April 02, 2003
The Real Theological Division
The Real Theological Division (from Orthodox Christianity in the British Isles)
Some Excerpts:
Many of those interested in Celtic Christianity have tended to speak of a conflict between the theology and spiritual life of the Celts and the Anglo-Roman Church...
The truth of the matter is that there was no such conflict. The Celts, Old English, and Romans of Western Europe shared one Faith — the Apostolic and Patristic Orthodox Faith. And they held this Faith in common with the Romans of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the lands from which the Faith had first emerged and in which it had been defended by the Fathers of the Church at the great Oecumenical ("Empire-wide") Synods.
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In the Carolingian Frankish kingdoms of Western Europe, a new and very different Christianity was developed, based on certain excesses in the theology of Augustine of Hippo and an ecclesial polity founded on feudalism. (The differences between this new form of Christianity and Orthodox Christianity are profound enough that we may speak of the formation of a new "religion.")
At first, this new faith was limited to the Franks, and opposed vigorously by the Orthodox Western Romans (including the Bishop of Rome) as well as the Celtic monasteries located throughout the continent. But in the 11th century, with the first Frankish Popes, Rome succumbed to this Franco-Augustinian faith. After splitting from the Eastern Churches in 1054, the Papacy blessed a series of military efforts — the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Anglo-Norman Conquest of Ireland in 1170, the Crusades in the 12th and early 13th centuries — to convert all of Europe to this form of Christianity.
The Christian East, by the grace of God, and in spite of the terrible sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, was able to resist the Franco-Latin incursions. The various Orthodox Churches of the West, however, were not spared. One by one they fell to the Franks, and to their successors, the Normans — conquerors who brought with them a faith they called "Roman Catholic," but which was neither Roman (the true Romans having been subjugated by the Franks) nor Catholic (for they had abandoned the universal Faith of the Apostolic and Patristic Church).
Posted by Dienekes at April 2, 2003 12:53 AM | PermaLinkI agree with your analisis of the 1054 shism except for your remark about the responsibility of "the first Frankish Popes" in the 11th century : as a matter of fact, Saint Leo IX, the Frankish Pope whom most historians usually charge with the responsibility of the shism, managed to avoid it until the end of his life in July 1054. The shism was provoqued in September that same year, by two roman bishops, before another pope was elected in Rome. By the way, this Frankish-Alsatian pope, Saint Leo IX, was a member of the eldest branch of my family.
As a proof of his innocence in this shism, we still have today in the IXth century crypt in Andlau (Alsace) the skull of Lazarus (the friend of Christ). This skull had been offered in 880 to Sainte Richarde (another member of our family, who had been married to Charles III the Fat, the last Carolingian emperor and great-grand-son of Charlemagne) by Emperor Leo VI the Wise, emperor of Constantinople, as a token of religious unity between their two empires.