Smoky Mountain Bible Institute
(Est. 2009) Lesson #89
Before we address the Crusades,
there was a window of relative calm in Church history between 787 (when the
last official worldwide Christian council met) and The Great Schism between
east and west in 1054. By calm, I do not
mean peaceful; I mean relatively uneventful from a church perspective. During
this time, there was much fluctuation in borders as fiefdoms rose and fell,
expanded and retreated within what was once the Roman Empire in the west and
what remained of it in the east. For example, Roman Britain went through many
changes; first the Anglo-Saxon invasion, then Christianization followed by the
Viking challenge and the rise of Wessex. For a short time, the kingdom was a
unified England, then there was a Danish and Norman conquest, followed by
Plantagenet reign and the Magna Carta in 1215. So, while quite a bit happened
as borders and cultures of the west came to be as we know them today, the
church was generally unified on a world scale; there was one Holy Catholic
Church.
So, let’s talk briefly about the
Schism, or split, between eastern and western Christianity and briefly
summarize the major doctrinal differences between eastern Christianity (which
from the point of the split is called Orthodoxy, Greek for straight or right
practice) and Catholicism of the west (which is called Roman). First, as I
mentioned two months ago, the synod of Toledo in Spain officially accepted the
“filioque” “and the Son” phrase in the Nicaean creed in 589. This was the first
seed of major disagreement between east and west. Then in 1054, Rome claimed papal supremacy and the split
became the state between east and west. This is often referred to as the
“Great Schism”. Other points of disagreement between east and west that have
developed over the years are as follows:
Doctrine East West
Marriage of
clergy yes no
Purgatory no yes
Papal
infallibility no yes
Immaculate
conception no yes
While things continued to get worse
between eastern and western Christianity, the straw that broke the veritable
camel’s back (in essence insuring that east and west would no longer be in dialogue
or even attempt to in some way reconcile their differences) was the sack of
Constantinople. In essence, the capitol of eastern Christianity in 1204 was
Constantinople, and the 4th crusade conquered and pillaged the city
of all its wealth and holy relics. While the east and west acknowledge each
other as creedal Christians they have functioned separately for the most part
for most of the last 1000 years.
Now that we have a brief sketch of
the religious and cultural context in which the crusades existed we can begin
with an introduction next month as we kick off with the first crusade in 1095.
Till next month
In Christ Pastor
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