Lecture 6: The Roman Catholic Church and the Split with the Eastern Church

hello Heroes today we continue with series two and today is lecture two which is called the Roman Catholic church and the split with the Eastern Church on Moodle you can look over the required or general readings guideline readings there's also the supplemental readings and there's the book in the movie called quovadis which is about Peter returning to Rome to face his martyrdom there are some fictitious Parts but uh books like that the fiction is kind of like a the mortar between the bricks of the uh history as the author of a book on ponus pilot

said so for the devotional when my uncle my father's only sibling first went to work at the May Clinic in Rochester min inota he resolved that he would not marry a nurse a redhead or a Catholic and my aunt theres was all three and they had the six Sons to prove it one day decades ago I was in the living room with my aunt and my second oldest cousin on that side of the family we were talking about matters of faith and I don't remember who said it first but we all agreed that having Jesus

as Lord is what it means to have to be a Christian Jesus's Lord is the earliest Creed or statement of faith and it is found in the New Testament for many years I had on my business card Romans 10:9 if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved just one little note about that card I was asked years ago what I would like to have on the back of my business card being pastor of the church and I was really

honored I never thought about it before and Romans 10:9 is what I picked because I didn't care if somebody remembered my name but I wanted a succin brief statement so someone could know how they could be become a Christian and then the Holy Spirit who would already have been at work could continue the work in various areas ultimately everyone will confess Jesus as Lord and my view is so you might as well start now listen to Philippians chapter 2 where Paul writes therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that

is above every name that that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father today's lecture will take a great deal of time to look at the Roman Catholic Church during the first thousand years or so while I realize there are various countries where the form of Catholicism can bring pressure on people I would remind you of core's Golden Rule of History to judge those people in the past with the same

understanding by which you hope people in the future will judge you there are many reasons why I am not a Roman Catholic I do believe in one universal church with the capital c through time and around the world but that is a spiritual matter with many Expressions within the historic Christian faith let's first consider its Beginnings the Roman Catholic Church traces its start to Simon Peter Catholics claim that Jesus's response to Simon's confession of faith in Matthew 16:18 is the rock upon which Jesus would build his church more specifically they say it is Simon who

was the rock based on the name Jesus gave him it means Rock for instance petroleum means liquid Rock The Rock part is at the beginning Petra or Petros and the second has to do with oil the movie and book quovadis portrays in historical fiction form Peter returning to Rome where he will be killed for his faith during the first two centuries of especially many Roman Catholic Bishops or popes were martyred Roman Catholics recognize the pope as the bishop of Rome and the head of the Roman Catholic Church you can find outline lists of popes through

the centuries at Wikipedia and elsewhere Walton in chart number 13 lists 10 factors contributing to the supremacy of the bishop of Rome and here they are we've already talked about it Matthew 16:1 17-19 people claims rest on the assertion that Peter was given Authority by Jesus over the entire church this claim was first made by Pope Leo I also called the Great in the middle of the fth Century Wikipedia points out that the Byzantine emperor Theodosia II in a letter to Pope Leo I was the first to call the Bishop of Rome the patriarch of

the West number two is Apostolic succession this is the teaching that the apostles passed on their authority to their successors led to the conclusion that Peter's supreme authority had been perpetuated in the Bishops of Rome and again as I said in previous lectures any quotation well I've actually been talking about Walton here but sometimes I use Wikipedia as well but number three is the martyrdom of Peter and of Paul with the rise of the veneration of martyred Saints Rome gained Prestige as the sight of the deaths of the two principal Apostles the persecution under Nero

also gave to the Roman Church a special prominence by virtue of its suffering number four is the population of Rome both the size of the city and the size of the church contributed to the authority of the bishop number five was that it was the imper imperial capital after the Edict of Milan in ad 213 the Emperors often sought advice on on religious Matters from the Bishops of Rome number six is language the Latin speaking West led by the bishop of Rome was often able to cut through the naughty theological dilemmas that incapacitated the Greek

speaking East because of the Lesser ability of the Latin language to express subtle shades of meaning number seven is location of the five patriarchal cities only Rome was in the west thus the bishop of Rome exercised authority over much more territory than the other Patriarchs did number eight missionary Outreach the Bishops of Rome such as Gregory I encouraged successful missionary work among the Barbarian tribes who then looked to Rome with great respect the Eastern Patriarchs were much less successful in evangelizing the Persians and later the Muslims but you can see Moffet for some successes and

that will be somewhat in lecture four of Series 2 number nine were the Barbarian invasions the collapse of the Western Empire under the Barbarian invasions left the church as the the major integrating force in society in the Empire as well as among the Christian barbarians and number 10 is the Muslim Conquest the Lost of the territories of the Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria and Jerusalem to Islam and the continual pressure exerted against Constantinople also increased the authority of the Roman Bishop but again seof at for Christianity going deep into Asia perhaps because of the persecution in

the early years the Roman Catholic Church developed a hierarchical structure in response to Outer pressure it became rather rigid in structure this would lead to various problems that would eventually lead to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century and to Vatican 2 in the 20th century in the 1960s that led to Major reforms some good and some not welcome by all Roman Catholics this structure also included male priests along the Old Testament model it also led to a view of the Old Testament God as angry and distant people increasingly had difficulty relating to a god

like that so an unexpected result occurred namely the veneration of Mary everybody can relate to a mother right but in my opinion Roman Catholics and others have carried their admiration of Mary too far I try to stay balanced by the Bible I neither minimize the reporting on Mary nor do I add things about Mary that are not in the Bible she is talked about in the gospels in Acts one she and Joseph clearly had children in addition to Jesus who only Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit the veneration is taken to the extreme of

saying that Mary herself was immaculately conceived the veneration comes from a misunderstanding of the phrase from the angel to Mary Hail Mary full of grace the hail part heart is just hello Mary or greetings Mary but Grace is getting what you don't deserve God chose Mary he showed her grace she is not full of grace of her own but full of grace that is a gift from God as Ephesians 2 tells us Mary is humble and obedient which are great traits to have but with the help of the holy spirit all Christians are to be

humble and obedient to God's call on their lives again I don't agree with the teaching of the veneration of Mary but it helps me to understand why and how this situation developed in 476 we see the fall of Rome and we witness a major change in the papacy in 476 the Germanic Barbarian King Odo aser deposed the last emperor of the Roman Empire in Italy ramulus augustulus interestingly ramulus was the twin brother of Reis and Rome is named for ramulus a mythological person where there's no evidence of his having been alive and then the augustulus

carries the name of the first emperor of Rome so ramulus augustulus and the Senate sent the Imperial Insignia to the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno while eventually the conquerors were conquered by King Jesus the power of Rome and the pope declined Pope Gregory the Great would help with the transition from the papacy of being part of the Roman Empire to the centuries of the Middle Ages according to the wal chart number 21 Gregory the Great lived from a540 until 604 his representative writings were Magna moralia and his dialogues he was born into an aristocratic family and

eventually entered a Benedictine Monastery he was the first monk to become the bishop of Rome he asserted the authority of the bishop of Rome over the entire western church he constructed popular theology that influenced the medieval church he protected Rome against the Lombards who conquered much of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774 according to Wikipedia he stimulated missionary efforts in England when it comes to Mission work by the Roman Catholic Church Augustine of Canterbury was a missionary around 8600 to the Engles and Saxons and what is today England as you might know the Archbishop

of Canterbury has been the head of the Anglican or English church since the 16th century Mission work was done among the Goths during 240 by illus who was Arian in his beliefs and around 7 20 by bonfice with the ruler being winfrith the pixs had ninan as a missionary around 400 Walton distinguishes between the pxs and the Scots by saying Columba was a missionary to the Scots around 563 and that both of those groups are in the northern part of the main island of what has come to be called Great Britain around 496 Clovis was

a missionary to the Franks whom we know as the French in 690 will abor took the gospel to the frisians who were an ethnic group indigenous to the coastal regions of the Netherlands Northwestern Germany and Southern Denmark according to Wikipedia and when it comes to missions I would like to focus on Ireland I admit I am biased my last name is Irish and my great-grandfather William core came to the United States in the late 19th century and here I am Ireland is a place that received missionary work and I also like this eventually sent missionaries

to parts of Europe do you know the true story of Patrick who became a mission AR to the Emerald Isle while the Irish or gelic pronunciation of his name was Padre he went by the Latin version of petrius there are many Legends and myths about him one is that he drove all the snakes off the island of Ireland the truth is there never were snakes in Ireland but as is often the case in most people's lives in the case of Patrick truth is Stranger Than Fiction one day he was minding his own business shepherding his

sheep in Southern England when Irish Pirates kidnapped and enslaved him taking him to Ireland eventually Patrick escaped back home but God called him back to be a missionary to the land where he had been enslaved this reminds me of a friend of my wife's who was the granddaughter of a man who fled Armenian persec ution by the Turks a little over 100 years ago as you can understand she did not have a positive view of Turkish people but God worked on her heart until she and her husband went to Turkey he made wheelchairs for handicapped

children and adults while she had birthday parties for children who had either mental or physical problems in Turkey most people have the wrongheaded notion that such children are cursed by God but my wife's friend had birthday parties and who won't go to a birthday party so neighborhood children were invited to birthday parties and their mothers brought them and this Armenian American would sing The Lord's Prayer to the Muslim mothers they didn't care about the statement of faith by Islam God neither begets nor has he begotten it touched their hearts that God was a father who

cared about them they asked her to sing it again because they love that reality now this friend of my wife's was not killed by persecution she regrettably died of a medical condition but returning to Patrick he gradually brought Irish people to the Christian faith he also wrote a poem in Gaelic the Irish language called the breastplate of Patrick while some sections have Roman Catholic overtones many of the sections engage in glorious worship of God and here are a few of the verses Patrick writes I bind myself today the strong power of the invocation of the

Trinity the faith of the trinity in the unity the creator of the elements this is one of my favorites the first part Christ with me Christ before me Christ behind me Christ Within Me Christ beneath me Christ above me Christ at my right Christ at my left and then Christ in the fort Christ in The Chariot seat Christ in the mighty stern of a ship here's another verse Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me Christ in the eye of every man

that sees me Christ in the ear of every man that hears me and he concludes with salvation is the Lord's salvation is the Lord's salvation is Christ's May thy salvation Lord be always with us amen not only did Patrick bring an island of people to Christ eventually Ireland started to send mission iies to Europe and that main training ground and sending ground is in a place called Glenda many years ago I enjoyed visiting Ireland the emerald aisle where my great-grandfather had come and where other relatives were still there they didn't live in Glenda no one

lives there anymore but Glenda was so beautiful it is Irish for Two Lakes here is an image of the Glenn and the lake and now here is a picture of some of the buildings in these buildings Irishmen studied and were sent to Europe when I studied in Vienna Austria the oldest church in that city was across the street called St Rupert's Church the building is Romanesque meaning influenced by Roman architecture in design but it is believed that an Irish missionary traveled East from salsburg and founded that church between 7:26 and 829 with the earliest documentation

being 12200 and at that same time as well I was the first person to do by correspondence the perspectives course that you might want to look into on the history of missions and the church okay here we go with the Middle Ages the papacy here is more about Gregory the Great about whom I spoke earlier he was a Roman Senator son and himself was the prefect or a leader of Rome at 30 Gregory lived in a Benedictine Monastery that he established on his family State before becoming a Papal Ambassador and then pope before becoming Pope

he challenged the theological views of patriarch uus of Constantinople in a previous letter I made brief reference to uian ISM before the emperor Tiberius II although he was the first pope from a monastic background his prior political experiences may have helped him to be a talented administrator during his papacy his administration greatly surpassed that of the Emperors in improving the welfare of the people of Rome Gregory regained papal Authority in Spain and France and sent missionaries to England including Augustine of kevber and penus of York the realignment of Barbarian Allegiance to Rome from their Aryan

Christian alliances shaped medieval Europe Gregory saw Franks Lombards and Viagas allying with Rome in their religion he also combed the donatus heresy uh which continued to be popular in North Africa at the time and as I mentioned when I shared about Augustine there were many things about the donatus controversy that would just make them charismatic or Pentecostals today throughout the Middle Ages he was known as the father of Christian worship because of his exceptional efforts in revising the Roman worship of his day his contri contributions to the development of the Divine Liturgy of the pre-

Sanctified gifts is still used in the Byzantine right they were so significant that he is generally recognized as the author Gregory is one of the Latin fathers or called a doctor of the church he is considered a saint in the Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church the Anglican communion and various Lutheran denominations and other Protestant denominations immediately after his death Gregory was canonized by popular Acclaim the Protestant reformer John Calvin admired Gregory greatly and declared in his institutes that Gregory was the last good Pope he that is Gregory is the patron saint of musicians and teachers

according to Wikipedia very few people in church history have been appreciated by such a wide group of church organizations there were many interesting people before and after Gregory there were many popes before and after Gregory but in the next lecture among other things I will contrast Pope Innocent III and Francis of aisi along with the Scholastic teachers at the height of the Middle Ages now let's take a look at the monastery specifically with Benedict and the benedictines Benedict's influence was so great that 16 popes took his name including Benedict 16th in the 21st century here's

how Wikipedia summarizes Benedict's life and influence Benedict of nura it was lived from 480 to 547 and he is often known as St Benedict Was an Italian Catholic monk he is famed in the Catholic Church the Eastern Orthodox Church the Lutheran Churches the anglian communion and old Catholic churches in 1964 Pope Paul v 6 declared Benedict a patron saint of the entire continent of Europe benedic founded 12 communities for Monks at subo in present day laio Italy that's about 40 miles east of Rome before moving further Southeast to mon to casino where a major battle

took place in World War II and it was around that Monastery that the battle took place in the mountains of central Italy which are the appenines the present day order of St Benedict emerged later and moreover is not an order as the term is commonly understood but a confederation of autonomous congregations Benedict's main achievement the rule of St Benedict contains a set of rules for his monks to follow heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian 360 to 435 it shows strong Affinity with the earlier rule of the master but it also has a unique

Spirit of balance moderation and reasonableness which persuaded most Christian communities founded throughout the Middle Ages they adopted it regardless of the name of their monasteries as a result Benedict's rule became one of the most influential religious rules in Western christom for this reason jeppi caretti regarded Benedict as the founder of Western Christian monasticism now I turn to part two which has to do with the split between the Western and the Eastern Church any split is regrettable some splits are sadly necessary uh but the official date of the split is 1,54 though reconciliations were attempted in

1274 and 1453 the split is best known for the procession controversy known as philio whether the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the father or from the father and the son and I will return to that a couple times in this lecture but Walton shows that there were many primary causes for the East West Schism of a54 in that year 1054 there was a political rivalry between the Byzantine Empire and the east and the Holy Roman Church in the west there were the claims of the papacy and the Eastern Church the patriarch of Constantinople was considered

second in Primacy to the bishop of Rome in the western church the bishop of Rome claimed Supremacy over the entire church there was theological development the Eastern Church stagnated after calion Caledon while the western church continued to change and grow by means of of controversies and expansion iconoclastic con controversy icon means image the Eastern Church engaged in a 123e dispute of over the icons in worship the church finally concluded they could be used by but statute statues were prohibited the Eastern Church made constant attempts to interfere in what was purely uh and the western church

made attempts to interfere with what was an Eastern dispute while allowing statues and you would have disputes over statues during the Reformation with some Churches not allowing statues of any kind most Protestant churches do not have Christ on the cross for instance Lutheran churches do have statues some reformed uh churches do not have statues of any kind and other Protestant churches do not so there was the iconoclastic having to do with icon image there was the differences in language and culture the Eastern Church was focused on the Greek language and was Oriental which equals Eastern

in orientation the western church was based on the Latin language and was accidental which equals Western in orientation and then there was clerical celibacy in the Eastern Church the lower level of clergymen were permitted to Mary while in the western church all clergy were required to be celibate and that change occurred again also with the Reformation Martin Luther got married uh he had been in Augustin Monk and eventually one of his breaks was to get married there were also outside pressures Muslims constricted and put continual pressure on the Eastern Church in the west though by

contrast the so-called barbarians were christianized and assimilated by the western church did I tell you before where we get the word barbarian from it is actually from the Greek uh if anyone spoke something other than Greek and this showed how focused they were on being Greek they said well it sounds like they're just saying barbar barbar so the word became for a non-greek speaker Barbarian or Barbarian as we say it and another reason was the mutual excommunication of 1054 Michael sarius of um was the Eastern leader he anath anathematized Pope Leo the9th after having been

excommunicated by him the year 1054 brings us back to the filio Clause Olen in his book notes like Walton that by the end of the 8th century and beginning of the 9th the two halves of Christendom had developed their own ecclesiastical and theological cultures to such an extent the true communication and understanding between them was almost impossible on Christmas Day 800 a pope crowned the Frankish King Charles the great Charlemagne Emperor of the new revived Holy Roman Empire the Byzantine emperor was dismayed to say the least that was almost three centuries before but olssen continues

that perhaps the immediate theological causes of the Schism could have been overcome were it not for the deeper differences of culture politics and mindsets between East and West both sides however attribute the ultimate Schism in which each one excommunicated the other to two major controversies papal Authority and filio the filio clause olon points out that the 381 Nino constantinopolitan Creed of 381 did not contain the phrase and the sun namely filio the line in question says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father parentheses and the son also also notes that the phrase and the Sun

is an English translation of the Latin filio and appears in almost all Western versions it is not known how that phrase got there mark null writes that Tangled political ecclesiastical Strife precipitated the crisis traditionally events from 1054 have been called the great schism between the Orthodox and Catholic churches but in fact at least two serious efforts in succeeding centuries attempt to repair the breach in 1274 a reunion Council met in Leon France and came to an agreement on church practice and the Creed but the Orthodox in the East rejected that agreement once their delegates returned

home a century and a half later the Eastern Emperor and the Eastern patriarch both journeyed to another reunion Council this one in Florence Italy after intense debate for several months in 438 and 43439 1438 and 1439 all but one member of the large Eastern delegation accepted a formula designed to heal the Schism but once again overwhelming resistance in the Eastern churches Rose against the terms of the agreement nonetheless in what proved to be a losing battle the Eastern Emperor John VII and his successor Constantine VI 11th both continued to defend the Accord null continues that

the Turkish attack on Constantinople in April 1453 brought all Christians in the city together when emperor Constantine 11 died not only the Byzantine Empire but also the last serious effort to repair the Orthodox Catholic Schism until that is the 1960s uh which is a reference to Vatican 2 here is n's summary the great schism of 1054 represents a major turning point in Christian history because it brought to a head centuries of east west cultural disagreement theological disagreements differences and ecclesiastical suspicions it also symbolized the isolation that would attend the Eastern churches have passed that would

attend the Eastern churches have passed through cycles of Decay and renewal since the 11th century during the same period the Orthodox Church continues to be the Principal expression for a large part of the inhabited Globe yet even two decades into the 21st century Orthodoxy remains mostly separated from currents affecting other Christians whether Catholic Protestant or indigenous nonwestern [Music] churches NL continues to put the events of 1054 in perspective it will help to note the circumstances and events that led to that divide Fuller attention to the meaning of the great schism must however also include at

least brief treatment of the Crusades Ventures from the West that sealed the Schism and I will have more to say about them in the next lecture it should also note the entrance of Orthodox into Russia by way of the missionary sirel from Greece and that's why the written language is called Celiac from siril who gave them the written language Russia became the leading center of the Orthodox Faith after the Islamic conquest of Constantinople when I was attending Fuller for my PhD there was a man who taught New Testament Greek his first name was Sam he

taught an inductive version of New Testament Greek some days I would see him wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts other times he had a clerical colar and I kind of wondered about this but somebody told me that he had gone from being from one of the churches maybe Calvary Chapel in Southern California to being Orthodox and one day I asked Sam so which version of Orthodox are you and he looked startled and he said well Antioch and of course and that would be historically the first Orthodox location and then as far as Philly oay goes

for a while for a denomination I'm involved with I would read the papers of individuals who wanted to be ordained or be licensed what have you and I read the very well-written paper for someone who wanted to become a licensed pastor and when I got together with him in person to discuss his paper I said so you don't believe in the filio clause in other words you believe the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the father he was delighted that I had read the paper that closely and so uh our friendship deepened even more and it

you know really doesn't [Music] matter if it's one or two persons in the Trinity I do hold to the philio Claus myself but um the denomination with my noting that welcomed him into their fellowship and I'd like to share with you a little bit about my time when I visited the Vatican when I was in college you walk in you see the Obelisk which I believe is from Egypt there's the large it's called a square but it's more of a semicircle and then a second semicircle where people fled in for different reasons to see the

pope up on the balcony but what I want to tell you was you know how many things that I've heard of and haven't heard of that are at the Vatican and I'll get to that in a second but when I walked into the Basilica of St Peter it's the first time like I felt like I was Outdoors when I was indoors because it went so high and let the light in and there to my right was the pi the original of Mary holding Jesus after he was taken down from the cross and then I went

to the cinee chapel and the famous mural that shows God's finger reaching out or Adam's finger reaching out to God in the creation scene uh that part of it or maybe the animating Holy Spirit whatever that stands for it was covered with scaffolding so I look to my right and there is this amazing painting by Michelangelo behind the altar it's called the last judgment with Jesus judging the Damned who are falling down and the saved are rising to Heaven they're rising out of the Grave I bought a uh poster of that and I framed it

and I had it for many years but then eventually it deteriorated as all things do which Jesus tells us about but that's a little bit about my experience with some Roman Catholic architecture and Peter is said to be buried uh below the altar as are many other popes but uh we're moving on I look forward to seeing you in the next lecture uh have a great week my heroes