The Papacy and the Orthodox (Oxford Studies in Historical Theology) by A. Edward Siecienski

Author:A. Edward Siecienski [Siecienski, A. Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-01-11T16:00:00+00:00

The Great Schism

The events leading up to the mutual excommunications of Humbert and Cerularius actually had very little to do with the papacy or the contents of Pope Leo’s letters, especially as the patriarch was convinced that Leo did not write them.52 As was made clear in the excommunication itself, the patriarch believed that Humbert was conspiring with Argyrus and that the pope’s letters had been tampered with.53 During their stay in Constantinople the papal representatives dealt chiefly with the emperor, who arranged for Niketas Stethatos to come before Humbert and recant his earlier anti-Latin tract, anathematizing “all those who denied that the Roman Church was the first of all churches (primam omnium ecclesiarum) and who presumed to rebuke its ever-orthodox faith in any respect.”54 Humbert’s attitude was haughty, his language intemperate (e.g., he at one point characterized Niketas as a “pestiferous pimp”), and he compounded this by re-introducing the thorny issue of the filioque, claiming that the East’s omission of the word from the Nicene Creed had brought them into serious heresy.55 This opened the ancient debate, providing Cerularius with a powerful weapon able to unify the Eastern Church against the Latins.

Yet it would be a mistake to blame the schism on the personality of one man. The real issue facing the East, behind the azymes and the filioque, was how to deal with the reformed papacy, for whom Humbert was merely a spokesman. In him and the pamphlets he circulated they encountered a different understanding of the papacy, for “up to this time that had not realized the changes that had taken place in the Roman Church. In all frankness, they simply did not understand them.”56 Perhaps, as Deno Geanakoplos observed, they had become too “accustomed to the low-prestige and corruption of the tenth century papacy” and thus “underestimated the growing strength of the papal reforming party.”57

On July 16 Humbert and his party entered Hagia Sophia just as the liturgy was to begin and placed the bull of excommunication against Patriarch Michael, Leo of Ohrid, and “all their followers in the aforesaid errors and presumptions” on the altar.58 The excommunication began with a re-statement of Roman primacy, writing that “the holy, first, and apostolic see of Rome, to which the care of all the churches most especially pertains as if to a head” (ad quam tanquam ad caput sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum specialius pertinent), had sent delegates to Constantinople to investigate matters.59 These delegates found that “with respect to the pillars of the empire and its wise and honored citizens, the city is most Christian and orthodox,” but judged that “Michael, false neophyte patriarch” had committed “extremely wicked crimes” and that “although admonished by the letters of our lord Pope Leo, contemptuously refused to repent. … Indeed, so much that among his own children, he had anathematized the apostolic see and against it he still writes that he is the ecumenical patriarch.”60

Although the subdeacons made feverish attempts to return the bull to Humbert, in accordance with the biblical command he

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