled horses were led to the very sanctuary of the temple. Some of these which were unable to keep their footing on the splendid and slippery pavement, were stabbed when they fell, so that the sacred pavement was polluted with blood and filth.

Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their guilt, a minister of the furies, a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the patriarch’s seat, singing an obscene song and dancing frequently. Nor, indeed, were these crimes committed and others left undone, on the ground that these were of lesser guilt, the others of greater. But with one consent all the most heinous sins and crimes were committed by all with equal zeal. Could those, who showed so great madness against God Himself, have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or the virgins consecrated to God?

Nothing was more difficult and laborious than to soften by prayers, to render benevolent, these wrathful barbarians, vomiting forth bile at every unpleasing word, so that nothing failed to inflame their fury. Whoever attempted it was derided as insane and a man of intemperate language. Often they drew their daggers against any one who opposed them at all or hindered their demands.

No one was without a share in the grief. In the alleys, in the streets, in the temples, complaints, weeping, lamentations, grief, the groaning of men, the shrieks of women, wounds, rape, captivity, the separation of those most closely united. …All places everywhere were filled full of all kinds of crime. Oh, immortal God, how great the afflictions of the men, bow great the distress!"
sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/choniates1.asp

1. staying on the points you brought up in your previously post, I’m showing where the event of 1204, isn’t even close to the carnage that took place 22 yrs prior in 1182. You want to see brutality? See what happened in 1182 by those in Constantinople on the Latins and their children, in the following link.

Did you open the links I gave in #21
I draw your attention to one of the contributors in this article ** archive.is/81CV**
it’s (Bp Kallistos Ware, a well known Orthodox bishop and author** )**

For some context, in 1204, Alexius who was a deposed emperor of Constantinople, made an agreement with the crusaders for money, to restore Alexius to power in Constantinople. It was only when Alexius didn’t pay the crusaders after they did their part, that they sacked Constantinople. When pope Innocent III heard of what the crusaders did, he excommunicated them
The Real Story of the Fourth Crusade

Re: Hagia Sophia, it became a mosque by its ultimate captors.

Hagia Sophia Facts, Hagia Sophia Info , Mosque Of Sultans

 

[Tomdstone]

Just a couple of quick comments

1. My response #21 . directly addressed the specific points you posted

I didn’t see anything about Jasenovac concentration camp and the torture and murder of thousands of Serbian Orthodox civilians by Croatian Catholic clergy during WWII? For example, in a battle led or accompanied by the Roman Catholic clergyman Father Miroslav Filipovic on 7 February 1942, 2300 Serb civilians, men, women and children, in the settlement of Drakulić, on the northern outskirts of Banja Luka, and in two neighbouring villages, Motike and Šargovac were brutally killed, usually with axes or pick-axes. According to reports at a school in Šargovac Father Filipović took a child, Vasilija Glamočanin, and “slaughtered her with a knife” in front of the class. He urged the Ustaša troops who accompanied him to deal similarly with the other children and assured them that he would take the sin upon himself. “As each child passed, an Ustaša would gouge out an eye” etc. Similar atrocities occurred on 12 February 1942 at two more villages in the area, Piskavica and Ivanjska.
A Jewish prisoner Mr. Egon Berger, in his book, “44 months in Jasenovac” describes some of the killings that took place there:
“The priestly face of Fra Majstorovic, all made-up and powdered, dressed in an elegant suit an green hunter’s hat, watched with delight the victims. He approached the children, even stroked their heads. The company was joined Ljubo Milos and Ivica Matkovic. Fra Majstorovic told the mothers there will now will be a baptism for their children. They took the children from the mothers, the child whom Father Majstorovic was carrying, in his child’s innocence caressed the painted face of his killer. The mothers, distraught, perceived the situation. They offered their lives for mercy for the children. Two children were placed on the ground, while the third was thrown like a ball into the air, and Fr Majstorovic , holding a dagger upwards, missed three times, while the fourth time with a joke and a laugh, a child was impaled on the dagger. Mothers began throwing themselves on the ground, pulling their hair, and began to shout terribly. Ustasha guards of the 14th Osijek Company took them away and killed them. When all three children were so brutally killed, these three two-legged beasts exchanged money, because they seem to have a bet on who would the first to stick a dagger in a child.”
Berger, Egon (1966). 44 mjeseca u Jasenovcu. Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Hrvatske. p. 57.
Why were so many Jews and Serbian Orthodox placed in the Jasenovac concentration camp?

 

[Jon_Mallory]

Rome will have to go deep in its past in order to heal the division. Here are some of the less well known issues that have to be resolved.

pravoslavie.ru/english/97929.htm

 

[Tomdstone]

Just a couple of quick comments

1. My response #21 . directly addressed the specific points you posted
2. staying on the points you brought up in your previously post, I’m showing where the event of 1204, isn’t even close to the carnage that took place 22 yrs prior in 1182. You want to see brutality? See what happened in 1182 by those in Constantinople on the Latins and their children, in the following link.

Did you open the links I gave in #21
I draw your attention to one of the contributors in this article ** archive.is/81CV**
it’s (Bp Kallistos Ware, a well known Orthodox bishop and author** )**

For some context, in 1204, Alexius who was a deposed emperor of Constantinople, made an agreement with the crusaders for money, to restore Alexius to power in Constantinople. It was only when Alexius didn’t pay the crusaders after they did their part, that they sacked Constantinople. When pope Innocent III heard of what the crusaders did, he excommunicated them
The Real Story of the Fourth Crusade

Re: Hagia Sophia, it became a mosque by its ultimate captors.

Hagia Sophia Facts, Hagia Sophia Info , Mosque Of Sultans

First of all, what were the Venetians doing there except to monopolize the trade and prevent the money going to the Greeks. Secondly, the Sack of Thessalonica in 1185 was far worse being a full-scale massacre by Catholics of the city’s Orthodox inhabitants, with more than 7,000 corpses being found afterwards.

 

[Vico]

I am curious, because I have read into it a lot and it seems like both the Latin west and Greek east both seemed to have caused it, thus I don’t really see there being a side who was in the right or the wrong. I know in the past half century a lot of progress has been made to repair relations between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, who both claim to be the true Church Christ established. I was curious as to what exactly the two differ on in regards to theology? Is it possible that some day the two would be in communion with each other again? I know this would most likely result in some Papal authority being given however I think even in the time before the Churches split the Bishop of Rome was the first among equals, I believe after the schism the Patriarch of Constantinople took that role. I was just curious to thoughts. I know it probably wouldn’t happen in our lifetime but it would be nice to see the two become one again.

There are theological differences in the sacrament of marriage. With regard to the Nicene Creed, Constantinople first changed it without Rome’s approval at the local Council of Constantinople (381 A.D.), As stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

247 The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447,(76) even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.
(76) Cf. Leo I, Quam laudabiliter (447): DS 284

 

[Tomdstone]

I was curious as to what exactly the two differ on in regards to theology? .

Please see the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848
A Reply to the Epistle of Pope Pius IX, “to the Easterns” for a summary of some of the differences in teaching.
orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/encyc_1848.aspx
sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1848orthodoxencyclical.asp

 

[Tomdstone]

With God all things are possible

True, but if the Catholic church cannot unite with SSPX, then I don’t see how it could unite with the Eastern Orthodox.

 

[LiamQ]

Satan.

 

[Casilda]

True, but if the Catholic church cannot unite with SSPX, then I don’t see how it could unite with the Eastern Orthodox.

Good point.

 

[steve_b]

First of all, what were the Venetians doing there except to monopolize the trade and prevent the money going to the Greeks.

Secondly, the Sack of Thessalonica in 1185 was far worse being a full-scale massacre by Catholics of the city’s Orthodox inhabitants, with more than 7,000 corpses being found afterwards.

First, I was responding to Zakon’s points #[21 (http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14245400&postcount=21) .

• To your point, Re: Venetians, they were residents of Constantinople.

Second, my response #[21 (http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=14245400&postcount=21) put context to Zakon’s points (with internal links provided).

As far as the ultimate fall of Constantinople, and all that meant, that was at the hands of the Muslims.

Ever hear the phrase,

" better the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the pope"? Here’s the context of that phrase. Eastern Schism

 

[Tomdstone]

" better the turban of the Sultan than the tiara of the pope"?

Why do the Greek Orthodox prefer to live under Islamic rule than under the Roman Catholics, except that the Sultan treated them better?

 

[commenter]

Eastern Orthodox churches are evolving. Some have been freed from Communism, but now Western secularism has been invading counties in Eastern Europe and Mideast. In the USA, EO congregations long relied on ethnic neighborhoods to support parish membership. In the USA, as well as other Western countries, suburban sprawl has led to church members moving farther and farther from their parish home. Many young adults have moved to parts of the sunbelt where there are no established congregations for their church. In some cases people find another Eastern church that is local, and compatible; but there may not be any Eastern church nearby.

It was one thing to have the luxury of being prolife and independent when the whole society was prolife. It is another thing when prolifers are clearly under attack, and those who support same sex marriage and oppose religious liberty are in political ascendancy. In my area I am seeing Catholics and Baptists standing together(!) for the first time protesting against abortion, and for religious liberty. I’m not denying the issues that happened centuries ago, just pointing out that recent history is also relevant history.

That very recent history might be on the minds of Catholic and Orthodox families.

 

[SyroMalankara]

Why do the Greek Orthodox prefer to live under Islamic rule than under the Roman Catholics, except that the Sultan treated them better?

Everyone treats the other group well… except when they don’t. The Greeks didn’t treat the Armenians or Syriacs or Copts with any sort of respect, historically. There are differences within one Communion, let alone among Churches separated. Treatment of others seem to be improving, while intraCommunal or intrachurch mistreatment seems to be ongoing

 

[Tomdstone]

In my area I am seeing Catholics and Baptists standing together(!) for the first time protesting against abortion, and for religious liberty.

Catholics and Buddhists have stood together and as well Catholics and Hindus have stood together. But I don’t see how that is relevant to the question of who was to blame for the east west schism.

 

[SyroMalankara]

who was to blame for the east west schism.

people