| #### 2. THE SCHISM OF CERULARIUS |

| #### #### The century that follows the reconciliation of Rome and Constantinople when Nicholas Mystikos was patriarch, is one of the greatest in all the long history of the East Roman Empire; and yet it is a time whose ecclesiastical history has gone unrecorded. Great soldiers now rule, like Nicephorus Phocas (963-969) and Basil II (963-1025), who reform the State, throw back the Bulgarians and the Saracens, and regain the ancient hold on southern Italy too. It is now that the Byzantine conversion of Russia begins, and wherever the imperial arms are victorious the prestige and jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople also gain. But of the relations between the ten patriarchs who, in these hundred years, successively rule the see and the twenty-one popes who were their contemporaries, we know very little. For the Greek chronicles of this time, the West hardly exists. So far as the Byzantine literature is concerned the East has already broken away, in this century of Marozia and John XII, of Otto I and Otto III -- himself the son of a Byzantine princess -- and of the first French and German popes. #### There is, indeed, record of an embassy from Constantinople in 933 begging the support of the pope John XI for the newly- named patriarch Theophylact, a boy of sixteen, son of the emperor Romanus Lecapenus; he was to rule for twenty-three years, and to prove himself a Byzantine John XII. In the next generation there are the long negotiations for the marriage of Otto II to Theophano, a sister of the boy emperor Basil II -- negotiations rendered all the more arduous by a tactless letter from the pope, John XIII, which speaks of the German king as the Roman Emperor? and treats the princes of Constantinople as mere "emperors of the Greeks". Not only were the negotiations now broken off, but the Greeks spoke of abolishing the Latin rite in Byzantine Italy, and of annexing all these sees to the jurisdiction of the patriarch at Constantinople. It was Nicephorus Phocas who made this stand, and it was doubtless only the revolution in 969 which staved off a new schism. In that year Nicephorus was murdered, and his assassin, John Zimisces, took his place as emperor-regent for the boy emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII. Zimisces managed to Will some kind of consecration from the patriarch, and he re- opened the conversations with Otto. On Low Sunday, 971, the future king Otto II and the Byzantine princess were married in St. Peter's by the pope, John XIII. #### Three years later Zimisces was offering hospitality to one of John's successors -- though that is hardly a correct description of the ruffian Franco who, in June 974, brought about the murder of Pope Benedict VI and for a few short weeks reigned in his place as Boniface VII. It was the power of the German king that brought about Franco's expulsion, and since the Germans were still the main obstacle to the Byzantine re-conquest of Italy, "Boniface VII" was made much of in Constantinople, where the lawful popes Benedict VII (974-983) and John XIV were not recognised. #### Otto II died, all too soon, at the age of twenty-eight, in the first weeks of this last pope's reign, leaving a child of three to succeed him, and the mutually hostile Byzantine empress-mother Theophano, and the Burgundian grandmother, Adelaide, to share the reality of power. It was a great opportunity for Theophano's brother Basil II, now come to man's estate and about to begin his great career, and it was an opportunity for "Boniface VII", who, with Byzantine assistance, appeared in Rome again, to add the murder of a second pope to his crimes and to reign himself for a brief fifteen months (April 984-July 985). #### Towards the end of the long reign of Basil II the Eastern empire and the popes were once more in contact, and in conflict, and although the facts are far from certain the troubles seem to have been wholly political. Once again the pope had reason to fear the growing Byzantine power to the south of the papal State, and once again he strove to protect himself by an alliance with the German king. Benedict VIII (1012-1024) and Henry II (1002-1024) were now allied, as John XIII and Otto the Great had been allied forty years earlier. In those forty years the heel and toe of Italy -- Apulia and Calabria -- had been conquered by Basil, and much other territory too, until now he menaced the Campagna. From the first years of the new century, however, there had been a series of revolts against the new Byzantine ruler, and Benedict VIII had given them what support he could. He had also made use of the chance presence, in the country between Rome and Naples, of a band of Normans returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The new papal-imperial alliance against Byzantium did not however achieve very much; it was the death of Basil II, in 1025, and the utter incapacity of his successors, which really saved the situation for the popes. #### But the crisis had given new motives to the separatist tendencies at Constantinople, and, bringing in the Normans, it had produced the force that would not henceforth rest until the Byzantine power in Italy was wholly destroyed. That destruction the Normans were to accomplish, in part, as allies of the popes. The old scorn of the Byzantines for the Latin barbarians was, from now on, reinforced by a new hatred of the victorious Normans, and, as the empire grew ever weaker, by a new, very real fear. When Michael Cerularius, the patriarch of the new schism -- the schism which still endures -- began his attack in 1052, thirty years nearly after the last encounter between Basil II and the pope, the Greeks had a host of natural, political, and cultural reasons for wishing well to whoever proposed finally to defy and repudiate the religious supremacy of the Roman See. #### Those thirty years are a lamentable chapter in Byzantine history. Basil II was succeeded by his seventy-year-old brother Constantine VIII (1025-1028), and Constantine by his daughter Zoe, a pale, and wholly incompetent version of Catherine the Great. It is around the disreputable history of this elderly lady's successive husbands, the series of marriages and murders and re-marriages, that most of the story turns. When Cerularius appears, in 1043, he tells immediately as the strongest man in public life for almost a generation. And by this time all contact with Rome -- the fact seems certain -- had ceased. The patriarchs no longer advised the popes of their election; the pope's name had ceased to figure in the list of personages officially prayed for at mass. If there was not actually a state of war between the two sees there was, at any rate, a rupture of diplomatic relations. Very possibly it went back to the days of the political troubles between Basil II and Benedict VIII. It was the achievement of Cerularius that, intent on maintaining this quasi-independence of the papacy which he found on his accession, he transformed it into the reality of formal schism. #### Cerularius, like Photius, had come into the ecclesiastical world as it were by accident. Following the tradition of his family he had built up a career in the imperial court. Then, about 1040, he was involved in a conspiracy to depose the emperor, Michael IV, Zoe's second husband. Had the plot succeeded, Cerularius might himself have become emperor. When it failed, Michael IV, in order to safeguard himself against further danger from Cerularius, endeavoured, in the traditional Byzantine fashion, to make a monk of him. Cerularius, however, resisted; and then the suicide of his brother wrought a change: of his own will he entered a monastery. Three years later, Constantine IX became emperor -- as Zoe's third husband. He was an old friend of Cerularius who, once more, became a power at court. When, in 1043, the patriarch, Alexis, died, Constantine nominated Cerularius to succeed him. He was now the second personage in the empire and, since the emperor was a paralytic, there seemed no limit to what his powerful personality might achieve. #### What first moved Cerularius to action was a remarkable change in the political situation in Italy which, so he was afraid, might weaken the position of his see. The feats of the Normans were now bringing pope and emperor together, where, a generation earlier, they had been a main cause of their antagonism. The Normans had, in fact, been too successful in Italy for the popes' liking. They were now, indeed, as great a menace as the Byzantines had once been; and when the chief Byzantine official in Italy, Argyros, approached the pope St. Leo IX, somewhere about 1050, with a project of alliance against the Normans, he found the pope more than agreeable to it. His own sovereign, still Constantine IX, was no less willing, and to make the alliance complete the pope went in person to Germany to win over the emperor Henry III (1052). How St. Leo's diplomacy succeeded, and what the fortunes of his army in the campaign that followed, has been already described. At the battle of Civitate (June 18, 1053) the Normans defeated the pope, decisively, and took him prisoner. #### Now to all this policy of alliance with the pope Cerularius offered strong opposition. He feared that, with the closer and more friendly relations between pope and emperor which the new political necessity had bred, the papacy would re-appear as an active element in the ecclesiastical life of the empire, to the great detriment of the new autocephaly of his see. He fought Argyros in the imperial council and, when he failed to win over Constantine IX, revenged himself by excommunicating Argyros. Henceforth the patriarch and the general were desperately hostile-and the fact was soon to affect very seriously the relations of Constantinople and Rome. Next the patriarch made an attack on the Latins who lived within his immediate jurisdiction. He closed their churches, forbade all use of the Latin rite in them, and, alleging that the consecration of unleavened bread was no consecration at all, he had the Blessed Sacrament thrown out of the Latin pyxes and systematically trodden underfoot. #### This took place, seemingly, in the year 1052, and some months later, in the spring of 1053, Cerularius, through the agency of one of his own clerics from Constantinople whom he had set to preside over the chief Bulgarian see -- Achrida -- despatched what was, in intention, a summons to the pope to remodel Latin ways according to the pattern of Constantinople. This letter -- of Leo of Achrida to John, Bishop of Trani [ ] -- is not a mere statement of grievances, or a declaration of independence, but an ultimatum, a monition as from a superior, a correction as from the only true believer to others who have fallen away from truth and corrupted the faith. It is another important feature of this letter that it speaks as though the union with Rome had already, and since a long time, ceased to be. Leo of Achrida, in fact, purports to set out for the Latin bishop's consideration the customs which the Latins must give up if East and West are to come together again: such are, for example, the Latin use of unleavened bread in the mass, the eating of flesh meat not killed in the Eastern manner, fasting on Saturdays, the suppression of the Alleluia in Lent. [ ] #### The Bishop of Trani sent the letter on to the pope. The reply of St. Leo IX was drafted by his chief adviser, the Cardinal Humbert, that abbot of Moyenmoutier whom we have seen as a reformer of ecclesiastical life famous for his vigour, the leader indeed of the most radical of all the reforming groups, whom the Alsatian pope had brought with him to Rome in 1049. Humbert was a man of rare learning, one of the few skilled in Greek as in Latin, and a personality, therefore, whose influence on the approaching crisis was to be all but decisive; he was, in all things, active, combative, impetuous, a man without subtlety, inclined to favour drastic decisions as the way to lasting solutions. #### The long letter which Humbert now sent, in the pope's name, to Cerularius is a theologian's reminder of the facts about the Roman primacy over the Church of Christ, about the divine origin of this primacy, and the indefectibility of the faith of the Roman see. It reminds Cerularius, also, that the pope has no judge in this world, and that by the very fact of judging the pope he has himself incurred a sentence of anathema which all the ancient councils would confirm. Whether Cerularius ever received this letter is doubtful. [ ] And now the disaster to the papal arms seemed likely, for the moment, to change even the patriarch's hostility. The news of Civitate was brought to the capital by John of Trani himself, sent by Argyros. Its effect was to convince the emperor, even more strongly, that it was his first political interest to develop the new friendship with the pope. He wrote to Leo promising help, and declaring his resolve to re-establish peaceful relations with the Holy See. And Cerularius also wrote, a very moderate letter, in which he stated his own wish to see peace restored with Rome. The only really ominous phrase in this letter is the patriarch's insistence -- seemingly exaggerated -- on the length of time the two sees have been in separation, as though hinting that separation was the normal state of things. He promises, however, to put back the pope's name into the mass, St. Leo -- so he presumes -- reciprocating this gesture of reconciliation. #### These two letters came to the pope at Benevento, where he was still a prisoner of the Normans, about the turn of the year, 1053-1054. He decided to send an embassy to Constantinople, and chose as his legates Humbert, another cardinal, Frederick of Lorraine, [ ] and Peter the Archbishop of Amalfi. [ ] Also he sent a reply to the two letters. Again it was Humbert who wrote for the pope, and once again the temperament of the Burgundian cardinal was only too evident in what he wrote. The tone of the letters was not only fatal to a mission of reconciliation, but Humbert fell into a serious historical blunder, and, in fact, from the beginning he played into the hands of his much more subtle adversary. The emperor was told that the recent acts of Cerularius made the pope fearful for the chances of future peace, and nowhere, in this letter, was Michael styled "patriarch”: he was "the archbishop" only; the only patriarchs the letter spoke of were those of Alexandria and Antioch, and the letter counted as a blame against "the archbishop” his usurpation of their jurisdiction. This was to ignore (or to be ignorant of) a state of things which the earlier popes had recognised for centuries; it was to repeat the errors with which, in the days of Photius, the learned but not omniscient Anastasius the Librarian had misled Adrian II. The same errors appeared in the letter to Cerularius himself; and not only was his sacrilegious violation of the Blessed Sacrament rebuked but the validity of his own possession of his see was questioned: he was told he was no archbishop because when he was elected to the see he was only a layman, a repetition of the charge made against Photius but in no way true of Cerularius. As for Michael’s offer to restore the pope's name to the diptychs, this was noted as his simple duty in the matter: the only alternative to such recognition of the papal supremacy was to be joined with the heretics and the synagogue of Satan. #### These letters would, of themselves, it may be thought, have sufficed to endanger the success of the mission. When the legates took in Apulia, en route for Constantinople, and there took counsel with Argyros, they settled its fate once and for all. It was this consultation which determined the legates to deal first with the emperor, and not to negotiate at all with the patriarch but to present him with an ultimatum; and the consultation gave Cerularius his opportunity to deny absolutely the papal character of the mission, and to assert that it was a mere trick on the part of the excommunicated Argyros. The situation was worsened by the calamitous fact that barely had the legates reached Constantinople when St. Leo IX died (April 19, 1054), and the Holy See was effectively vacant for twelve months. #### At Constantinople, then, the legates found the old emperor as favourable to their mission as they had hoped. The patriarch ignored them and, as yet, they ignored him. Then a violent controversy developed between Humbert and a learned monk of the Studion monastery, Nicholas Stethatos, which turned upon a pamphlet written six months earlier by Humbert. [ ] Nicholas had written, in reply, an attack upon the Latin practice of using unleavened bread, the Saturday fast and the celibacy of the clergy. Humbert now took the opportunity to make a violent assault on Nicholas. The controversy raged for some time, and it ended, so far as Nicholas was concerned, in a debate in the emperor's presence, at which the Latins were victorious, whereupon Nicholas submitted. #### This was at the end of June, 1054. The patriarch still held aloof from the whole affair, steadily refusing the emperor's pleas to meet the legates. Very evidently the mission had come to the end of its usefulness. It might as well, now, return to Rome. But the legates, before they departed, resolved to excommunicate the patriarch. They prepared the bull and, on Saturday, July 16, during the sacred liturgy, they laid it on the altar at St. Sophia. Once again, alas, the maladroit pen of the Burgundian cardinal spoiled somewhat his excellent case. In the bull the traditional primacy of the Roman See is indeed re-affirmed, and the rights of the legates thence deriving; and the rectitude and orthodoxy of the emperor and his people are recognised. The one obstacle to peace is Michael, who styles himself patriarch, and his supporters. Their innumerable heresies are listed: there is in him, and them-it is declared -- something of the Simonists, the Donatists, the Arians and the Manichees; and they have corrupted the creed by suppressing the Filiogue clause. [ ] Michael has refused to abjure and repent. He has refused audience to the legates; he has forbidden them to say mass; he has excommunicated the pope. Wherefore the legates pronounce against him the sentence already provided by St. Leo should he not submit. #### The legates left for Rome two days later. But they were speedily recalled, by the emperor who, perhaps, still had hopes of reconciling Cerularius. On Wednesday, July 20, Humbert and his fellows were back in the capital. But before nightfall they were once more on the road to Rome, smuggled out of the city with great difficulty by Constantine, barely escaping with their lives. For the patriarch had not been inactive, since their first departure. He had made the bull of excommunication public, and "organised" the mob against this Latin insult. As a measure of appeasement the emperor had the bull ignominiously burned. and, now, while the legates made their slow way back to Italy the patriarch called a synod which condemned all that they had done -- not indeed as legates of the pope, for the synod denied that they were such, as it denied that the bull was the act of the Holy See. Cerularius next sent an official account of all this to the other Eastern patriarchs, and he also drew up a lengthy manifesto which set out the Eastern case against Rome. It is not now the Cardinal Humbert alone who is attacked, but all the Latins for the ways in which their practice differs from the East But, even so, there is no denial of the Roman claim to a primacy over the whole Church of Christ. The manifesto however -- and this is the most serious thing about it, much more serious than the list of liturgical "errors" put in accusation -- is penetrated with the idea already noted in Cerularius' earlier attack, namely that the East has gone its own independent way for centuries now, and that reconciliation with Rome is in no way desirable or necessary. The Latins are a conventicle of heretics -- what has the orthodox church of the Greeks to do with such? Here, at Constantinople, under the protection of the patriarch and the emperor, is the sole authentic religion of Jesus Christ. #### The Patriarch of Antioch endeavoured, even so, to bring back Cerularius to a more amenable frame of mind. He admitted the barbarism of the Latin ways, but urged that these were details that did not matter essentially. As for the faith of the Latins, every pilgrim who visited the churches of the East was testimony that it was identical with that of the Greeks. Patience where there were differences, and peaceful discussion, was the only way out of the tangle, so he thought; and he besought Cerularius to reflect whether the long tale of disasters that had befallen the empire was not the penalty for the long misunderstanding and separation from the Apostolic See. At any rate Cerularius ought to wait until the new pope was elected, and then approach him in a spirit of gentleness and charity. #### Cerularius, however, kept to his way. He made no move whatever towards Rome. Life within his jurisdiction would once more go on as in the years before the problem of the Normans brought St. Leo IX and Constantine IX together. And Peter of Antioch did not insert the new pope's name in the mass. #### Six months after the excommunication, Constantine IX died (January, 1055). Until August, 1056, his aged sister-in-law Theodora, the daughter of Basil II, ruled, at least in name. Michael VI, whom she named as her successor, lasted barely a year. It was Cerularius who engineered [he revolution that threw him out, and who "created" the new emperor, Isaac Comnenus (August, 1057). But Isaac, once securely placed, refused to be the patriarch's tool. Soon he began to plan his removal. Just before Christmas, 1058, he had Cerularius arrested and ordered his trial. But, worn out by the crisis and the shock, the patriarch suddenly died. Whereupon the popular voice spontaneously hailed him as a saint. The emperor was compelled to bring back his body with great pomp, and himself to venerate it as that of a martyr. It was the beginning of a new career for Cerularius, of his influence as saint and martyr in the spiritual life of the Byzantine church and, above all, as a hero in the epic of its struggle with the tyrannical and heretical Latin barbarians. There was now a Byzantine myth about the events of 1054, as there was, in the Western chronicles, a Latin myth too. Upon these myths the animosity of the two races was largely to feed, and, in the next three centuries, to wax exceeding strong. #### The bull of 1054 was no more than a personal excommunication of Cerularius, and, of course, of whoever adhered to him. It did not in any way condemn the Eastern churches nor their own local customs. But the whole of the Eastern churches now slid slowly into schism. Greek scorn of Latin ignorance and barbarity, [ ] national pride, a certain disgust at the scandals which for too long had disgraced Latin Catholicism, scandal at the developments which made the Latin bishop a civil prince and often, even, a general in the field -- all these helped to feed the fire. Within forty years of the excommunication came the Crusades, and the conflict of Greek and Latin interests and ambitions in the East. The treachery of the one, and the bloodthirstiness and rapine of the other, achieved the evil work. Never again, save for brief moments and under the stress of political necessity, were the Greeks to submit to that divine primacy which, whatever the occasional mistakes of the men in whom it was manifested, had been, for the Greeks too, the one bulwark against heresy and which had desired to be their defender also against the encroaching Christian State. ####  |