At the Origins of the Byzantine Greco-Slav Schism:

patriarchs of Constantinople Photius (858-867; 877-886)

and Michael Cerularius (1043-1059)
-James Likoudis

The greatest and most lamentable schism in the history of the Catholic Church is
that between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine
rite which would follow the see of Constantinople in breaking communion with the See
of Rome, “head of all the churches of God” as acknowledged during the First
Millennium by all those who would be truly orthodox in faith. True, there were earlier
major schisms affecting the Eastern Churches. There was the Nestorian heresy which
spread after the rejection of the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) and lead to the formation
of the Assyrian Church of the East centered in what is now Iraq, Then there was the even
more widespread heresy of the Monophysites which saw large numbers of Egyptians,
Ethiopians, Syrians, and Armenians torn away from the Catholic Unity of the Church
with their rejection of the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.). The view of Eastern
Orthodox writers who identify the “Eastern Church” with themselves is certainly
simplistic in ignoring the presence of other venerable Eastern communities in the Middle
East. By the famous year 1054 when Michael Cerularius was the patriarch of
Constantinople , large portions of Eastern Christendom were no longer in communion
with Rome and Constantinople, the two most important sees of the great ecclesiastical
body called the Catholic Church. These two great patriarchates, along with those of
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, were struggling to preserve the doctrinal orthodoxy
proclaimed by the first seven ecumenical Councils (all held in the East) against heretical
rivals who claimed the patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch. Tensions between the
Eastern and Western parts of the Catholic Church had already been felt in the centuries
before 1054 , as linguistic, political, and cultural differences became exacerbated by
ecclesiastical divergences touching upon liturgical and doctrinal issues. These may be
said to reveal themselves first in the controversies which would surround the famous
patriarch of Constantinople Photius in the 9th century and even more dramatically in the
controversies involving the patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius from 1043 to
1059. The famous date 1054 saw the mutual excommunications exchanged between the
patriarch Michael Cerularius and the Roman legates led by Cardinal Humbert of Silva-
Candida – a date marking a fissure in ecclesiastical relations between Rome and
Byzantium- an estrangement that would lead to a formal schism between Latins and
Byzantine Greeks during the 13th century.
As noted, it was during the reign of the 9th c. patriarch Photius that liturgical and
doctrinal differences unfortunately emerged between the Eastern patriarchal Churches
dominated by the Imperial patriarch Photius at Constantinople and the great Latin
Church in the West. Such differences fueled by mutual suspicion, distrust, as well as
political ambitions and rivalries over ecclesiastical and political control of the newly
converted Bulgarians led to quarrels that would threaten the ecclesiastical harmony
between Latins and Greeks. Moreover, from the view of the Roman Popes, the situation
became further complicated and confusing due to the Byzantine Church's suffering an
internal schism as to who was the legitimate patriarch of Constantinople, the patriarch
Ignatius or his replacement, the erudite scholar Photius, described by one Orthodox
scholar as “an intimate of the powerful, a courtier, an intellectual, an encyclopedist, a
teacher, and a voracious student of anything that books could offer.” (D.S. White) As
another writer noted concerning his erudition which made him one of the most famous
scholars of all the Middle Ages, “his natural aptitude for learning must have been
extraordinary; his industry was colossal..It is curious [added Fr. Adrian Fortescue in
the older Catholic Encyclopedia], that so learned a man never knew Latin”. In fact,
the ignorance of Latins and Byzantine Greeks of each other's language (with some
honorable exceptions) would inhibit understanding of theological positions throughout
the medieval period. For Fr. Fortescue and many other Catholic scholars in the 18th and
19th centuries, Photius was seen as “the chief author of the great schism between East
and West”, the Luther of the Eastern Church who denounced the universal authority
of the Pope in the Church, and who as the defender of orthodoxy rejected the
“blasphemous heresy” expressed in the Western formulation of the Filioque, i.e., which
taught the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.
The “Photian Affair” in its complexities, confusing and contradictory accounts by
biased contemporaries and tainted sources would seriously mislead Catholic, Protestant,
and Orthodox scholars who would portray Photius as either the worst possible enemy of
the Roman Church or as an unblemished Saint who broke “the horns of Roman pride
and heresy”. The distinguished Byzantine scholar, the Czech priest Francis Dvornik, had
noted that “the history of the patriarch Photius stood as the greatest stumbling block
barring the way to a better understanding between eastern and western Christendom.”
Taking advantage of the great progress in Byzantine studies, his monumental work “The
Photian Schism” (1948) did much to correct the impression held in the Christian West
for centuries that Photius was “the father of the great schism, a prevaricator who
falsified papal letters and conciliar Acts, and a symbol of pride and lust for ecclesiastical
domination”- a view influenced by previous historians' uncritical reliance on the anti-
Photian writings of his enemies, Studite monks who had fled to Rome to avoid
persecution. The Ignatian party would not accept Photius as a legitimate patriarch and
Rome upheld the patriarch Ignatius in his contest with Photius.The intricacies of the
“Photian Affair” were complicated by palace intrigues for control of the empire with
Basil murdering the co-emperor Bardas and then murdering the Emperor Michael to
establish his rule. Then followed the Emperor Basil immediately banishing Photius and
reinstating the patriarch Ignatius in the see of Constantinople after 10 years of
imprisonment. The result was further enmity among Byzantium's political-religious
factions involved in what had become a serious internal schism in the Byzantine church.
Though the Photian party was not pleased with Rome's questioning the canonical
legitimacy of his elevation to the patriarchate and its interference in the internal affairs
of the Byzantine church, nevertheless the Petrine supremacy embodied in the Roman
Church was duly honored and acknowledged. Photius himself had read the letters of
Popes Nicholas, Hadrian II, and John VIII with their unequivocal expression of Papal
power resulting from Christ's words to Peter, the Chief of His Apostles. Contrary to
various Protestant and Orthodox writers to this day, Photius never formally denied that
Primacy despite his calling a Council in 867 A.D. to declare Pope Nicholas deposed and
excommunicated. What the Church of the 9th century believed concerning papal
supremacy may be said to have been spelled out in magisterial terms by Pope Nicholas
the Great in his reply (867 A.D.) to an insolent letter from the Emperor Michael III that
is lost but must have registered objections to Rome's intrusion into Byzantine affairs.

“Would you know what these privileges [of the Roman Church] are through us,
as the Minister of Christ and Dispenser of His mysteries, we will prove them to
you in most certain manner. But, if you care but little to know them, if your
efforts are directed only against the Roman Church's privileges, take care lest
they turn against you. It is dangerous to fight against the current of a river, to
kick against the goad. For if you do not listen to us, we shall regard you as Our
Lord has ordered us to regard those who do not hear the Church.
The privileges of this See are perpetual: they were planted and rooted in
by God Himself. They may be beaten against, but not changed: they may be
attacked but not destroyed. Before your accession to the empire, they were, and
they still, thanks be to God, are intact. They will be when you are not, and while
the name of Christ is preached, they will never cease to be immutable.
These privileges were established by the very mouth of Christ Himself. It
was not Councils that accorded them; they only have honoured and preserved
them...Neither the Council of Nicaea, nor any other synod ever gave a single
privilege to the Church of Rome. This was because they knew that in Peter, this
See had obtained the plenitude of all power, and received the direction of all the
sheep of Christ...Such are some of the reasons among others of the same order,
which make us interest ourselves in the fate of all the Churches: reasons that
vehemently urge us to be indefatigable in our care of the Church of
Constantinople, and oblige us to help, as a brother, the Patriarch Ignatius,
dispossessed of his See against all law and every canonical rule. It is these
privileges of our Church, which under divine inspiration, have also commanded
us that, Ignatius being still alive, we must remove Photius- who has unjustly
introduced himself into the Lord's sheepfold, driven out the Shepherd and
scattered the sheep- from the honorable See he has usurped unjustly, and must
exclude him from the communion of Christians”.

Modern historians in the wake of Fr. Dvornik have presented a truer portrait of a
truly remarkable man, the Patriarch Photius. Certain aspects of his character and facts
concerning the controversies that took place during his two patriarchates remain
obscure and debated. But the following remain clear regarding his role in the origins of
the Byzantine-Greek Schism:
1. Despite the excommunications he suffered from Rome, he was reconciled
with Pope John VIII and died in communion with Rome.
2. He never denied the Roman Primacy. His changes to papal letters were
done to facilitate the ending of quarrels and left untouched the vigorous
affirmations of Pope John VIII concerning the Roman Primacy. That Pope
John VIII's successors had broken with Photius was proved by Dvornik to
be a legend.
3. In his quarrels with Latin missionaries in Bulgaria, he attacked Latin
liturgical customs and discipline. The Latins were accused of fasting on
Saturday, repeating the Chrismation administered by Byzantine priests;
forbidding married priests, and most seriously of corrupting the doctrine of
the Trinity by inserting the Filioque into the Creed. These grievances were
also incorporated in his 867 Encyclical to all the Eastern patriarchs which
condemned such innovations. A Council was held in Constantinople to deal
with the Bulgarian situation ; as previously mentioned, it declared the
deposition of Pope Nicholas which was accompanied by an anathema. It
also proposed to the German Louis II that his title as emperor would be
acknowledged in Constantinople if he would remove Pope Nicholas from
his throne. Pope Nicholas died unaware of the action of this “Robber
Council” of 867 A.D. in Constantinople but his successor Pope Hadrian II
(867-872) held a Roman synod declaring Photius, his consecrator Gregory
Asbestas, and all those Photius had ordained, to be deposed and required to
make reparation. All this would lead to the holding of the 8th Ecumenical
Council (869-870) in Constantinople presided over by Pope Hadrian II's
legates and which declared Photius a “second Dioscorus” (the 5th c. arch-
heretic who had dared to excommunicate Pope Leo the Great). This 8th
Ecumenical Council “suspended and excommunicated Photius and his
followers”. These penalties were later lifted by Pope John VIII who
rehabilitated Photius as patriarch in order to put an end to the internal
schism afflicting the Byzantine Church. Moreover, as Dvornik showed,
there was no “Second Schism of Photius” as previous historians believed.
4. Though peace was restored between Rome and Byzantium, the liturgical
intolerance exhibited by the Byzantine Greeks towards Latin customs and
usages would bedevil Latin-Greek relations throughout the medieval period
culminating in the charge still held by anti-Western Orthodox today that
Catholic sacraments are “without grace”.
5. Lastly, Photius' theological assault” on the Filioque as “heretical”
( especially in his treatise “Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit”) would be
revived in the patriarchate of Michael Cerularius. Photius' arguments would
become staple theological fare for centuries of polemicists who would
 make the “Filioque” the major dogmatic issue between Catholics and
Orthodox. Cerularius would proceed to make additional attacks on Latin
liturgical usages and declare the Latins' use of unleavened bread
(“azymes”) for the Holy Eucharist “heretical” (the continued belief of some
extremist Orthodox today!). Photius had no quarrel with unleavened bread.

WHO was Michael Cerularius (1043-1059)?

and What Really Happened in 1054?
Aside from the famous 9th c. Patriarch Photius who was involved in various
quarrels with Pope Nicholas I and the Franks, and who developed the classical
Byzantine Greek theological case against the Filioque formulation of the doctrine of the
Procession of the Holy Spirit, Cerularius is the best- known of the medieval patriarchs of
Constantinople. This is because he is associated with the famous date 1054, which
supposedly marked a formal schism between Rome and Constantinople. As one modern
historian has noted, Cerularius was “perhaps the most ambitious and strong-willed
prelate in Byzantine history”. From the accounts left by his contemporary Michael
Psellus, it is clear that the character of Cerularius was typified by a “savage reserve,
vindictiveness, and unbounded pride” and that he behaved as if “he held the first place in
Christendom” (Fr. Adrian Fortescue). He was to prove more a politician than a
churchman, and one who despised and hated the Latins of the West. We shall see,
however, that the events of 1054 did not result in a formal schism with Rome, but it did
involve a quarrelsome break in relations with Rome with future grave consequences.
Other Eastern patriarchs would follow Constantinople's lead in a formal schism by the
beginning of the 13th century. Throughout the 12th century , it should be emphasized,
many Byzantines remained in communion with Rome, but with hatred of the Latins
fueled by the Crusaders' shameful sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the rejection of
the Reunion Council of Lyons in 1274, much of the Byzantine Greek Church was clearly
no longer in full communion with Rome. For many of the Byzantines, after 1274 the
Latins (Italians and “Frangi”) were barbarian schismatics and heretics.
Cerularius was certainly a monk when he was enthroned as the “Ecumenical
Patriarch” on March 25, 1043. He had earlier involved himself in a political plot against
the Emperor Michael IV, apparently hoping to replace him on the throne. When made
Patriarch, he fulfilled his long-held desire for a lofty career in the Church. Throughout
his long life, Cerularius proved to be “arrogant” and “overbearing” in devoting his
energies to exalting the prestige and power of the Byzantine patriarchate. He tried to
bring the separated Monophysite Churches under his control, and regarded himself as
the superior of the three other Eastern patriarchs, those of Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem.
His political ambitions, moreover, led him into the very un-Byzantine posture of
criticizing Imperial policy and stressing the superiority of his own position as
Ecumenical Patriarch, claiming the right to reprove and discipline Emperors. Not only
did he confuse the spheres of Imperial and Patriarchal authority, but he even usurped
some of the symbols of Imperial rank, such as the wearing of purple shoes. All four of
the emperors who ruled during his patriarchate found his attitude and activities
disruptive and intolerable. They saw him competing with them for the loyalty of the
people of Constantinople, among whom he was more popular as the defender of
orthodoxy against the Latin “azymites”. His character is important to recall as he would
come into sharp conflict with another strong-willed and powerful ecclesiastic, Cardinal
Humbert of Silva-Candida. It is also important to note at this point the Byzantine
Political Theory of State-Church Relations. “In the Byzantine mind, the idea of a
general superiority of the sacerdotium over the imperium was incredible and
unnatural.”(George Every). In contrast, the ecclesiology of the great Gregorian reformer
churchmen in the West like Pope St. Leo IX, the Roman Pontiff who opposed
Cerularius, insisted upon the superiority of the spiritual power over the temporal in order
to protect the freedom and independence of the Church. Regarding Church-State
relations in Byzantium, historian Michael Angold noted that the emperor dominated the
administration of the Church, and did not distinguish between ecclesiastical and political
jurisdiction. Indeed, interference with either was looked upon as an act of treason.
Another historian, Milton V. Anastos has observed regarding the Byzantine political
theory of “absolutist power of the Roman Emperor” that there can be no question that
the Emperor “dominated and controlled the entire life of the empire in its most
significant manifestations...and even exerted control over dogma.” Cerularius, who had
imperial ambitions of his own, no doubt shared in the common convictions of his
contemporaries. “The patriarch may well have looked upon the people of Constantinople
as a 'plebs sancta'. The [Byzantines] were the new Israel: they were the citizens of a City
guarded by the Mother of God. Constantinople as the New Sion was a popular theme of
the mid-11th century”. Moreover, the patriarch of Constantinople vied with the Emperor
as the defender of that orthodoxy in the Christian religion which was identified with the
fortunes of Byzantium itself.
Pope St. Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius

The climactic events of 1053 and 1054

“cannot be truly understood without constant recollection of the position of the Pope [St. Leo IX]
during them. When Cerularius' first hostile actions came to his attention, he was a prisoner at the
hands of the Normans. When they reached their shattering climax, he was dead...Pope St. Leo IX,
more than any other man, brought into being the renewed, reformed, spiritually invigorated
Western Christendom which created the glories of the Middle Ages; but because of the rupture
leading to Schism, it did not include the Greek-speaking East with all its rich Christian
heritage.”(Warren Carroll)
It is to be noted that this Pope's Letters to the Byzantine patriarch contain vigorous
affirmations of the universal jurisdiction of the successor of Peter over the entire
Church, East and West.
Background of the ensuing conflict
 Late in 1052, Argyros, the Byzantine governor of South Italy, who was a Lain and
a Lombard, proposed a Byzantine-Papal alliance against the Normans, who were
endangering the Byzantines' attempted recovery of Sicily from the Arabs. Cerularius,
always biased against the Latins and violently opposed to Argyros whom he considered
an enemy, was determined to oppose the alliance and to strengthen his own ecclesiastical
authority in Byzantine Italy (which had been taken from Papal jurisdiction in the 8th
century). Learning that the Normans were replacing Greek liturgical customs with Latin
ones in Byzantine Italy, Cerularius proceeded to order all Latin-rite churches and
monasteries to follow the Byzantine liturgical practice by celebrating the Eucharist in
leavened bread. If they did not comply, they were to be closed, even the chapel of the
papal legate. There were reports that Cerularius' chancellor, Nicephoros, had burst open
the Latin tabernacles and trampled on the Holy Eucharist, because it was consecrated in
unleavened bread. This was not the first time that Byzantine Greek intolerance of Latin
customs and usages had troubled ecclesiastical relations between Rome and
Constantinople. This occurred, as was noted, during the first patriarchate of the
celebrated Photius, though the same Photius later sanctioned tolerance for canonical and
ritual differences maintaining that each Church had the right to maintain its own
cherished traditions. With Cerularius, Byzantine liturgical intolerance and ethnic and
political animosity would greatly increase.
During the patriarchate of Cerularius, it was Leo, the Byzantine Greek Archbishop
of Ochrida (Ochrid in Bulgaria) who addressed a Letter (probably at the order of
Cerularius) to John of Trani, the Latin bishop of Apulia, in which he attacked a number
of Latin customs (the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, fasting on Saturdays,
eating strangled meat, and not singing “Alleluia” during fast days- all of which were
said to constitute “Jewish superstitions”). The effect of the Bulgarian bishop's letter was
to spread anti-Latin sentiments among the Greeks in South Italy, causing protests by the
Abbot of Monte Cassino and the Archbishop of Bari. After reading the letter which
declared the Latin Eucharist was not a genuine sacrament, Bishop John sent it to
Cardinal Humbert of Silva-Candida (the former “Archbishop of all Sicily”), who was
among the few Westerners who could read Greek. Humbert translated the letter and
showed it to the Pope who directed him to draft a reply which focused on Papal Primacy
and attempted to allay some Byzantine grievances by noting that “At Rome and outside
of Rome, Greek churches and monasteries are present, and no one stops them from
following their traditional rites and usages. Quite to the contrary they are counselled
and encouraged to observe them”. Unfortunately, as Catholic historian Warren Carroll
observed, at some points the letter drafted by Humbert “descended into sheer polemic
and threat...Humbert, though a man of far nobler motivation than Michael
Cerularius, was even more vehement, rash, and headstrong than the ambitious
Patriarch. He had much more zeal than judgment.” As events were to prove, he was
the wrong man for delicate negotiations, or to be sent on the fatal embassy to
Constantinople that would result in mutual excommunications between the Patriarch and
the Roman legates.
 Patriarch Michael's anti-Latin campaign continued when he sent to the other
Eastern patriarchs a treatise by the Studite monk Nicetas Stethatos (“Stethatos” meaning
“courageous”, but which Cardinal Humbert would render “Pectoratus”, meaning “the
beast that crawls on its belly”. Nicetas (obviously a member of the anti-Latin extremists
in the capital) proceeded to denounce such “horrible infirmities” as azyme bread,
fasting on Saturday, eating strangled meats, not singing the Alleluia, and priestly
celibacy. This last point was especially offensive to a Pope who was struggling for the
celibacy of clerics with all his might. Nicetas' polite reference to the Latins as the
“wisest and noblest of all races” was followed by his applying to them St. Paul's epithets
“dogs, bad workmen, schismatics, hypocrites and liars.”
It was the dispute about the Eucharistic bread which moved Pope Leo IX to send
to Constantinople a small legation led by Cardinal Humbert, who would be described by
a modern historian as “by nature pugnacious and expected any patriarch of
Constantinople to be devious and untrustworthy”. (Henry Chadwick) He was assisted by
Frederick, chancellor of the holy Roman Church, and by Peter, Archbishop of Amalfi.
Humbert carried with him the notice of excommunication of the Patriarch should he not
repent, but the final text appears to have been framed at Constantinople, probably by
Humbert himself. Before arriving in the imperial capital, the papal legates had conferred
in South Italy with the Byzantine governor, the general Argyros. He had earned the
gratitude of the Emperor by saving his life, but being of the Latin rite he had made an
enemy of the Patriarch. Not only had he urged the Byzantine-Papal alliance which
Cerularius vigorously opposed, but had also defended, while in Constantinople, the case
for unleavened bread. Cerularius had refused him Holy Communion several times for
not abandoning the Latin rite. Argyros must have assured the legates of the Emperor's
support. When the legates arrived in the capital, they paid due deference to the Emperor,
but were offended when Cerularius declared that he would receive them only under the
condition that they took their places behind all the Metropolitans and made obeisance to
him. The angry legates refused to pay any deference to him, but simply handed over the
Papal Letter addressed to him and left. Cerularius observed that the seal had been
broken, and suspected that the letter was not an authentic papal text. Believing that his
old enemy Argyros was conspiring with Cardinal Humbert against him, he declared the
letter a forgery by Argyros.
At this juncture, Cardinal Humbert thought it would be an effective move to
debate openly the question of the use of unleavened bread by engaging his “smoking
pen” in a violent pamphlet war with Nicetas Stethatos, Nicetas, interestingly, was a
disciple of the monk-mystic Symeon the New Theologian, and had written a treatise
refuting one of Humbert's writings. Fr. Adrian Fortescue would write that Humbert's

“answer is not temperate. He writes as violently as any byzantine and heaps up

abusive epithets. Nicetas is no monk, but an epicure, who ought to live in a circus or
brothel, a dog, an abominable cynic, and is made of the same stuff as the
Mohammedans. Incredible, as it seems, this language converted Nicetas. He publicly
retracts his book and curses all the enemies of the Roman Church, becoming,
henceforth, as Humbert put it, 'henceforth our friend”. There seems no doubt that the
Emperor [Constantine] made him do so.”
Cerularius now refused to see or deal with the legates and would have nothing
more to deal with them. Humbert noticed that Cerularius had struck the Pope's name
from his diptychs, and took this as signifying a breach of communion with Rome, and
schism.
Though he was gratified by his victory over Nicetas, Cardinal Humbert had
blundered badly by raising the question of the Filioque in the dispute. The Emperor was
deeply disturbed, more so than he had been after reading the charges against Cerularius
in the Papal letter. “He did not want a schism in the least; he did not care what sort of
bread the Latins use, nor what they eat on Saturday; he wanted the Pope to help him
fight the Normans.” (Fortescue) He asked for an explanation concerning this new issue.
The Cardinal gave it by writing before June 25,1054, his “opuscule” on the Procession
of the Holy Spirit, in which he quoted a discourse of Pope Leo IX in defence of the
Filioque given at the Council of Bari in 1053. The Cardinal mistakenly accused the
Greeks of suppressing the Filioque in the Creed, whereas it was the Latins who had
added the word to the Creed. He thereby revived the old 9th century quarrel of the
patriarch Photius against the alleged “heresy” of the Filioque, which the Byzantines had
thoroughly forgotten. Cerularius, no theologian, avowed that he had not even been aware
of this doctrinal issue. But later, after his Synod condemned the legates for their
theatrical action in the church of Santa Sophia, the Photian writings were unearthed,
beginning a thousand years of polemic against the Catholic doctrine of the Eternal
Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and [or through] the Son. Curiously, in the
theological note attached to the July 24 synodal condemnation of the papal legates who
came from the West (“the region of darkness”) there is no mention of the Photian thesis
that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. The note merely stated the
traditional Scriptural doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father. What is
absolutely astonishing is the synod's complete silence on the Latin use of azymes, which
was the central theological dispute of the period and the cause celebre “proving” the
Latins heretics and alien to orthodoxy.

The Dramatic Scene at the Altar of Santa Sophia (16 July, 1054)
Exasperated beyond measure by his failure to gain the support of the clergy of the
imperial city against the Patriarch whom he sought to discredit, and aware of the
growing hostility of the people, Cardinal Humbert took the final step. On 16 July, 1054,
at 9 a.m., the time the sacred liturgy was about to begin in the presence of all the clergy
and people, the legates advanced toward the altar of the magnificent church of Santa
Sophia, and solemnly placed upon it the sentence of excommunication against Michael
Cerularius and his supporters. Then they departed, shaking the dust from their feet and
declaring, “Videat Deus et judicat” (“May 'God be our witness and our judge”).
The legates' action has been characterized, rightly, as grossly mistaken and
exaggerated in attributing various heresies to the Byzantine followers of the Patriarch, as
well as haughty, shameful, a wasted effort, and productive of more anti-Latin animosity
among the clergy and people. Various historians have summed up well the nature and the
contents of the fateful sentence of excommunication, which Cerularius cleverly used to
strengthen his position vis-a-vis the emperor, now much embarrassed, and to foment
popular fury against the legates, who had soon to flee for their lives. After noting that the
citizens and the city of Constantinople were “very Christian and orthodox”. The
sentence of excommunication declared that Michael, who had abused the title of
Patriarch, and the partisans of his folly, had sown “a great deal of the cockle of
heresies...in the midst of this city.” It should be noted that in his synod's condemnation
of the papal legates, Cerularius was careful to exempt the Pope from any censure,
preferring to regard the legates as imposters and emissaries of his enemy
Argyros, and the Pope's letter as a forgery by Argyros.
It is clear that if Pope Leo IX had seen the text of the excommunication against
Cerularius, with its errors, wild exaggerations, and unfortunate tone, he would never
have approved it. The Pope had died just as the embassy reached the imperial city, and
so could not prevent the consequent scandals and the resultant harm to Latin-Byzantine
relations. Cerularius burnt the notice of excommunication and presided over a synod that
proceeded to condemn the imposter-legates in phrases taken from the famous
encyclical letter of Photius to the Eastern patriarchs. [Recall that in his quarrels with
the Franks, Photius had declared the Latins “impious men” and compared them to “wild
boars” muddying the waters of true religion]. Cerularius not only revived liturgical and
doctrinal grievances (especially concerning the Filioque) but falsely accused the legates
of condemning the entire Byzantine Orthodox world. In his second letter to Peter, the
irenic and tolerant patriarch of Antioch, Cerularius clearly sought to justify his
persecution of Latins in the capital and a renewed campaign against the Latins by such
means of such falsehoods as that the Pope's name had not appeared in the Byzantine
diptychs since the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680). He piled up more grievances than
the traditional Photian ones (azymes, fasting on Saturdays, and celibacy), adding such
issues as the shaving of beards, eating unclean foods, the Filioque, and alleged Latin
refusal to venerate the relics of the Saints or pray to the great Greek Fathers of the
Church. Peter replied to Cerularius, agreeing about the Filioque, but refuted other
accusations. He urged forbearance and understanding towards the Latins, calling them
“our brothers”and saying that “we should not expect from these barbarians the same
manners as we find among our civilized people.” He went on, prophetically, to plead
with Cerularius:

“I beg you, I implore you, and in spirit I embrace your sacred feet and entreat
your Divine Beatitude to give way and to accommodate itself to circumstances.
For it is to be feared that you, in trying to heal these differences, may only make
a schism, which is worse, and that in trying to lift them up you may cause a
great calamity...I would not ask for more than the correction of the
 Creed...Consider what would certainly happen if that great first and Apostolic
See be divided from our holy Churches- wickedness would spread everywhere,
and the whole world would be upset, the kingdoms of all the earth would be
shaken, everywhere would be much woe, everywhere tears.”
Modern historians agree that visible communion between Rome and various
patriarchs and bishops in the East continued until a “real schism” came into place after
the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, and the fatal rejection of the
Reunion Council of Lyons (1274). Curiously, as the distinguished Byzantine scholar
J.M. Hussey noted, “the Humbert-Cerularius quarrel [as resulting in a formal schism]
made virtually no impact at the time on Byzantine society and gets hardly a mention in
contemporary writings.”
The judgment of another great Byzantine scholar seems to me to sum up fairly
the Humbert-Cerularius fracas.
“Great as the responsibility of Cardinal Humbert seems to us, it was nevertheless far
from measuring up to that of Michael Cerularius. It is quite evident that Humbert was
concerned about achieving Christian unity. He thought that by acting as he did a
strengthening of ecclesiastical ties would be the result. The arrogancy of his
comportment may be partially explained by the conventions of the age. No one at least
can cast aspersions upon his upright intentions.
One cannot, unfortunately, say as much for his adversary who endeavored in
every way to obstruct reconciliation. The responsibility for the first attack must be laid
at his door; and it was he also who, profiting by the hostility created by a century of
political friction, raised up as an impassible wall between the two Churches their
theological, disciplinary, and liturgical differences. What was essentially but a
separation on the political plane, Cerularius turned into a breach that could easily
turn into a schism in the proper sense of the term, that is, a division of an
ecclesiastical and religious nature. It is for this reason that the date 1054 has always
been identified with the name of Michael Cerularius”. (Fr. Venance Grumel)
CONCLUSION
One cannot underestimate the grave harm done the Unity of the Church by
Cerularius' fixation on the “heresy” of the use of unleavened bread. For centuries, and
even among some Eastern Orthodox to the present day, it was maintained that “the
Latins, by maintaining a different Eucharist, did not partake of the same Body of Christ,
and hence were not a part of the same Church”. (John H. Erickson) With Cerularius and
his anti-Latin party, one already sees the unleashing of a flurry of polemics, underlying
which can be seen the beginning of an eclipse of the Roman Primacy in the East and a
violent dispute concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit. In Peter's second letter to
Cerularius also appears an exaggerated theory of “pentarchy” in the Church wherein the
Church is envisioned as governed by a majority rule of five patriarchs (with the four
eastern patriarchs dominated by an “Ecumenical Patriarch” of the imperial city assuming
the role as the Church's chief “defender of orthodoxy”.
Finis
Historians on the Byzantine Greco-Slav Schism
Emile Amann-Histoire de L'Eglise-VI. L'Epoque carolingienne (757-881)
VII- L'Eglise au pouvoir des laiques (888-1057)

Milton V. Anastos – Aspects of the Mind of Byzantium

Michael Angold- Church and Society in Byzantium Under the Comneni

(1081-1261)
Louis Brehier- Le Schisme Orientale du XIe Siecle

Warren H. Carroll- A History of Christendom- Vol 2 (The Building of Christendom)

Henry Chadwick- East and West : The Making of a Rift in the Church: From
Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence
Francis Dvornik- Photius
Photius and Byzantine Ecclesiastical Studies

Adrian Fortescue- article Photius in older Catholic Encyclopedia

The Orthodox Eastern Church

Deno J. Geanakoplos- Byzantine East and Latin West: Two Worlds of Christendom
in Middle Ages and Renaissance: Studies in Ecclesiastical and Cultural History

Venance Grumel, A,A.- The Schism of Michael Cerularius in 1054

(Pamphlet-excerpt from the ecumenical review UNITAS)

Bernard Leib- Rome, Kiev et Byzance a la fin du XIe Siecle

Adrian Nichols, O.P.- Rome and the Eastern Churches: A Study in Schism

Stephen Runciman- The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern
Churches During the XIe and XIIe CenturieS

White, Despina S.- Patriarch Photios of Constantinople: His Life,

Scholarly Contributions and Correspondence Together
with a Translation of Fifty-two of his Letters
_____________________________________________________________
The above paper was delivered at a Seminar on “Understanding the Eastern Schism” held at Franciscan
University of Steubenville, Ohio, on Friday, January 31, 2014, and sponsored by Rob Palladino, director
of Chapel Ministries, Students for Catholic Liturgy, the Society of Blessed Theodore Romzha, and the Et
Unum Sint Society for Christian Unity.