At the beginning of the XI century began the penetration of the Western European conquerors in the territory, which were previously under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire. Political opposition soon led to opposition from the Western and Eastern churches.
The end of the XI century was marked by the beginning of an active expansion of immigrants from the Duchy of Normandy in southern Italy. At first, the Normans acted as mercenaries in the service of the Byzantines and the Lombards, but over time they began to create independent possessions. Although the main struggle of the Normans was waged against the Muslims of the Sicilian emirate, the conquests of the northerners soon led to clashes with Byzantium.
The struggle for influence in Italy soon led to a conflict between the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope. Parishes in southern Italy historically belonged to the jurisdiction of Constantinople, but as the Normans conquered the land, the situation began to change. In 1053, Patriarch Michael Kerulari learned that the Greek rite on the Norman lands was supplanted by Latin. In response, Kerulari closed all the temples of the Latin rite in Constantinople and instructed the Bulgarian archbishop Lev Ohridsky to compose a message against the Latins, which would denounce various elements of the Latin rite: serving the liturgy on unleavened bread; fasting on Saturday during Lent ; lack of singing ” Hallelujah ” during Lent; eating udavleniny and more. The message was sent to Apulia and was addressed to Bishop John of Traa, and through him to all the Bishops of the Franks and “the most honorable Pope.” Humbert Silva-Kandidsky wrote an essay “Dialogue” in which he defended Latin rites and condemned the Greek. In response, Nikita Stifat writes a treatise “Antidialogue”, or “A Word about Unleavened Bread, Saturday’s Fasting and Marriage of the Priests” against the work of Humbert.
Year 1054
Disagreements between the Pope (the western part of the united Church ) and the Patriarch of Constantinople (and the four Eastern Patriarchs of the Church) on dogmatic and canonical issues, as well as liturgical and disciplinary, began long before 1054, but it was in 1054 that Pope of Rome Leo IX sent to Constantinople legates led by cardinal Humbert. The immediate reason was the closure in 1053 of the Latin churches in Constantinople by order of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius, in which his sakellard Nikifor threw out the Holy Gifts, prepared according to the Western custom of unleavened bread, and trampled on them with their feet.
In 1054, Pope Lev sent a message to Kerularii, which, in support of the papal claims to complete power in the Church, contained extensive extracts from a fake document known as the Dowry of Constantine, insisting on its authenticity. The patriarch rejected the Pope’s claims to supremacy, after which Leo sent legates to Constantinople that same year to settle the dispute. The main political task of the papal embassy was the desire to receive from the Byzantine emperor military assistance in the fight against the Normans.
On July 16, 1054, after the death of Pope Leo IX himself, three papal legates entered the Hagia Sophia Cathedral and laid an otruchitelny letter on the altar, anathematizing the patriarch and his two assistants. In response to this, on July 20, the patriarch betrayed the legacy of anathema. Neither the Roman church of Constantinople, nor the Byzantine church was legitimized by legates.
The events of 1054 did not yet mean a complete break between the eastern and western churches, but the First Crusade aggravated the differences. When the leader of the crusaders, Bohemond captured the former Byzantine city of Antioch (1098), he expelled the Greek patriarch and replaced it with the Latin one; having captured Jerusalem in 1099, the Crusaders also placed the Latin Patriarch at the head of the local Church . The Byzantine emperor Alexey, in turn, appointed his own patriarchs of both cities, but they lived in Constantinople. The existence of parallel hierarchies meant that the eastern and western churches were actually in a state of schism. This split had important political implications. When in 1107 Boemond went on a campaign against Byzantium in retaliation for Alexey’s attempts to recapture Antioch, he told the Pope that this was justified, since the Byzantines were dissenters. Thus, he created a dangerous precedent for the future aggression against Byzantium by Western Europeans. Pope Paschal II did his best to overcome the split between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, but this did not succeed, as the pope continued to insist that the Patriarch of Constantinople recognize the primacy of the Pope over “all the churches of God all over the world.”