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work of conversion encountered many setbacks and did not reach completion until the middle of the twelfth century. The most eminent missionaries to the Slavs were Cyril and Methodius. These brother-monks were sent from Constantinople in 863 A.D. to convert the Moravians, who formed a kingdom on the eastern boundary of Germany. Seeing their great success as missionaries, the pope invited them to Rome and secured their consent to an arrangement which brought the Moravian Christians under the control of the Papacy. From Moravia Christianity penetrated into Bohemia and Poland. These countries still remain strongholds of the Roman Church. The Serbians and Russians, as we have learned, received Christianity by way of Constantinople and so became adherents of the Greek Church.

Final extension of Roman

Catholicism

Roman Catholicism gradually spread to most of the remaining peoples of Europe. The conversion of the Norwegians and Swedes was well advanced by the middle of the eleventh century. The Magyars, or Hungarians, accepted Christianity at about the same date. The king of Hungary was such a devout Catholic that in the year 1000 A.D. the pope sent to him a golden crown and saluted him as "His Apostolic Majesty." The last parts of heathen Europe to receive the message of the gospel were the districts south and east of the Baltic, occupied by the Prussians, Lithuanians, and Finns. Their conversion took place between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.

127. Separation of Eastern and Western Christianity

Before the Christian conquest of Europe was finished, Christianity had divided into two great communions - the Greek Church and the Roman Church. Their separation was a long, slow process, arising from the deep-seated differences between East and West. Though Rome had carried her conquering 1 Cyril and Methodius were canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1881 A.D. A millenial celebration of the two apostles was held in 1863 A.D. by the people of Moravia and Bohemia.

2 See page 335. The Bulgarians also got their Christianity from Constantinople in the ninth century.

West

arms throughout the Mediterranean basin, all the region east of the Adriatic was imperfectly Romanized. It Divergence remained Greek in language and culture, and of East and tended, as time went on, to grow more and more unlike the West, which was truly Roman. The founding of Constantinople and the transference of the capital from the banks of the Tiber to the shores of the Bosporus still further widened the breach between the two halves of the Roman world. After the Germans established their kingdoms in Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Britain, western Europe was practically independent of the rulers at Constantinople. The coronation of Charlemagne in 800 A.D. marked the final severance of East and West.

The Papacy and the

eastern

emperors

The division of the Roman Empire led naturally to a grouping of the Christian Church about Rome and Constantinople, the two chief centers of government. The popes, it has been seen, had always enjoyed spiritual leadership in the West. In temporal matters they acknowledged the authority of the eastern emperors, until the failure of the latter to protect Rome and Italy from the barbarians showed clearly that the popes must rely on their own efforts to defend Christian civilization. We have already learned how well such men as Leo the Great and Gregory the Great performed this task. Then in the eighth century came the alliance with the Frankish king, Pepin the Short, which gave the Papacy a powerful and generous protector beyond the Alps. Finally, by crowning Charlemagne, the pope definitely broke with the emperor at Constantinople and transferred his allegiance to the newly created western emperor.

Rise of the

The patriarch of Constantinople, as bishop of the capital city, enjoyed an excellent position from which to assert his preeminence over the bishops of the other churches in the East. Justinian in 550 A.D. conferred on patriarchate him the privilege of receiving appeals from the other patriarchs, and a few years later that dignitary assumed the high-sounding title of "Universal Arch

1 See pages 217, 223.

of Con

stantinople

bishop." The authority of the patriarch of Constantinople was immensely strengthened when the Mohammedans, having conquered Syria and Egypt, practically extinguished the three patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria.1 The Church in the East now had a single patriarch, just as that in the West had the one bishop of Rome. Rivalry between them was inevitable.

Rivalry between pope and patriarch

One source of strife between pope and patriarch was the controversy, arising in the eighth century, over the use of images in the churches. These images seem to have been, not statues, but pictures (icons) of the apostles, saints, and martyrs. Many eastern Christians sought to strip the churches of icons, on the ground that by the ignorant they were venerated almost as idols. The Iconoclasts ("image-breakers") gained no support in the West. The Papacy took the view that images were a help to true devotion and might, therefore, be allowed. When a Roman emperor issued a decree for the destruction of all images, the pope refused to obey the order in the churches under his direction, and went so far as to exclude the Iconoclasts from Christian fellowship. Although the iconoclastic movement failed in the East, after a violent controversy, it helped still further to sharpen the antagonism between the two branches of Christendom. Other causes of dispute arose in later times, chiefly concerning fine points of doctrine on which neither side would yield.

The final rupture,

1054 A.D.

The final rupture of Christendom was delayed until the middle of the eleventh century. In 1054 A.D. the pope sent his legates to Constantinople to demand obedience to the Papacy. This being refused, they laid upon the high altar of Sancta Sophia the pope's bill of excommunication. Against the patriarch and his followers they pronounced a solemn curse, or anathema, devoting them "to the eternal society of the Devil and his angels." Then, we are told, they strode out of Sancta Sophia, shaking the dust from their feet and crying, "Let God see and 1 See page 376.

judge." The two branches of the Christian Church, thus torn apart, were never afterward reunited.1

128. The Greek Church

churches

compared

The Greek and Roman churches, in some respects, are nearer together than Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Both recognize three orders for the ministry, namely, The Greek bishops, priests, and deacons. Priests of the and Roman Greek Church may marry, but this privilege is not extended to bishops, who, therefore, are chosen from the monks. Baptism, by both churches, is administered to infants, but by the Greek Church under the form of total immersion. Confirmation in the Greek Church follows immediately after baptism; in the Roman Church it is postponed to the age of reason. In the communion service the Greek Church gives leavened bread, dipped in wine. The Roman Church withholds wine from the laity and uses only a dry, unleavened wafer. While the services of the Roman Church are conducted in Latin, for those of the Greek Church the national languages (Greek, Russian, etc.) of the communicants are used. Its festivals do not coincide in time of celebration with those of the Roman Church, since the "Julian Calendar" followed in the East is now thirteen days behind the "Gregorian Calendar."2

Spread of the Greek

Church

The Greek Church has not lacked missionary zeal. Through her agency the barbarians who entered southeastern Europe during the early Middle Ages were converted to Christianity. At the present time nearly all the peoples of the Balkan peninsula, including Greeks, Montenegrins, Serbians, Bulgarians, and Rumanians, belong to the Greek Church. Its greatest victory was won toward the close of the tenth century, when the Russians were induced to accept the Greek form of Christianity. Outlying branches of

1 Unsuccessful attempts to heal the schism between the two churches took place in the Middle Ages. The latest movement in this direction was made by Pope Leo XIII in 1894 A.D., but his efforts were not crowned with success.

2 See page 186, note 2.

Many Roman Catholics are found in Croatia-Slavonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Albania.

the Greek Church are found also in the Turkish Empire. It now includes about one hundred and thirty-five million adherents in European lands.

Present or

the Greek Church

The patriarch of Constantinople is the spiritual head of the Greek Church. He enjoys, however, no such wide authority over eastern Christians as that exercised by the ganization of pope over all Roman Catholics. There are as many as sixteen branches of the Greek Church, each self-governing and under its own officers. Despite the local independence of its branches, the Greek Church remains unified in doctrine. It claims to be the only "Orthodox" church and clings with almost Oriental conservatism to the traditions of earlier ages. Nevertheless, as the official church of Russia, the largest and most swiftly growing of European countries, the Greek Church has before it a future of great importance.

129. The Roman Church

The separation of eastern and western Christianity naturally increased the importance of the Papacy. The popes henceforth had a free hand to guide the destinies of the Roman Church. That church under their direction was to show itself vigorous and progressive, with a wonderful power of adaptation to new and changed conditions.

The Roman Church progressive

The Roman Church survives the empire

The Roman Empire in the West had gone down before the assaults of the Germanic barbarians, but in its place had arisen a new creation - the Roman Church. The chief city of the old empire became the capital of the Papacy. The pope took, and has since retained, the title of Supreme Pontiff (Pontifex Maximus), once given to the head of the Roman state religion.1 Latin has continued to be the official language of Roman Catholicism. The Roman genius for law and government found a new expression in the creation of the papal power. The true successors of the ancient Roman statesmen were the popes of the Middle

1 See page 148, note 2.

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