ABSTRACT
Almost any history of Christianity with a chapter about the separation of East from West tells some version of the following story. On 16July 1054 at eight o’clock in the morning, Cardinal Humbert, a legate from Pope Leo IX, walked into the Hagia Sophia basilica in Constantinople during the Eucharist celebration and plopped a document on the altar. He then spun around and walked out, stopping at the door to literally wipe the dust off his sandals and to announce, “Videat Deus et judicet!” – “Let God look and judge!” The document was a papal bull (an official written edict, as in “bulletin”) which chronicled many errors those in the East had fallen into, and it excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius. After a swiftly aborted attempt at resolving the
East and West were becoming strangers to one another, and
this was something from which both were likely to suffer. In the
early Church there had been unity in the faith, but a diversity of
theological schools. From the start Greeks and Latins had each
approached the Christian Mystery in their own way. At the risk
of some oversimplification, it can be said that the Latin approach
was more practical, the Greek more speculative; Latin thought was
influenced by juridical ideas, by the concepts of Roman law, while
the Greeks understood theology in the context of worship and
in the light of the Holy Liturgy. When thinking about the Trinity,
Latins started with the unity of the Godhead, Greeks with the
threeness of persons; when reflecting on the Crucifixion, Latins
thought primarily of Christ the Victim, Greeks of Christ the Victor;
Latins talked more of redemption, Greeks of deification; and so on.
