CRISTO RAUL.ORG ' |
THE UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY |
FROM JUSTINIAN TO LUTHER. AD 518-1517CHAPTER VIII.
ROME AND GERMANY : EAST AND WEST SEPARATE
AFTER the death of Pope Nicholas I, in 867, the papacy
began to decline to depths which it had never touched before, and the
celebrated historian Cardinal Baronius described the period of 867 to 962 as
'the age of iron'. It might with greater fitness be called 'the age of clay'.
Italy was divided into different small states, the Arabs were in possession of
Sicily, and the papacy was at the mercy of petty Italian dynasties and the
Roman nobility. The pontiffs were first under the domination of the noble house
of Spoleto, the head of which was Wido, who induced Pope Stephen V to crown him
as Emperor of Italy. Wido, nicknamed Rabies on account of his furious temper,
married Agiltrude, a woman of insatiable ambition,
whose father boasted that he had struck Louis II. The pair ruled Rome together,
and the geographical position of Spoleto helped them to profit by the troubles
of the peninsula. Pope Formosus crowned Lambert, son of Wido, but with singular
folly tried to make amends for his action by inviting the German king Arnulf to
deliver him from the 'bad Christians' by whom he was surrounded. Arnulf
arrived, was crowned in St. Peter's, and died shortly afterwards from a stroke
of paralysis.
Then for eight years (896 to 904) there were nine
different popes. Agiltrude forced Pope Stephen VI to
have the body of his predecessor Formosus disinterred, placed in a chair,
stripped of its vestments, and thrown into a common grave, whence it was taken
by the populace to be thrown into the Tiber.
The decline of the influence of Spoleto was followed
by a still more odious and degrading domination, the so-called 'pornocracy'
inaugurated by Theophylact, a Roman noble, and his
wife Theodora. This infamous woman, and her daughters Theodora and Marozia,
kept in their own hands the elections to the papal chair, and are still
remembered in Roman tradition as “the three bad women”. The Popes Sergius III,
Anastasius III, and John X were all chosen by these women; the first was a
paramour of Marozia, the second was her son. The third, having shown some signs
of independence, was cast into prison by Marozia and suffocated with a pillow.
We must now consider the new relations between Germany
and Rome. Pope John XII (955-964) was a grandson of Marozia. His orgies were
worthy of his pedigree, and, though he was head of one of the noblest families
in Rome, he was radically incapable of reconciling the contending factions in
Italy. To protect himself against their intrigues and to save himself from
Berengar II, King of Italy, he called to his aid Otto I of Germany, who at that
very moment was desirous of playing the part of another Charlemagne.
Otto I (912-973), whose wife was the English princess
Edith, was a just, stern, and capable monarch. At his coronation at
Aix-la-Chapelle he had given incontestable proofs both of his tact and of his
ambition. He had himself presented to the people by the Archbishop of Mainz for
their approval before he was crowned; and at the banquet which followed the
coronation he was served by four grandees, the dukes respectively of Lorraine,
Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. The ceremony foreshadowed Otto's subsequent policy,
which was to eliminate in all parts of Germany any tendencies that might show
themselves to be independent of his own control. He was able to quell the
serious troubles that arose in Lorraine, where he had the help of his brother
Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne, and he had a like success in Bavaria. He
inflicted a signal defeat on the barbarous Hungarians, who had penetrated into
Germany as far as Augsburg, and he reduced to complete submission the Slavonic
Wends who lived between the Elbe and the Oder. Envoys from all nations appeared
at his court; and as ivory, apes, and peacocks were brought to Solomon, so
ivory, apes, and ostriches came to Otto in his Saxon palace.
When Pope John XII appealed to Otto, the appeal fell
on willing ears, and Otto sent Liudolf, a brilliant
military leader, to the rescue. Liudolf died; and
when the Pope appealed again, Otto crossed the Alps himself, late in 961. He
entered Pavia unresisted, Berengar shut himself up in a fortress in the
Apennines, and Otto was solemnly crowned in St. Peter's, Rome, February the
2nd, 962. Once more there existed a Roman Emperor of the West, the successor of
Charlemagne. On the one hand the Pope and the Romans swore fealty to the
Emperor with the promise not to receive Berengar and his son Adalbert. On the
other hand Otto swore to maintain the privileges and possessions which had been
conferred upon the papacy. He then went to finish with Berengar, but soon found
that Adalbert had gone to Rome and been received by the Pope. Then Otto
returned. He compelled the Romans to swear that they would never elect a pope
except with the consent and choice of himself. He presided in person at a synod
which deposed John XII, and a nominee of his own, a layman, who took the name
of Leo VIII, was chosen as the new Pope. More troubles ensued. John died of
paralysis and the Romans elected a virtuous Pope, Benedict V. Again Otto
interfered, besieged the city, sent Benedict off to Germany to be under the
guardianship of the Bishop of Hamburg, and put Leo VIII once more upon the
papal chair.
Otto, who died in 973, stands at the beginning of a
new era. The time of anarchy that had followed the disruption of Charlemagne's
empire was coming to an end; he pacified Germany, united it with northern
Italy, and received the homage of the rulers of Poland, Bohemia, and Denmark.
And one of his great aims was to strengthen the Church on the eastern frontier
of Saxony. In 962 he obtained from Pope John XII a bull for the erection of an
archbishopric at Magdeburg and a bishopric at Merseburg. Adalbert, the first
Archbishop of Magdeburg (who must not be confused with Adalbert of Prague, whom
he confirmed), was learned and active, a fit missionary to spread Christianity
on the confines of the Slavonic races. Under Magdeburg were placed two new
bishoprics on Slavonic ground, Brandenburg and Havelberg.
Paganism, however, still remained strong. And in the first quarter of the
eleventh century the Emperor Henry II, though he was enthusiastic for Church
reform, had to tolerate paganism as the religion of the Liutici,
a brave and numerous tribe that dwelt near the coast to the west of the river
Oder, and were proud of their famous heathen sanctuary of Redra.
At the very close of the tenth century there was a
brief interlude during which piety and vigour were on
the papal throne. Gregory V (996-999), the great-grandson of the Emperor Otto
I, became Pope in his twenty-fourth year. He was a man of good character with
good friends, but his zeal ran to excess when he condemned Robert the Pious,
King of France, because his wife Bertha was within the prohibited degrees of
kinship. Gregory declared the union null and void and suspended the Archbishop
of Tours for countenancing the marriage. Robert had vainly tried to purchase
the Pope's complaisance by favoring papal interference with the archbishopric
of Reims, and he was naturally furious when he was condemned to seven years'
penance for marrying a wife who was only within the third degree of kinship.
The reign of Gregory V was very short and his death was thought to have been
the work of his enemies.
The pontificate of Gregory V, the first German Pope,
and another Pope nominated by a German monarch, Otto III, warn us that the
local Church of Rome was in danger of escaping from one family of patrons into
the hands of another. The appeal made by John XII to Otto I opened for the
Church of Rome a road to freedom from the grasp of the local nobility and from
the Counts of Tusculum; but in acquiring this freedom it became the handmaid,
although an honored handmaid, of masterful foreigners. Otto I and Otto II
nominated popes of their own choosing; but Otto III and Henry III went a step
farther. They chose bishops from their own side of the Alps to occupy the papal
throne. Gregory V had a rival, but he was not a Roman, though he was supported
by Crescentius, the powerful Patrician of Rome. He was a Calabrian Greek named Philagathus, a candidate for the papacy favored by the
Greek emperor Basil II. He assumed the name of John XVI and played for a short
time the part of an antipope, but fled precipitately when Otto approached the
Eternal City. And Rome preferred the German to the Greek.
The foundation of the monastery of Cluny near Macon by
Duke William of Aquitaine in 910 illustrates the fact that divine providence is
able to create new sources of Christian life close to the time and place of its
utmost degradation. The monastery was exempt from the control of all secular
authority and was placed directly under the Pope. Berno, the first abbot,
accomplished nothing that was outwardly imposing, but he bequeathed to his
successor Odo five or six monastic houses. Odo not only made Cluny a refuge and
a model for the religious life in France, but also went to Italy and induced
some of the greatest Benedictine houses to adopt the Cluny manner of life. The
order was blessed with a remarkable succession of abbots, spiritual, learned,
able, and of aristocratic birth. With the exception of one short interval,
seven men of this type ruled the congregation of Cluny for about two-hundred
and fifty years. This rule was a reality and not a mere name. The abbot
appointed all the superiors of all the daughter houses, he had under his
authority every one of the thousands of his monks, and many members of the
order passed some years of training at Cluny itself.
The field work and manual labor enjoined by the
original Benedictine rule were abandoned, and the huge church erected at Cluny,
the largest in Europe with the exception of St. Peter's, Rome, was used for
lengthy services which were the same in all Cluniac houses. In spite of these
long devotions, time was found for taking part in ecclesiastical politics.
Cluny had its offshoots in Spain, Germany, and Hungary, also in England, where
Cluniac houses were introduced in the time of the Conqueror. And Cluny threw
its vast influence on the side of reform. It opposed simony and it prepared the
Church for a struggle against moral laxity and royal oppression so soon as a
pope should come with enough energy for that struggle. Of a kindred spirit to
that of Cluny was Gerard, lord of Brogne, near Namur,
He founded a little monastery where he had at first intended to end his days in
peace; but his saintliness kindled a fire which spread throughout Flanders and
Lorraine. Everywhere monastic reform was not only in the air but was an
accomplished fact. The reform of monasticism was the first essential step in
the reform of Christian life.
Thus the ascetic and mystical spirit which revived in
France affected all the subsequent piety of the Middle Ages. And the monks
turned their eyes towards Rome, partly because the bishops were jealous of the
monks, and partly because the monastic orders were international and drew their
members from different countries. The monastic orders also gave a stimulus to
clerical celibacy, and this celibacy, both in Italy and beyond it, was demanded
by the reforming party in the Church in order to put a stop to the scandal of
the most lucrative offices in the Church being handed on from father to son.
The papacy was simultaneously strengthened by the False Decretals. They had
fallen into comparative oblivion soon after their composition, but they were
studied later in the schools of Lower Lotharingia.
The Decretals, as we have already seen, taught the subordination of individual
bishops to the Pope and to him alone, and in this way made the claims of kings
and nobles in ecclesiastical matters appear unlawful. In course of time these
different elements, ascetic, mystical, and juristic, united and became supreme
in Rome, aided by the sentiment which recalled the traditions of the
Carolingian period and the alliance between Emperor and Pope. The German
Emperor, Henry III, and Pope Leo IX, friends of Cluny, mark the inauguration of
a renewed papal theocracy in the middle of the eleventh century.
The German Pope, Gregory V, was succeeded by a
Frenchman of high renown, Gerbert, who became Pope under the name of Silvester
II (999-1003). His elevation to the throne was the work of the Emperor, Otto
III, whose instructor he had been. Otto frequently resided in Rome, and he
replaced his worthy cousin Gregory by a worthier tutor. Gerbert was a great
statesman and a great scholar, one whose career vividly illustrates the
adventures which might befall a man of letters living in the heart of the
Middle Ages. He lectured for many years at Reims under the patronage of
Archbishop Adalbero, and his fame excited the jealous interest of Octricus of Magdeburg, who had been the instructor of St.
Adalbert, the apostle of the Czechs. The differences of the two scholars led to
a philosophical field-day at Ravenna, where they argued for many hours in the
presence of the Emperor, Otto II. Near this time, about 981, the Emperor put
Gerbert over the abbey of Bobbio, the famous monastery of Celtic foundation in
Lombardy. On the death of Adalbero, the influence of Theophano,
the mother of Otto III, secured the great see of Reims for Arnulf, a bastard
son of the deceased King of France, Lothair. But the new King of France, Hugh
Capet, who had the good luck to get and keep the power which the Carolingians
lost, found in Gerbert a better friend than he found in Arnulf, and in 991
Gerbert was put in the place of Arnulf.
Otto II had died in 983, but it was not until 996 that
Otto III was crowned Emperor at Rome. Gerbert was present. He was appointed
Archbishop of Ravenna in 998. In that high position he acted with the utmost
energy and seemed marked out for the supreme dignity to which he ascended in
999. During his short pontificate we find signs of his activity in France,
Spain, Germany, and Bohemia. He confirmed his old rival Arnulf in his
possession of the See of Reims, he helped to unravel the difficulties of German
bishops, and he was believed in later times to have sent a crown to St.
Stephen, King of Hungary, who accepted his kingdom as a fief of the Holy See.
It should be noted that his writings, which date from the period before he
became Pope, make a very modest claim for papal authority, and are far nearer
to the Gallican than to the later Roman theory of the relation of the
episcopate to the papacy. The learning of Gerbert has been somewhat
exaggerated, and it may fairly be said that his mind was a storehouse rather
than a factory. But he knew very much, and was able to borrow judiciously from
Porphyry, Aristotle, Cicero, John Scotus Erigena, and Boethius. He encouraged
discussion among his pupils and caused them to read widely among the Latin
poets. His methods gave fresh life and interest to the quadrivium, i.e. course
of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. No scholar of the Renaissance
was more eager than Gerbert to collect and copy old manuscripts of the
classical Latin authors. He was a real lover of books and was indefatigable in
ransacking the libraries of Italy, Germany, France, and Belgium, and in
demanding the return of the manuscripts which he had lent to his friends.
Gilbert has been wrongly regarded as the author of a
small book on the Eucharist defending the reality and spiritual character of
Christ's presence; and a letter ascribed to him, and certainly of his period,
reveals him as a prophet summoning Christians to a crusade for the delivery of
Jerusalem.
After the death of Silvester II, in 1003, the sorry
tale of degenerate popes soon begins anew. Benedict VIII, who crowned King
Henry II of Saxony as Emperor in 1014, was virtuous. But John XIX only took
holy orders in order to become Pope and was not unwilling to sell to the
Patriarch of Constantinople the disputed title of 'Ecumenical Bishop'. The next
Pope, Benedict IX, was a boy of ten whose disorders were such that the Romans
elected another pontiff. Benedict then sold his rights for a cash payment to his
own godfather. All three popes were deposed by the Emperor Henry III with the
support of an ecclesiastical council held at Sutri in 1046, and Suidger, a German, Bishop of Bamberg, was designated as
Pope by Henry and took the name of Clement II. He went to Rome in 1047 and died
the same year. Another time of chaos followed.
This deplorable period was not without some spiritual
compensations for the conduct of the reigning pontiffs. There took place in
Italy a revival of strict monastic life similar to that of Cluny in France.
Romuald, a member of a noble family of Ravenna, retired to the Benedictine
monastery of St. Apollinare in Classe. He felt
strongly drawn to the life of a hermit, and about 1012 became the superior of a
colony of hermits near Ravenna. It was his desire to bring back to the West the
primitive eremitical monasticism such as had existed in Egypt in the fourth
century. The monks dwelt in separate huts around their oratory, and only met
together for divine service and for meals on certain days. Their rules were of
the utmost rigor: they abstained entirely from meat and wine, their feet were
bare, and their garments white. Romuald's chief foundation was at Camaldoli, on the heights of the Tuscan Apennines near
Arezzo, in a valley which was covered with snow for half the year; and from
this place his order derived the name of Camaldolenses.
The colonies of hermits were called 'deserts' and St. Romuald founded several
such throughout central Italy. Some of his disciples went on missions to the
heathen in Russia, Poland, and Prussia, and in his old age he himself set out
on a missionary journey to Hungary, but was unable to accomplish his design. He
died in 1027. As in Egypt the eremitical life was sometimes abandoned for the
'common life', so it was in Italy, where the coenobitical life was permitted by
the Camaldolenses. But the primitive ideal has never
been forsaken and to this day Camaldoli remains a
'desert'. St. Romuald was esteemed and consulted by the Emperors Otto III and
Henry II.
Guido of Arezzo, who died in 1050 as prior of the Camaldolensian monastery of Avellana, has been called the
father of modern music. He had been a monk in the Benedictine monastery of
Pomposa, where he taught singing, and claimed that by his method a pupil could
learn in five months what would formerly have required ten years. But he met
with envy and jealousy and left the place. About 1030 he was invited to Rome by
Pope John XIX and the Pope himself became his pupil. It seems that he was
induced to return for a time to Pomposa by the abbot, who met him in Rome and
repented of his former behavior. His musical talents were recognized by his
contemporaries, and it is plain that his teaching must have been practical and
progressive. He was the first who systematically used the lines of the staff
and the intervals between them. And the names of the first seven notes of the
scale used by the Romance nations, ut, re, mi, fa,
sol, la, si, were introduced by Guido. They are the
first syllables of the first clauses of a Latin hymn addressed to St. John
Baptist. It is said that he so completely suppressed everything that was not
diatonic in the chants of the Church that many musicians supposed that the
chants had always been regulated by the rules which he fixed.
Other and more important alleviations of the evils of
the time were afforded by the efforts after peace known as the Pax Ecclesiae
and its development the Treuga Dei, the Truce of God.
The Pax Ecclesiae is first found in southern and central France in 990, and was
vigorously supported by the congregation of Cluny. The peace decrees passed by
various ecclesiastical synods were intended to protect non-combatants in the
time of war, and prohibited all violence against clerics, merchants, women, and
peasants. These decrees quickly commended themselves to the Christian
conscience, and diocesan leagues were organized to maintain them. The Truce of
God, which was also championed by the regular clergy, goes back at least as
early as the Synod of Elne, held in the Pyrenees in 1027. It quickly spread
over France, and before long was introduced into Flanders, Germany, and Italy.
It prohibited every act of private warfare from noon on Saturday till the hour
of prime on Monday, and the prohibition became extended to Lent, Advent, and
several festivals. It was widely favored by the lay rulers as well as by
ecclesiastics. Indeed the German Emperor, Henry II, and the French King, Robert
the Pious, discussed the subject of universal peace at Mouzon in 1023. The two
monarchs at least went so far as to give each other the kiss of peace, exchange
presents, and dine at the same table. Ecclesiastical regulations concerning the
Truce of God were laid down in a model normal form at Narbonne in 1054. It was
in that very year that ecclesiastical ambition broke the Christian Church in
twain.
The confusion which reigned in Rome just before the
middle of the eleventh century terminated with the accession of Pope Leo IX
(1049-1054). Born in Alsace and related to the German imperial family, he was
chosen at Worms to be Pope, but he stipulated that he should be canonically
elected by the Roman clergy and people. He was an enthusiastic advocate of the
Cluny reforms, and in his official progresses through Italy, Germany, and
France he everywhere showed his determination to put down simony and enforce clerical
celibacy. Once more there was a Pope of first-rate ability, striving to effect
a moral and material restoration of papal authority. And at Constantinople
there was a Patriarch, Michael Cerularius, also of iron will and intellectual
force, who was the last man in the world to permit any curtailment of the
jurisdiction of his patriarchate. He feared that the bishoprics in Apulia would
revert to the Roman obedience as a result of an agreement between Leo IX and
the Normans, who had invaded southern Italy. To this region we must now turn
our attention.
During the degradation of the papacy at the end of the
ninth and the beginning of the tenth century, the Eastern emperors skillfully
strengthened their hold upon their possessions in southern Italy. They
carefully respected the customs of the people of Apulia and Calabria, leaving
the government partly in the hands of the local aristocracy. But they
Hellenized the country, making it once again a Magna Graecia. Their
ecclesiastical policy went hand in hand with their civil policy. In Calabria
they erected eight bishoprics dependent upon an archbishop of Santa Severina
and five sees were created under the new metropolitan see of Otranto (Hydruntum) in 968. No protests were made by Rome. And the
Latin prelates of these regions were judiciously conciliated, the Bishops of
Bari and Tarento being raised to the position of
archbishops. Greek monasteries were planted all over southern Italy and
extended almost to the gates of Rome, near to which there exists to this day
the last Greek monastery in Italy, Grottaferrata.
Greek law and the Greek language became dominant, and the Greek rite was so
well planted that it survived in some churches until the seventeenth century.
And while Eastern monks like St. Nilus of Grottaferrata were welcomed in Italy, there flowed from Italy and other countries into the
East streams of pilgrims of the Latin rite. The faithful were quite content to
believe that they were members of one Catholic Church, and viewed each other’s
eccentricities of ritual with placid toleration.
There were, however, some signs of friction, not among
the Christian peoples, but among their rulers. The Emperor Nicephorus Phocas,
who had created the ecclesiastical province of Otranto, was indignant when he
received a letter from Pope John XIII in which Otto, the German monarch, and
not he himself, was called the 'August Emperor of the Romans'. Near the end of
the tenth century the Patriarch Sisinnius revived the old dispute about the
procession of the Holy Ghost, and in 1009 his successor Sergius erased the name
of the Pope from among the names inscribed on the diptychs. The name seems to
have been restored subsequently. A more serious scandal took place in 1024. In
that year an embassy from the Emperor Basil and the Patriarch Eustathius came
to Rome bringing valuable gifts to Pope John XIX. The object of the embassy was
to gain complete autonomy for the Greek Church, an autonomy which Sergius had
no doubt hinted at when he had removed the Pope's name from the diptychs.
Actual schism was probably not contemplated; but simply the recognition by Rome
of the title 'Ecumenical' as a legitimate title of the Patriarch of
Constantinople. John XIX would probably have yielded if it had not been for the
vigorous religious revival which had its centre in
France, in the great monastery of Cluny. The leaders of that revival took a
keener interest than the Pope in the unity of the Church under the authority of
Rome. Their letters and their remonstrances were not without effect. They
stiffened the attitude of the Pope, and he only met the emperor's wishes so far
as to recognize the ecclesiastical province of Bari, which had been formed
under Byzantine auspices.
Peace between Rome and New Rome prevailed, at least
outwardly, until it was rudely broken by the Patriarch Michael Cerularius.
Michael began his campaign in 1o47, when he refused to give Holy Communion to Argyrus, a Lombard chief of the Normans, who came to
Constantinople to arrange an alliance between the Pope and the Emperor. He had
defended the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, a use which was long
established in the West and was not criticized even by such a controversialist
as Photius. Michael, however, treated the custom as a mortal sin. He next found
fault with the Patriarch of Antioch for mentioning the name of the Pope in the
liturgy, falsely alleging that it had not been the custom to do this at
Constantinople since 692. And about the same time Leo, Metropolitan of Achrida probably at the instigation of Michael, wrote to an
Apulian bishop, John of Trani, a letter which was an indictment of several
innocent Western customs, including the old Roman practice of fasting on
Saturdays. Michael also circulated a more violent epistle written in Latin by a
Greek monk, Nicetas, condemning clerical celibacy. Finally he shut up the
churches of the Latin rite in Constantinople, churches frequented by the
English and other Christians from the West. The attack was wholly wanton and
unprovoked.
Leo IX replied to the letter of Leo of Achrida. He showed his appreciation of the whole affair by
addressing his letter—In terra pax—jointly to Michael and Leo. He emphasized
the primacy of St. Peter and his successors; he pointed out how many real
heresies had come from Constantinople; and he asserted that no one had ever
disturbed the churches of the Byzantine rite in the Western patriarchate. And
as a matter of fact Rome has shown itself more tolerant towards Eastern
ceremonies than Constantinople has towards Latin rites, or even those Eastern
rites which differ from the Byzantine. It was a dignified letter, and though
Leo in it quoted as genuine the forged Donation of Constantine, he can hardly
be blamed for believing, like the rest of his contemporaries, that the Donation
was authentic. It is difficult to trace the exact order of subsequent events.
But Cerularius seems to have wavered for a moment under pressure from the
Emperor, Constantine X, and to have written to the Pope proposing an
'alliance'. At any rate Leo wrote a second letter, again insisting upon the
primacy of Rome and complaining that Michael had tried to impose his will upon
the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch. In spite of the decision of the
Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381, Leo assumed that the rank of these
most ancient sees was higher than that of Constantinople. He sent to
Constantinople three legates, Cardinal Humbert, Cardinal Frederick, Chancellor
of the Roman Church, and Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi. Michael wanted them to
take seats below the seats of the Eastern metropolitans and was annoyed because
they bore their crosiers in his diocese and would not prostrate themselves
before him. Several weeks were spent in discussion, and in the midst of it all
Leo IX died, April the 19th, 1054. Michael then refused to see the legates and
struck the name of the Pope off the diptychs. Popes were to be treated as
excommunicated, past praying for.
The legates took the final step which Michael
Cerularius must have expected. On Saturday, July the 16th, 1054, at nine in the
morning, when St. Sophia was thronged with people and the service of
preparation for the liturgy had just begun, the three Latin legates walked up
the vast church, through the “royal doors” in the centre of the jeweled screen, and laid their bull of excommunication upon the holy
table. As they turn back they exclaim, 'Let God see and judge'. The bull
anathematized Michael himself, Leo of Achrida,
Nicephorus, Michael's “sacellarius”, who had trampled
on the Eucharist consecrated according to the Latin rite, and all their
followers. The principal offences with which the excommunicated were charged
were denying that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, and denying that there
is any true Church or sacrifice or baptism outside their own body. Other more
trifling faults are mentioned, but the root of the trouble is 'the injury done
to the holy apostolic and first see'.
The schism was the work of Michael Cerularius, who had
deliberately provoked a crisis in order to show that he repudiated any possible
claim of Rome to exercise any kind of jurisdiction in his patriarchate. The
excommunication which he achieved was not the excommunication of the Eastern
Church as a whole. The rank and file of the two Churches were not hostile to
one another. But they gradually drifted into dislike and enmity, and the
results were disastrous. The spiritual life and the intellectual growth of both
East and West were stunted; and in the fifteenth century the Turk came to reign
in Constantinople because theological differences deprived the Eastern emperors
of the power to ally themselves with Western Europe.
CHAPTER IX.
EMPIRE AND INVESTITURE
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