Christendom, Part II: An Exploration into the Church

Just as the peoples of Europe spent the Middle Ages traveling different paths towards their own identities—in their case, national identities; so, too, did branches of the Christian Church take different paths during the Middle Ages—in its case, towards denominational identities.

When Christianity first became the state religion of the Roman Empire, the role of bishops arose in the larger cities (Rome, Carthage, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople.) During the Roman Empire, the bishop of Rome served as the leading bishop for all of Christendom. As the Western Roman Empire went into decline, the power of the Roman bishop as the leader of the church declined as well. Remember that the political power of Rome over the Roman Empire migrated to Constantinople; so, it should come as no surprise that the religious authority shifted to the bishop of Constantinople (known as the Patriarch) as well.

It took hundreds of years for Western Europe to rebuild following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Much of that rebuilding included converting the pagans of Europe to Christianity. As Christianity spread over the continent, the new Christians turned increasingly towards their church's closest leading authority figure, recognizing only one "papa"—Rome's. So here we see the beginnings of a split within Christendom based on geography—East versus West.

At first, the split reflected the different cultures of Eastern and Western Christendom (some of which were represented in the following topics):

	Christianity in the West	Christianity in the East
"Headquarters"	Rome	Constantinople
Language	Latin	Greek
Immediate Role of the Church	To expand everywhere	To survive invasions from other religions
Authority	Preferred the Pope in Rome and condemned the Eastern Church for being "cunning" and "Greek"	Preferred the Patriarch in Constantinople and condemned the Western Church for its fraternization with barbarians and for being "grasping"
Experience with Islam	Muslims were already living harmoniously with different religions in Western Europe (Spain and southern Italy	As the Dar al-Islam expanded into former Byzantine Empire territories, Constantinople, and the home of the Eastern Church, constantly faced the threat of Muslim invasions (though none had been successful as yet)

Then the split expanded to include theological topics (some of which were):

	Christianity in the West	Christianity in the East
Role of Jesus:	Jesus became human to atone for human sins	Jesus became human to ease "theosis" (the transformations of humans into divine beings)
Use of icons or Christian images in the Church:	The Western Church wasn't very enthusiastic about the use of icons, eventually preferring three-dimensional religious statues to the two-dimensional iconographic portraits	The Eastern Church enthusiastically employed the use of icons believing it to be a tradition within the faith since its beginnings
Communion:	The Western Church used unleavened bread to represent the body of Christ during Communion	The Eastern Church used leavened bread to represent the body of Christ during Communion
The Trinity:	The Western Church added a portion to a creed describing the Holy Trinity so that it read that the "Holy Spirit" comes from the "Father and the Son."	The Eastern Church did not approve the addition to this creed and still only refers to the "Holy Spirit" proceeding from the "Father."
Celibacy of Priests:	The Western Church did not allow priests to marry	The Eastern Church did allow priests to marry

In the meantime, the experiences of the people in Christendom continued to divert based on where they lived...

	Christianity in the West	Christianity in the East
Politics:	During Charlemagne's reign, Christianity became the dominant religion in Western Europe. But politics was still subservient to the Church—political leaders needed the endorsement of the Pope to be seen as legitimate rulers. The Church was the most powerful institution of Western Europe by the middle of the Middle Ages.	Christians living in the Byzantine Empire had never experienced a political vacuum as occurred in the West. Throughout the Middle Ages, political power was very centralized while religious authority was not. The Byzantine Empire was a secular empire with Christianity as its state religion.
Territory:	Throughout the Middle Ages, Christendom gained territory eventually occupying all of Western Europe.	Throughout the Middle Ages, the Byzantine Empire lost territory to the expansion of the Dar al-Islam.

Schism Icon At some point, the Christian Church in the West became the Catholic Church with its members known as Catholics; and the Christian Church in the East became the Eastern Orthodox Church with its members known as Orthodox Christians. In 1054 CE, the split became official during the Great Schism, also known as the East-West Schism to avoid confusion with later schisms that followed. During the East-West Schism of 1054, the Roman Catholic Pope excommunicated (removed from the church) the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople who, in turn, excommunicated the Roman Catholic Pope.

Each Church then went about its own business. As the Dar al-Islam had removed the Byzantine Empire's presence throughout most of Southwest Asia, the Eastern Orthodox Church turned its attention to the north. Orthodox missionaries converted Eastern European ethnic groups (the Bulgars, the Poles and the Russians) to Christianity using an alphabet created by an Orthodox missionary named Cyril. This Cyrillic alphabet is still used by the descendants of those converts.

The Roman Catholic Church's attention first went to a squabble between Pope Gregory VII and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire Henry IV over who had the authority to appoint bishops (investiture) and other local officials within the Church. The squabble escalated to become the most important debate between the Church and State during the Middle Ages, known as the Investiture Controversy. At the root of the argument was who had more power—the Church or the State?

Did you foresee this in your History prediction assignment from the last lesson?

For centuries, the Church was the only institution that united the people of Europe and held power over states by confirming or denouncing kings. But as nation-states developed in Europe, the kings began to gain a sense of their divine right to rule and started to challenge some of the decisions of the Church. The Investiture Controversy was an example one such conflict. Within the Holy Roman Empire, a civil war broke out as the people chose sides—some with the Pope and some with the Emperor—Henry IV eventually abdicated. The debate spread to other nations in Europe as other kings sought to influence Church appointments as well.

By 1122 CE, a new Pope and a new Holy Roman Emperor made the decision to meet. Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V hashed out the Concordat of Worms that ended the power struggle by giving the king the right to grant secular authority to bishops and other church officials but reserving the right for religious authority to the pope. While the wording of the agreement was rather vague, it seems that, for the time being, the Church got exactly what it wanted—the prevention of kings from selling off church positions.

Knight Icon While the Investiture Controversy raged, the Roman Catholic Church also turned its attention to the southwest and decided to reclaim the Holy Land from the Dar al-Islam. In 1095 CE, Pope Urban II called for the first of a series of military expeditions into the Levant known as the Crusades. You might ask yourself- why, after centuries of Islamic control over Jerusalem, did the Pope choose that year to launch the Crusades? There are many possible reasons. Perhaps this was the first time that the Papacy felt that his parishioners were strong enough for an attack. Perhaps the Papacy hoped to create a mission that would unite the various European peoples behind a common purpose and distract from the Investiture Controversy. Perhaps the Papacy thought this would be a good time to show its strength following the East-West Schism. Perhaps the Byzantine Empire was floundering under Turkish invasions and the Papacy decided to answer a request for help in the hopes of reuniting the two churches. Perhaps it was for all of these reasons. But it also seems likely it was due to a change of control within the Islamic World itself.

Detail of a medieval miniature of the Siege of Antioch from Sébastien Mamerot's Les Passages d'Outremer

During the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, Jews, Christians and Muslims living in or traveling to the Holy Land got along fairly well. Those Caliphates recognized the booming business in welcoming pilgrimages to Jerusalem no matter the pilgrims' religious affiliations. But by the 11^th Century CE, the Abbasid Dynasty was weakening and Seljuk Turks moved into Jerusalem, along with the rest of the Middle East, to "safeguard" the Caliphate. These new "guardians" made it very difficult for Christians from Europe to visit the Holy Land.

But the most significant effect of the Crusades was how it paved the way for Europe's future as a dominant world presence in the centuries to come. But more on this in the upcoming lessons and units. Let's return to post-Crusades Europe for one last point before ending the lesson. [Side note: Here comes some irony!]

Catholic priest Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE) burst onto the philosophy/theology playing field during the time period when the Crusades were finally winding down. Beginning around 1265 CE, he started writing his famous Summa Theologiae—an instructional guide for theology students. He died before completing it—but so important was his life and work to the Catholic Church that within fifty years of his death, the Church canonized him (declared him a saint). [Now for the ironic part.] Aquinas's most famous work, Summa Theologiae, was his argument as to the existence of God along with an explanation of the Christian faith. To make his case, Aquinas cited a number of fellow philosophers/theologians as a means of proving his point—both about God and Christianity and that religion and reason could coexist. These philosophers/theologians included:

Greek philosopher Aristotle
Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd
Jewish philosopher Maimonides

[If you aren't seeing the irony - Consider this: Just a few hundred years earlier, the Roman Catholic Church condemned the Eastern Orthodox Church for being "Greek." And at the time of Aquinas's writing, the Roman Catholic Church was still leading sporadic crusades on the Muslims controlling the Holy Land and to whom Ibn Rushd had been a celebrated member of the Muslim community (or ulama) less than a hundred years before. Lastly, during the crusades, Christian marauders were very violent towards Jews, within both the Holy Land and Europe. At times this violence included the massacring of Jewish communities. And just a few decades earlier, as he was planning the 4th Crusade, Pope Innocent III signed legislation that discriminated against Jews in the workplace. It is ironic that sometimes, that which we fear (most likely due to a lack of understanding,) can be a source of great help for us. [Another Side note clearly Aquinas was more interested in proving his point with the help of some of his greatest influences than he was in toeing a ethnic line. There's a lesson in that. Especially when you remember that his Church rewarded him by declaring him a saint.].]

As you can see, the work of the celebrated Aquinas further demonstrates the complicated relationship between the world's three Abrahamic religions during the Middle Ages.

Recap Section

Watch the videos below to review what you have learned.

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.