12. Chapter 10: The Church Is Divided, 1054

CHAPTER 10 The Church Is Divided, 1054

1. Europe in the Year 1000 The Empire in the West died, but the Church survived and grew (ch. 8).

However, as we have already seen, in the seventh century the Church in the West lost North Africa permanently and Spain for hundreds of years (ch. 9, sec. 6). This loss to Mohammedanism in the South was made up by the gains the Church made from heathenism in northwestern Eu­rope (ch. 8, sec. 8-10). We should at this time take a brief look at the conditions in Europe in the year 1000. (Your map will help you. See p. 99.) In the West the Church by the year 1000 was to be found in Italy, France, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Nor­way, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland, and Russia. In Italy, which had been the core of the Empire, German tribes set­tled among the original popula­tion and mingled with it through marriage, but the old Roman stock continued predominant. In Gaul, a former province of the Empire, German tribes set­tled among and mingled with the Romanized Celts and the Romans. In that territory the upper hand was gained by the Germanic tribe of the Franks. Then Gaul came to be spoken of as France.

CHRISTIANITY IS BROUGHT INTO RUSSIA
Schoenfeld Collection fromThree Lions
With the baptism of Olga, widow of Igor, who had been emperor of Russia, Chris­tianity was made known among the Russians. In the Netherlands, after the Romans departed without leaving behind much trace of their occupa­tion, the population consisted of Franks in the south, Saxons in the east, and Frisians in the north and west. All three of these tribes be­longed to the Germanic race. In England, after the departure of the Romans, the Romanized Celts were replaced by the Ger­manic Angles and Saxons. Under Roman occupation this country was called Britannia. Now it came to be called England after the Angles.

Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden never had been part of the Empire. The pop­ulation of these countries was purely Germanic.

Ireland and Scotland never had belonged to the Empire. The Celts of Ireland and the Picts of Scot­land were non-Germanic.

Russia was Christianized by missionaries from Constantinople, who established the Greek Ortho­dox Church in that country.

2. The Fourth Turning Point in the History of the Church As you can see by a glance at the foregoing section, the Church in the West had become largely Germanic. It had its origin among the Latin speaking Romans, but had been passed on to the invad­ing German tribes. The Germanic tribes had no civilization. Through the Church, Rome also passed on to the un­civilized German tribes its Latin language, literature, and civiliza­tion (ch. 8, sec. 6 and 7). For that reason the Church in the West, although its membership was now largely Germanic, came to be called the Latin Church. So at the entrance to the Middle Ages we have a most remarkable condition of affairs. There now was in the West a Church with a Latin language and literature, but with the majority of its members be­longing to the Germanic race. The Germanizing of the Church marks a fourth turn in the Church’s history, and a very im­portant one. For in a Church so made up of different elements, a process of fermentation (like the action of yeast on dough) was sure to set in. That fermentation in the centuries to come was going to produce great results (ch. 22- 30) .

3. The Church in the East Remains Unchanged In the East the situation was entirely different. There the Em­pire did not fall under the blows of the German barbarians, but re­mained standing for another thou­sand years. It is true, as related in the preceding chapter, the Empire in the East lost Syria, Pal­estine, and Egypt to the Moham­medan Arabs. The Church in those provinces was reduced to a most feeble state. But in that part of the Eastern Empire which re­mained standing, in Asia Minor and the Balkan Peninsula, the Church remained intact. The lan­guage of the Church in the East was Greek.

4. The Church Separates into Two Parts—the Greek Eastern and the Latin Western Church

We have now come about half way along the almost two thou­sand mile road of the Church’s his­tory. As we traveled we noticed four major turns in the road. At the first turn the Christian Church marched forth from the city of Je­rusalem into the whole of Palestine and Samaria. The second occurred when the Church went forth to carry the knowledge of the only true God out of little Jewish Palestine into the great pagan world. The third turning point came when, in 313, as a result of the Edict of Milan, Christianity was publicly placed on an equal footing before the law with other religions. The fourth was the Germanizing of the Church in the West.

We have come not merely to another decisive turn, but to a fork in the road. This is some­thing entirely new in the history of the Church. Up to this time the Church had been one. Now, after having been one for a thousand years, the Church in 1054 is di­vided. In that year the two parts of the Church, the Greek Eastern part and the Latin Western part, separated from each other.

THE CHURCH IS DIVIDED INTO THE LATIN WESTERN AND GREEK EASTERN CHURCHES (1054) This separation could have been foreseen and predicted. In the long period of a thousand years since the founding of the Church on Pentecost Day, many points of difference between the two parts of the Church had cropped up. On the whole the differences were trivial and unimportant. But the difference in the character of the people who made up the two parts of the Church, and the difference in the languages they used were not trivial. They were profound. These differences were the real underlying cause of the separation.

You will learn the immediate causes of this separation in a later chapter (ch. 15, sec. 4). You may want to satisfy your curiosity by reading that section at this time.

5. The Eastern Church Is Quies­cent; the Western Church En­ters an Eventful Period The Greek speaking Church in the East had produced, as we have seen, many great theologians, such as Clement of Alexandria, Atha­nasius, and Origen. The last great theologian of the Eastern Church was John, surnamed Damascenus after the city in which he was born. In his book, The Fountain of Knowledge, he summed up in a neat and comprehensive manner the whole preceding development of theology in the Eastern Church. This great work of John of Da­mascus was translated into Latin. Thus knowledge of the theology of the Greek Church in the East was passed on to the Latin Church in the West. But the Greek Eastern Church of the eleventh century was com­posed of an old and exhausted people. It became like a stagnant pool, and after this it drops almost entirely from sight. From now on we shall concen­trate our attention upon the Latin Western Church. We shall find that the Church in the West was far from stagnant. In this Latin Church, composed so largely of the young and virile Germanic peoples, we shall find during the Middle Ages now opening before us a life full of vigor. There we shall find plenty of excitement. There we shall find not a stagnant pool, but a sea — the waters of which are often lashed by roaring storm winds into mountainous and raging foam-capped waves.