867 - Photius
It was natural that the great schisms, which are immediately responsible for the present state of things, should be local quarrels of Constantinople. Neither was in any sense a general grievance of the East. There was neither time any reason why other bishops should join with Constantinople in the quarrel against Rome, except that already they had learned to look to the imperial city for orders. Photius of Constantinople, chief author of the great schism between East and West, was b. at Constantinople c. 815 (Hergenrother says "not much earlier than 827", ; others, about 810); d. probably 6 Feb., 897. The quarrel of Photius (Enlightened) was a gross defiance of lawful church order. Ignatius was the rightful bishop without any question; he had reigned peaceably for eleven years.
Theodora, at first regent, retired in 856, and her brother Bardas succeeded, with the title of Caesar. Bardas lived in open incest with his daughter-in-law Eudocia, wherefore the Patriarch Ignatius (846-57) refused him Holy Communion on the Epiphany of 857. Ignatius was deposed and banished (Nov. 23, 857), and the more pliant Photius was intruded into his place. He was hurried through Holy Orders in six days; on Christmas Day, 857, Gregory Asbestos of Syracuse, himself excommunicate for insubordination by Ignatius, ordained Photius patriarch.
After vain attempts to make Ignatius resign his see, the emperor tried to obtain from Pope Nicholas I (858-67) recognition of Photius. The emperor and Photius emphatically acknowledged the Roman primacy and categorically invoked the pope's jurisdiction to confirm what has happened. Nicholas decided for Ignatius, and answered the letters of Michael and Photius by insisting that Ignatius must be restored,,that the usurpation of his see must cease. He also wrote in the same sense to the other Eastern patriarchs. From that attitude Rome never wavered: it was the immediate cause of the schism. In the year 866, Bardas, to whom Photius owed his elevation, was murdered by Basil the Macedonian, with the counivance and approbation of Michael. Basil was created Caesar, and took Photius under his protection. The latter now proceeded with increased violence against his opponents. Photius represented to the Emperor that, together with the seat of empire, the Primacy had also passed from Rome to Constantinople. Photius again revived all questions that had ever come up for discussion between the two Churches. In 867 he carried the war into the enemy's camp by excommunicating the pope and his Latins. The reasons he gives for this, in an encyclical sent to the Eastern patriarchs, are: that Latins (1) fast on Saturday, (2) do not begin Lent till Ash Wednesday (instead of three days earlier, as in the East), (3) do not allow priests to be married, (4) do not allow priests to administer confirmation, (5) have added the filioque to the creed. Because of these errors the pope and all Latins are: "forerunners of apostasy, servants of Antichrist who deserve a thousand deaths, liars, fighters against God".
But, of all these, as Archbishop Theophylactus very justly remarked, the only one of vital importance was the controversy on the Filioque. This controversy was of importance, chiefly because it involved a dogma of the Church, but partly also because the addition to the Symbol of Faith of the word Filioque (and from the Son) would naturally excite the hostility of the Greeks against the Latins. Between the Latins and the more imaginative Greeks there was not any substantial difference3 as to the doctrine itself. The difficulty between them arose from the preference on the part of the latter for the faulty formula "the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son".
The word Filioque first came into use in the West about tlie beginning of the fifth century. It was first familiarized in Spain, and is to be found in the symbol of faith of the fimt council of Toledo (a. D. 400), convened to condemn the Priscilliani8t8. It was found incorporated into the symbol of Nice, as enlarged at Constantinople, when the Visigoths were converted to Christianity. Its use must have become pretty general before the holding of the third council of Toledo (a. D. 589), by a decree of which the people were ordered to eing the whole symbol containing it during the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. The formula based on the words of St. John xvi. 15, ran thus: " Who proceeds from the Father and the Son."'
Photius roused the suspicions of the Greeks by representing to them that the Latins were favoring the Manichaeau heresy by admitting two principles in the Deity. It was this misrepresentation of facts that constituted the greatest obstacle to the success of the subsequent endeavors to unite the two Churches at the Fourth (Ecumenical) Council of Lateran, and at the councils of Lyons and Florence.
Pope Nicholas I had no quarrel against the Eastern Church; he had no quarrel against the Byzantine See. He stood out for the rights of the lawful bishop. Both Ignatius and Photius had formally appealed to him. It was only when Photius found that he had lost his case that he and the Government preferred schism to submission (867). It is even doubtful how far this time there was any general Eastern schism at all.
Photius determined to take vengeance on Rome for having declared for Ignatius and against himself. In the year 867, he convoked a synod at Constantinople, at which pretended representatives of the three patriarchs were present, and endeavored to invest it with the authority of an ecumenical council. The Pope was falsely accused of certain offenses, declared guilty, anathematized, and deposed. It appears now that only twenty-one bishops put their names to this ludicrous decree, and consequently Photius must have forged the hundreds of others affixed to it, embracing bishops, priests, and deacons who had never so much as heard even of the existence of the synod.
In a circular letter addressed to the three patriarchs and the more eminent bishops of the East, inviting them to take part in the synod of Constantinople, Photius took occasion to attack the Church of Rome. Photius represented her as teaching, through her missionaries in Bulgaria, new and erroneous doctrines. He said that these observed fast on Saturday, abridged the time of Lent by a week, took milkfood on fasting days, despised priests living virtuously in the married state, rejected confirmation administered by priests, falsified confessions of faith sanctioned by ecumenical councils by making additions to them, and, finally, taught that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Father only, but also from the Son, thus implying that there are two principles in the Trinity - the Father having the principle of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and the Son also the principle of the Holy Ghost.
In October 869 the synod was opened which Catholics recognize as the Eighth General Council (Fourth of Constantinople). This synod tried Photius, confirmed his deposition, and, as he refused to renounce his claim, excommunicated him. Pope John solemnly excommunicated Photius and all who advocated his cause, or recognized the late council, held under his presidency. This sentence was repeated by the successors of John VIII., Marinus I. and Hadrian III. In the council that restored Ignatius (869) the other patriarchs declared that they had at once accepted the pope's former verdict. Photius was banished to a monastery at Stenos on the Bosphorus. Here he spent seven years, writing letters to his friends, organizing his party, and waiting for another chance. Meanwhile Ignatius reigned as patriarch.
Photius became so popular that when Ignatius died (23 Oct., 877) a strong party demanded that Photius should succeed him; the emperor was now on their side, and an embassy went to Rome to explain that everyone at Constantinople wanted Photius to be patriarch. The pope (John VIII, 872-82) agreed, absolved him from all censure, and acknowledged hin as patriarch.When, in 879, the patriarch Photius was restored to his seat by the eighth ecumenical council - consisting of four hundred bishops, three hundred of whom had condemned him in the preceding council - he was acknowledged by Pope John as his brother.
By Ignatius's death the See of Constantinople was now really vacant; the clergy had an undoubted right to elect their own patriarch; to refuse to acknowledge Photius would have provoked a fresh breach with the East, would not have prevented his occupation of the see, and would have given his party (including the emperor) just reason for a quarrel. The event proved that almost anything would have been better than to allow his succession, if it could be prevented. But the pope could not foresee that, and no doubt hoped that Photius, having reached the height of his ambition, would drop the quarrel.
In 878, then, Photius at last obtained lawfully the place he had formerly usurped. Rome acknowledged him and restored him to her communion. There was no possible reason now for a fresh quarrel. But he had identified himself so completely with that strong anti-Roman party in the East which he mainly had formed, and, doubtless, he had formed so great a hatred of Rome, that now he carried on the old quarrel with as much bitterness as ever and more influence.
A new synod was opened in St. Sophia's in November, 879. This is the " Pseudosynodus Photiana" which the Orthodox count as the Eighth General Council. Photius had it all his own way throughout. He revoked the acts of the former synod (869), repeated all his accusations against the Latins, dwelling especially on the filioque grievance, anathematized all who added anything to the Creed, and declared that Bulgaria should belong to the Byzantine Patriarchate. The fact that there was a great majority for all these measures shows how strong Photius's party had become in the East. The legates, like their predecessors in 861, agreed to everything the majority desired (Mansi, XVII, 374 sq.). As soon as they had returned to Rome, Photius sent the Acts to the pope for his confirmation. Instead John, naturally, again excommunicated him. So the schism broke out again. This time it lasted seven years, till Basil I's death in 886.
Basil was succeeded by his son Leo VI the Philosopher (886-912), who came to the throne (A.D. 886) Leo strongly disliked Photius. One of his first acts was to accuse him of treason, depose, and banish him (886). The story of this second deposition and banishment is obscure. Photius was obliged to relinquish the patriarchate. He withdrew to a monastery, where he died, A.D. 891. Photius had formed an anti-Roman party which was never afterwards dissolved. The effect of his quarrel, though it was so purely personal, though it was patched up when Ignatius died, and again when Photius fell, was to gather to a head all the old jealousy of Rome at Constantinople throughout the Photian Schism. The mere question of that usurper's pretended rights does not account for the outburst of enmity against the pope, against everything Western and Latin in government documents, in Photius's letters, in the Acts of his synod in 879, in all the attitude of his party. It is rather the rancor of centuries bursting out on a poor pretext; this fierce resentment against Roman interference comes from men who know of old that Rome is the one hindrance to their plans and ambitions.
Moreover, Photius gave the Byzantines a new and powerful weapon. The cry of heresy was raised often enough at all times; it never failed to arouse popular indignation. But it had not yet occurred to any one to accuse all the West of being steeped in pernicious heresy. Hitherto it had been a question of resenting the use of papal authority in isolated cases. This new idea carried the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance. Photius's six charges are silly enough, so silly that one wonders that so great a scholar did not think of something cleverer, at least in appearance. But they changed the situation to the Eastern advantage. When Photius calls the Latins "liars, fighters against God, forerunners of Antichrist", it is no longer a question merely of abusing one's ecclesiastical superiors. He now assumes a more effective part; he is the champion of orthodoxy, indignant against heretics.
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