The Great Schism of 1054
Discover the Great Schism — the 1054 split between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity that divided Christendom along lines that persist today.
The Great Schism of 1054 was the formal rupture between the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East — a division that had been centuries in the making and that permanently split Christendom along cultural, theological, and political lines that persist to this day.
The roots of the schism lay in the divergent development of the western and eastern halves of the old Roman Empire. As the West fragmented into competing kingdoms, the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) emerged as both spiritual leader and political power broker, claiming supreme authority over all Christians. The Eastern Church, centered in Constantinople, never accepted papal supremacy, insisting on a more collegiate model in which the five major patriarchs shared authority.
Theological disputes sharpened the divide, particularly the filioque controversy — the Western Church's addition of the phrase "and from the Son" to the Nicene Creed without Eastern consent. In 1054, papal legates excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople, who excommunicated them in return. Though the schism was not seen as permanent at the time, subsequent events — particularly the sack of Constantinople by Western Crusaders in 1204 — made reconciliation impossible. The division shaped the cultural identity of entire nations: Western Europe became Catholic, while Eastern Europe and Russia became Orthodox.