Within the context of church history, the Eastern and Western Churches represent the two intellectual spheres found in the early churches. The Eastern Church was Greek-speaking, while the Western Church was Latin in orientation. While the overlap was not perfect, they also represent the two geographical regions into which the Roman/Byzantine Empire was divided politically, with the two governed by separate emperors, with the center at Byzantium-Constantinople.
This intellectual-political divide also provided plenty of room for mischief when theological differences between the theologians, as evidenced in their thoughts as reflected during the Arian Controversy of the 4th Cent. The theological differences are many, but christologically the East-Greek side tended to emphasize Christ's humanity ('christology from below' or 'low christology'), while the Latin-West tended to put greater weight on Christ's deity ('christology from above' or 'high christology').
These differences also gave room for ambitious bishops to play against one another in their game of pride and prestige, and especially when the church in Rome sought to impose its influence and dominance over the others. This brought out in open schism in 1056 when Pope Leo IX (1049-54) sent Cardinal Humbert, his close-friend and recently appointed archbishop of Sicily (a particular hotspot on the boundaries of influence between the two sides), to negotiate with the Patriach of Constantinople. Humbert's name may contain the same opening letters of 'humily,' and he was a world away from that Chritian virtue as a person. With calculated timing, he and his envoys arrived at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, strode through the worshipping congregation to the altar and placed on it the Pope declaration of excommunication, and walked out. The Patriarch of Constantinople could, of course, do nothing less than to excommunicate the Pope in return. This Great Schism/Eastern Schism was not to find even the beginning of healing of sorts until the 20th Cent.
©ALBERITH
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