The Orthodox Eastern Church/Chapter 4

by Adrian Henry Timothy Knottesford Fortescue

 

PART II

THE SCHISM

 

 

We are accustomed to speak of the "Photian" schism, and to look upon Photius as its originator. This conception is not an unjust one. Photius was, far more than any other one man, responsible for the schism; he is the Luther of the Orthodox Church,^[1] and, if one would attach the whole story to one name, there is no doubt that it should be his. At the same time, the movement is not contained in the story of Photius's life. We have seen that there had been many such schisms before his time (p. 96), and the quarrel that he caused was soon patched up, if not very heartily, and did not finally break out again till about 150 years after his death. Even then a reunion was arranged on two later occasions by the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439), although each time it came to nothing. Nevertheless the schismatical Eastern Church has always looked upon Photius (he is St. Photius to her) as the champion of her cause against Rome, and we too consider him not wrongly as the father of their schism. This part will naturally fall into two chapters, describing the first schism under Photius and the second under Michael Cerularius.

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

THE SCHISM OF PHOTIUS

 

1. The Patriarch Ignatius (846–857).

 

In 846 Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, died. At that time all the Orthodox Eastern Churches were in full communion with Rome. The Iconoclast troubles were just over. They had broken out again after the seventh general council (Nicænum II, 787) under the Iconoclast Emperor Leo V (the Armenian, 813–820), but at last Theodora, widow of the Emperor Theophilus (829–842) and Regent for her son, Michael III (842–867), had recalled the holy images on the first "Feast of Orthodoxy" (February 19, 842), and the Church of Constantinople had finally returned to communion with Rome. Throughout the Iconoclast persecution the Popes had steadily defended the images. We have seen how the image-worshippers in the East had appealed to the faith of Rome and to the authority of the Pope (St. Theodore of Studium, pp. 65–66). Methodius had been one of the champions of the same cause; he had formerly taken refuge in Rome during the persecution, and he was a friend of Pope Nicholas I (858–867), as well as a devout client of St. Peter and a defender of the rights of his see.^[2] Now he was dead and the clergy of Constantinople met to choose his successor. By the advice of the Empress Theodora, but also by a free, canonical, and unanimous election, they chose the Hegoumenos (Abbot) of the monastery of Satyrus, Ignatius.

Ignatius was the youngest son of the Emperor Michael I (811–813) and his wife Procopia. When Michael I was deposed by Leo V he and his children were shut up in a monastery. The youngest son, then called Nicetas, became a monk when he was only fourteen years old, and took the name Ignatius. The usurper, by shutting up his rival's family in a monastery, meant to put an end to their career in the world. But then, as now, the road to high places in the Eastern Church led through the Lauras. At the Laura of Satyrus Ignatius gradually became the most important member of the community. He received Holy Orders, and was elected Hegoumenos. The next change was to the highest place in Eastern Christendom. The Empress sent an embassy to Pope Leo IV (847–855) to announce the appointment of the new Patriarch, as was the custom, and she in her message insisted on the free election by which he had been chosen, as also on his virtues and merits. The bishops who had elected him wrote to the same effect.^[3] The Roman See therefore acknowledged Ignatius as Patriarch; that it would not change nor cease to do so was the cause of the schism. But no one disputes that Ignatius was canonically elected and was rightful Patriarch, at any rate for the first eleven years. The Orthodox Church always counts him as one in her lists. The question at issue was rather the right of the Government to depose him. Ignatius from the beginning had some enemies. The head of the opposition was Gregory Asbestas, Metropolitan of Syracuse in Sicily.^[4] Probably because of the Arab invasion of his island this Gregory was living at Constantinople. It is not easy to find out how his quarrel with Ignatius began. Perhaps it was only about some political question; perhaps Gregory, the friend and countryman of Methodius, had hoped to succeed him himself. There is one account by which his ordination was supposed to be irregular, and while his cause was being examined he presented himself, with the other bishops, at Ignatius's consecration. Ignatius then told him to stand back, and not to show himself until his own affairs were set to rights. Some of the reasons given are quite absurd.^[5] Whatever the cause may have been, Gregory and two other bishops who had taken his side organized an opposition to the Patriarch, and continually tried to work up the Court and the people against him. Ignatius had several times summoned them to a synod to be tried, when at last, in 854, he excommunicated them for insubordination and schism. Gregory Asbestas and his friends would not have been able to do much harm to the Patriarch had not the Government at the same time fallen foul of him.

The Court was then in an indescribable state of corruption. Theodora retired from public affairs in 856. Her son, Michael III, was still very young, and so her brother Bardas became a sort of regent with the title Cæsar. Michael was as vicious a young man as any that reigned at Constantinople, and to him the Imperial throne was just a means for enjoying himself. It is said that Bardas encouraged him so as to keep all the power in his own hands. Most of the Emperors had a surname given to them. This one has gone down to history as Michael the Drunkard (μεθυστής). Bardas was no better. His chief offence was that he put away his lawful wife and lived in open and shameless incest with his daughter-in-law, Eudokia. Ignatius then did what every bishop would be bound to do. He had already borne much from the Court. The drunken boy who stood at its head had found a suitable way of diverting himself by laughing at his religion. He had appointed a clown from the circus to be "his Patriarch." Dressed up in a caricature of bishop's vestments this man used to hold mock services, mimicking Ignatius, amid the shouts of laughter of Michael, his mistresses, and his companions. Ignatius had protested to no purpose, but this incest of the Cæsar could not be passed over. It was a notorious scandal throughout the Empire. Again he warned him, and commanded him to put away Eudokia. Bardas took no notice, and then, while still in this state of sin, he came with the rest of the Court to receive Holy Communion on the Epiphany in 857. The Patriarch refused it to him. That was his treason and offence. Michael was furious at the insult offered to his uncle, but Ignatius stood firm. A man who continued to live in public sin could not receive Holy Communion. Then came the affair of Theodora. Michael and Bardas thought they could get her out of the way by making her a nun, so they wanted the Patriarch to cut off her hair and put her into a nunnery. This, too, he refused to do as long as she herself was unwilling. The Emperor and the Cæsar then determine to get rid of Ignatius. They join forces with the party of Gregory Asbestas, condemn Ignatius to be deposed and exiled as a traitor. On November 23, 857, he is dragged off to the island Terebinth. The last thing he did before going into exile was to forbid his clergy to say the liturgy or to perform any rites in the cathedral till he came back. He put the great church under an interdict.^[6] Michael and Bardas, having got rid of the lawful Patriarch, now look around for some more complaisant person to intrude into his see. They found the very man they wanted in Photius.

 

2. Photius.

Photius (Φώτιος) was one of the most wonderful men of all the middle ages. Had he not given his name to the great schism, he would always be remembered as the greatest scholar of his time, and as, in every way, the greatest man in the Byzantine Church. Since St. John Damascene († 744) no Eastern Church has produced any one who could be compared to Photius. He was born about 827; his father's name was Sergius. In after years his enemies had many stories to tell about his birth. The mother, they said, was an escaped nun; many holy bishops and confessors had foretold such horrible things of his future that Sergius determined to kill him and the mother at once; only they said, "You cannot prevent what God has ordained." Others, apparently with a rather confused recollection of the book of Genesis, compared his mother to Eve bringing forth the serpent.^[7] All these stories are, of course, the calumnies of his enemies. There is no evidence that he was illegitimate. It is true that he was afterwards continually called a bastard, just as he was called a parricide, adulterer and murderer, but these are only the amenities of theological controversy. All that we know of his kin is that they were a great and lordly house, who had been distinguished for orthodoxy and had even suffered persecution in Iconoclast days. Photius was some relation of the Patriarch Tarasius (784–806), in whose time the seventh general council had been held (p. 80). He had had no intention of receiving Holy Orders: his career was to be that of a rhetorician and statesman. We know nothing about his teachers; but very soon he began to develop his extraordinary talent. All his contemporaries speak of his astounding memory and untiring power of work. He sat up for long nights reading, and he had read everything. So great an impression did he make on his pupils that they told stories of a contract made by him with the Devil—he had sold his soul for knowledge.^[8] He was a sort of universal genius, philosopher, philologist, theologian, lawyer, mathematician, natural scientist, orator, poet. His extant works fill five volumes of Migne;^[9] Hergenröther has published a collection of addenda.^[10] His most important work is the Myriobiblion ("Thousand Books," the Bibliotheca Photii). It is an incomplete list of books he had read (only 280 out of 1,000), with descriptions of their contents, often long quotations and critical notes about their authors. All kinds of books on philosophy, rhetoric, history, grammar, medicine, &c., are quoted without any order. The Myriobiblion is the only harbour in which a number of Greek classics have been saved from oblivion. His Amphilochia is a collection of 326 theological essays, also put together without any order in the form of question and answer, and addressed to Amphilochius, Metropolitan of Cycicus, one of Photius's numerous pupils. Then there are a number of canonical works and controversy written in after years against the Latins and various heretics, commentaries on parts of the Bible, a Lexicon of Classical and Biblical Greek words that were no longer understood in the 9th century, sermons, and a large collection of letters.

Photius was then already a very famous man when the Patriarch Ignatius was sent into exile. He was closely connected with the Court. His brother Sergius had married Irene, the sister of Bardas and aunt of the Emperor. He himself held two important offices: he was Secretary of State (πρωτοσηκρῆτις and Captain of the Life Guard (πρωτοσπαθάριος). He was unmarried, so there would be no difficulty about that, and he was already an eager partisan of Gregory Asbestas and of the opposition to Ignatius, Under these circumstances Michael III and Bardas offered him the See of Constantinople, which they pretended was vacant, and he accepted it. In six days he hurriedly received all the orders,^[11] and on Christmas Day, 857, Gregory, although himself suspended and excommunicate, consecrated him Patriarch. We should notice at once that this iniquitous proceeding would be much less of a shock to the people of Constantinople than it is to us. They were accustomed to see all kinds of depositions, and they usually quietly accepted what had happened without troubling about injured rights. Emperors were continually deposed and then murdered, or blinded, or shut up in a monastery by a usurper, and no one took any pains to distinguish between the sovereigns de iure and de facto. So also the Government, especially since the schism, when there is no Pope to interfere, has deposed and exiled patriarchs and set up intruders in their see over and over again. The Sultans in later years have never ceased doing so down to our own time, and the Orthodox historians print the names of all these bishops one after another, just as they de facto held the see.

Nevertheless Photius and the Court were very anxious to get Ignatius to resign. In case he would not do so they already foresaw trouble with Rome. So they sent messengers to persuade him to sign a document of resignation. His bishops had already promised to stand by him, and he now and to the end of his life steadfastly refused to give up his right.^[12] Soon afterwards the bishops who remained true to him met and declared Photius, the intruded anti-patriarch, and all his followers to be excommunicate. Photius answered by pronouncing the same sentence on Ignatius and on his followers. The Government then began to persecute the Ignatian bishops. Metrophanes of Smyrna, their leader, was shut up in a dungeon, others were sent into exile, imprisoned, tortured. But the worst part fell upon Ignatius himself. He was taken to Mitylene, chained in a prison without enough food, and beaten in the face till his teeth were knocked out,^[13] to make him resign. But Photius himself wrote to Bardas to protest against the way his opponents were treated.^[14] On the other hand he evicted a number of Ignatian bishops^[15] and intruded his own friends into their sees. Both the Emperor and Photius then write to the Pope to persuade him that everything is in order.

Fortunately, when this great crisis between the two halves of Christendom at last came, the Roman See was occupied by one of the very greatest of the Popes. Nicholas I (858–867) stands out as the champion of the Catholic side, as much as Photius was of the Byzantine Church that he was about to drag into schism. Nicholas was the greatest Pope between Gregory the Great (590–604) and Gregory VII (1073–1085). It was a very bad time in the West. After the death of Lewis the Pious (successor of Charles the Great, 814–840) the treaty of Verdun (843) divided his lands between his three sons, Lothar the Emperor, Lewis the German, and Charles the Bald. There were wars against Slavs and Normans, the Carling kings fought amongst themselves, other pretenders were set up; then came the Magyars. In all this time of violence and disorder one great figure stands out, that of Nicholas I. Like Gregory I, he was a Roman of one of the great houses, and like Gregory he showed the instinct of his Roman blood as a statesman and organizer. The claim of Photius was only one of many affairs he had to settle. At the same time he was bringing a rebellious Archbishop of his own Patriarchate, John of Ravenna, to his knees, he was standing out sternly for the sacredness of marriage in the affair of Lothar II's divorce, he was defending the suffragans of the province of Rheims against the tyranny of their Metropolitan,^[16] and the freedom of the Church against Charles the Bald. In the century that followed Nicholas I, the Roman See sank to the lowest depth she ever reached; far worse than the Borgias and Medicis of the Renaissance were the horrible Stephens and Johns of the 10th century. A contemporary writer says of St. Nicholas I (he is a canonized Saint): "Since the time of Blessed Gregory (the Great) no one who has been raised to the Papal dignity can be compared to him. He commanded kings and tyrants as if he were the lord of the world. To good bishops and priests, to pious laymen, he was kind, humble, gentle and meek, to evil-doers he was terrible and stern. People say rightly that God raised up in him a second Elias."^[17]

It was to this Pope that Photius appealed to get his place confirmed. He begins his letter: "To the most holy and venerable brother and fellow-bishop, Nicholas, Pope of Old Rome, Photius, Bishop of Constantinople, New Rome." It is significant that neither he nor any of his predecessors ever called themselves Œcumenical Patriarch when writing to a Pope. The letter is very humble and very deceitful. He says that his predecessor had resigned his office, and that then he, Photius, had been unwillingly forced to succeed him by all the metropolitans, bishops, and clergy of Constantinople; there is a great deal about the tears he shed when he was forced to accept this dignity, he adds an elaborate and very orthodox profession of his faith and begs for the Pope's prayers.^[18] The Emperor's letter (probably composed by Photius^[19]) was to do the business really. They wanted legates to confirm the deposition of Ignatius and to acknowledge Photius; then everything would be safe. Michael asks for the legates, but says very little about the real question at issue. He represents that there are still some effects of the Iconoclast trouble at Constantinople, which could best be put in order by a synod; will the Pope then send legates to this synod with full powers to deal with all disorders? Incidentally he mentions that the former Patriarch Ignatius has resigned because of his great age and weak health, he has retired to a very comfortable life in one of the monasteries founded by himself; unfortunately he had been guilty of various offences, such as forsaking his diocese, disobeying Papal decrees and being mixed up in treasonable conspiracies, for which his successor had been compelled to excommunicate him. This and all other matters the legates will be able to arrange when they come.^[20] The letter is much too clever to be the Drunkard's own composition.

The Pope in answer sends two legates with letters^[21] and instructions not to pass any sentence as yet, but to examine the claims of either side and to report. They were Rodoald, Bishop of the Portus Tiberis (Porto), and Zacharias, Bishop of Anagnia (Anagni). These two persons were the worst ambassadors ever sent by the Holy See to any place. Like other of their countrymen on other occasions, they arrived, their hands outstretched, their palms itching for bribes. Already on the way, at Rhœdestus on the Propontis, they are met by envoys from Photius who bring them costly gifts and especially beautiful clothes. When they arrive they are carefully kept from seeing any of Ignatius's friends; they hear all sorts of calumnies against him, and threats of what will happen to themselves if they disappoint the Emperor; meanwhile more presents come pouring in. The two bishops then throw overboard their honour and their loyalty to their Patriarch, and promise to do just as Michael and Photius wish. In May, 861, the synod meets in the Hagia Sophia; Michael and Bardas are present with a number of their courtiers and a splendid retinue. Ignatius presents himself in his patriarchal robes, but outside the Church a messenger from the Emperor meets him and forces him to take them off, and to appear only in his monk's habit, treating him as if already condemned and deposed before the trial begins. The most disgraceful part of the whole proceeding was that Photius, the plaintiff in the case, sat among the judges. Ignatius is then made to leave all his friends outside and to appear alone. He turns to the Legates and asks them what they are doing there. "We are the vicars of the Roman Pope Nicholas," they say, "and we have been sent to judge your case." Ignatius answers that he asks nothing better than to be judged by the Pope; "but," he says, "first dismiss that adulterer there,^[22] otherwise you are not judges." All the Legates have to answer is, pointing to Michael, "He wishes it to be so."^[23] Ignatius quotes the case of St. John Chrysostom's appeal to Innocent I to show that he cannot yet be deposed. When a bishop, he says, appeals to the Pope he cannot be sentenced before the decision has come from Rome. He also quotes the 4th Canon of Sardica (pp. 68, 69) to the same effect. Finally, with a dignified protest against this mockery of a trial, he formally appeals from these miserable and corrupt Legates to the Pope himself. But the synod pronounces sentence on him all the same. They dress him up in a set of vestments, then the Sub-deacon Procopius (whom he in former days had suspended for immorality) solemnly takes them off and every one, Legates and all, cries out the old formula: "Ignatius unworthy!"^[24] The Legates sign the acts of the synod, deposing Ignatius and acknowledging Photius; then they go back home, laden with still more gifts.^[25] The council had drawn up some other decrees, against Iconoclasm, &c., as a sort of blind, and for a time the Byzantines tried to get it recognized as an œcumenical synod, an attempt which came to nothing.^[26] Here, too, the fatal incapacity of Greeks and Latins to understand one another confused the issue. The Pope had written in Latin and they had translated his letter quite wrongly: the Legates in this case were probably in good faith because they could not follow the Greek version. Anastasius Bibliothecarius, the contemporary chronicler of all this story, says: "The Roman Legates could not understand what was being read."^[27] The Pope thought that the Greeks had mistranslated his letter on purpose. He says: "Among the Greeks such an impertinence is common, as various writings at different times show." And again he quotes another letter of Adrian I that was kept in the Archive at Constantinople, and then adds: "unless it has been tampered with after the manner of the Greeks."^[28] The Emperor sent his Secretary of State, Leo, to Rome immediately after the Legates with two more letters for the Pope, one from himself and one from Photius. He encloses the acts of the synod, which he praises as a most holy and blessed assembly, worthy to be compared with the first of Nicæa. He says that it has deposed Ignatius according to the holy Canons and has, together with the Legates, acknowledged Photius. He also warmly praises these Legates. Photius's letter is a very long one.^[29] He, too, misrepresents the whole business, protests his obedience to the Pope: "In order to prove our obedience to your fatherly love in all things," &c.,^[30] and greatly praises Rodoald and Zachary: "Indeed the Legates of your fatherly Holiness are men illustrious by their prudence, virtue, and manifold wisdom, who honour him who sent them by their manners as much as did the disciples of Christ."^[31] In short, he hopes that it will now be all right.

Meanwhile Ignatius also carried out his purpose of appealing directly to the Pope. He managed to send his friend the Archimandrite Theognostus^[32] to Rome with a letter beginning: "Ignatius, tyrannically deposed and much tried, and his fellow-sufferers, ten Metropolitans, fifteen Bishops, and many Archimandrites, Priests, and Monks, to our lord, the most holy and blessed Patriarch of all Sees, the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Œcumenical Popes^[33] Nicholas, and to the most holy Bishops under him^[34] and to all the most wise Church of the Romans, health in the Lord."^[35] His letter is short compared with the long rhapsody of Photius. He exposes his case and ends: "Do you also, most holy lord, show to me your lovingkindness and say with the great Paul: Who is weak and I am not weak?^[36] Remember the great Patriarchs, your predecessors, Fabian, Julius, Innocent, Leo,^[37] in short all who fought for truth against injustice, and rise up as our avenger, since we are so unworthily mishandled."

On the eve of Whitsunday a party of soldiers came to seize Ignatius; the Government wanted to cut off his right hand and blind him; but he just escaped and hid himself. Michael III went on getting drunk and cared nothing for the affairs of his Empire; he knew quite well that the wretched people, as far as they dared have a will of their own, were on the side of the rightful bishop. Nicetas David, the friend and biographer of Ignatius, has preserved some of the Emperor's jokes on the subject. "There are three Patriarchs," he said; "mine is Theophilus Gryllus (the clown), the Patriarch of the Cæsar (Bardas) is Photius, and that of the people is Ignatius."^[38] He had no respect for Photius; on one occasion he told him that he had a face like a Khazar,^[39] another time he called him "Marzuka," a cryptic name which Photius, who was much hurt by it, elaborately explains as meaning a dog who steals shoe leather.^[40]

Meanwhile what was happening in Rome? The two Legates came back with their gifts hidden away and gave as specious an account of what had happened as they could (861). Then came Leo, the Emperor's secretary, with the letters from his master and Photius. Nicholas waited a long time till he had heard the other side. At last in 862 Theognostus arrives with Ignatius's letter. Then the Pope, having examined the whole matter, decides for Ignatius. He answers the letters of Photius and Michael. To Photius, whom he again addresses only as "Vir prudentissimus," giving him no title, he refutes all his arguments, insists on the right of the Holy See, which Photius himself had completely acknowledged, and sternly commands him to give up the place he has usurped.^[41] To the Emperor he insists on the facts that he himself had entirely recognized Ignatius when he was first made Patriarch, that Ignatius had held the see in peaceful possession for twelve years, that the Legates had grossly misused their power. "We advise and command you, beloved son and most illustrious Augustus," he says, "at last to put down those who in their obstinacy are rebelling against the Bishop of the Church of Constantinople (Ignatius) … lest the honour of the Church of Christ, as well as the glory of the Imperial city, be lessened (which may God forbid) by your government."^[42] Then he wrote an Encyclical to the other patriarchs, in which he reproaches the Court and Photius for these four offences: (1) That Ignatius was condemned without a fair trial; (2) that a successor to his see had been appointed before sentence was given; (3) that he had been judged by his own canonical subjects; (4) that Photius, a layman, had been suddenly made Patriarch without observing the Interstices. "And we order and command you," he ends, "respecting the privilege of this See, to maintain with us in the same Catholic religion the restoration of the right of the venerable Patriarch Ignatius, and the expulsion of Photius the usurper."^[43] He had no sort of personal prejudice against Photius. "Consider very carefully," he wrote to Michael, "how Photius can stand, in spite of his great virtues and universal knowledge."^[44] More Greeks of the Ignatian party then arrive in Rome and tell the Pope many further circumstances; how Photius had been ordained by Gregory Asbestas, an excommunicate bishop, and the persecution, illusage, and torture that Ignatius and his friends had to suffer. Nicholas published a decree excommunicating any one who struck a bishop; and then, since the affair was becoming more and more important, he summoned a great provincial synod at the Lateran in April, 863. This synod had chiefly to try the Legates for their conduct. At last these two ruffians got their desert. Rodoald was away on another embassy to King Lothar II the Frank,^[45] Zachary was present. For having betrayed their duty to their Patriarch, for having exceeded their powers and connived at the injustice of the Emperor, for having taken shameful bribes, they were degraded from their office as bishops and excommunicated. The Pope in Council also solemnly declares: "With the authority of the great Judge, our Lord Jesus Christ, we determine, decide, and declare that Ignatius has not been deposed or excommunicate, that he was tyrannically driven from his see by the power of the Emperor without any canonical right, that he was only condemned by those who should themselves be condemned, who had no lawful authority, and who were not appointed by the Apostolic See for that purpose, so that the sentence has no value. Wherefore we, by reason of the authority given to us by God through the blessed Peter, by reason of the laws of the holy Canons and the Papal Constitutions, acknowledge him, our brother and fellow-bishop Ignatius, cancelling all contrary sentences, in his office and right as Patriarch and establish and confirm him therein."^[46] Photius is to be excommunicate unless he retires from the usurped See of Constantinople as soon as he receives notice of this decision. Once more then, as in the cases of St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, and so many others, Rome had spoken and had taken up the cause of a lawful bishop who was being persecuted by the civil power. The result was that the civil power dragged a great part of the Church into schism.

 

3. Open Schism.

It was at this juncture that Michael and Photius determined to throw off the authority of the Pope.^[47] We have seen how they had hitherto acknowledged it. They had themselves appealed to Rome, they had asked for the Legates, they had stopped at nothing to have those Legates on their side. Now that the final decision had gone against them they had two alternatives left, to submit or to go into schism. Photius had lost his case by every right of Canon Law and by the decision of the highest court of Christendom, to which he himself had appealed. It would have been to the eternal disgrace of the Pope if he had not lost it. But he had one more card to play. As far as physical force went, no one could touch him. The Emperor was at hand with his soldiers, the Roman Patriarch could not send across the sea to turn him out. He would ignore the sentence, and use the old jealousies of the East against the West to carry the war into the enemies' camp, deny the Pope's authority altogether, and find whatever charges he could against the Latins.

First he strengthened his own position at home. Ignatius was kept chained in prison. The Papal letters were not allowed to be published; he insisted to the tyrants of the Government that this was their affair, they had put him in the place he held, the Roman Patriarch was trying to rule over their heads in their own land, the Ignatians were traitors for trying to protect themselves by the authority of this foreigner. It is the typical attitude of the schismatic, who betrays the Church to the State rather than obey the Pope. Then he dictates a letter from Michael to the Pope.^[48] It is indescribably insolent. First he makes the Emperor say that it is a great honour for the Pope that he should again address him. He does not acknowledge him in any way as judge in this matter; as for the Legates, he had commanded their attendance and had not begged for them. All the Eastern Patriarchs are on his side. In spite of the Pope Photius will remain Patriarch; nothing the Pope can do will really help Ignatius. He demands an explanation of the Pope's treatment of Rodoald and Zachary, also that all the Ignatians who have fled to Rome should be handed over to him. Unless Nicholas retracts his decision in favour of Ignatius he, the Emperor, will come to Rome with an army to take a terrible vengeance.^[49] Nicholas answers maintaining what he had done.

The schism was now complete. Nicholas had excommunicated Photius, Photius struck Nicholas's name from his diptychs; although of course the lawful Patriarch Ignatius was always in communion with Rome from his prison. This state of things lasted four years. During those years the situation was further complicated by the question of the Bulgarian Church.

 

4. The Question of Bulgaria.

The Bulgars were Turanians who had poured against the northern frontier of the Empire, coming from the middle of Asia, since ithe 6th century. In the year 861 Bogoris, their prince, wanted to become a Christian and to make his people be converted as well. He was baptized by a missionary sent from Constantinople, with many of his people. In 865 Photius wrote an Encyclical to Bogoris and his Bulgars, explaining the Christian faith and the duties of a Christian man.^[50] There was as yet no bishop in Bulgaria. A layman from Constantinople came, pretending to be a priest and administering sacraments; then they discovered the fraud and cut off his nose and ears. Others come and set up business as prophets, magicians, and so on. Bogoris seems to have got tired of the Byzantines. He wanted to be free of them and to connect his Church rather with the Latins. So in 866 he sends an embassy to the Pope at Rome and another to the Emperor Lewis the German, King of the East Franks (843–876), at Regensburg. He begs the Pope to send him a patriarch, no less, to rule the Bulgarian Church, evidently wishing to be free of the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople. But Nicholas knows of another way in which the Bulgars may be independent of Constantinople. They have settled in Illyricum, therefore they belong to the Latin Patriarchate. He sends them two bishops, Paul of Populonia and Formosus, who had succeeded the deposed Rodoald at the Portus Tiberis. With them he sends books and sacred vessels and an admirable pastoral letter answering all their questions and again explaining the Christian faith.^[51] He promises them, not a patriarch but an archbishop, who shall have the Pallium from himself and shall then rule their Church. Formosus would have liked to be this archbishop; but Nicholas tells him to come back when the embassy is over and to look after his own flock at home. Instead he sends one Dominic, who sets up his chair at Achrida,^[52] having been ordained and having received the Pallium at Rome. The Bulgarian Church was established as part of the Roman Patriarchate. The Pope at the same time sent Legates to the Emperor to explain and defend what he had done; but they were turned back from the frontier. The question then of who should have Bulgaria in his patriarchate very much embittered the quarrel between Photius and the Pope. The Byzantines had always wanted Illyricum to belong to them (pp. 44, 45) and they had been first in the Bulgarian field. On the other hand the Roman Patriarch had a much older claim to Illyricum; he had founded the Bulgarian Church by setting up the first bishops, and the Bulgars themselves were on his side. Indeed Bogoris, when the Latin bishops had come, promptly drove out all the Greek missionaries and refused to accept Photius's chrism. This made Photius specially angry; but from the point of view of the Latin bishops it was quite correct. The right of sending the consecrated chrism has long been a sign of jurisdiction in the Eastern Churches, just as much as that of ordaining bishops—to say nothing of the fact that Photius's chrism was consecrated by an excommunicate usurper. Eventually, when the schism was an established fact, the Bulgars went over to the side of Constantinople. But at last, after long centuries, the Church that Photius was so anxious to keep has in our own time become the chief thorn in the side of his successors, and the children of the men who drove away Photius's missionaries are now again refusing the Byzantine chrism (p. 316).

 

5. The Filioque.

Photius, now thoroughly angry with the Roman Court, at last prepares a final manifesto against it. In 867 he sends an Encyclical round to the Eastern Patriarchs, and, by way of carrying the war into the enemy's camp, he draws up the following accusations against the Latins. It will be seen that he has raked up any charges he can find. There are five points: 1. The Latins make the Bulgars fast on Saturday (so they do: that was then the universal custom in the Roman Patriarchate). 2. They eat butter, milk, and cheese during the first week of Lent (that is: we do not begin Lent till Ash Wednesday, whereas the Byzantines do on Quinquagesima Monday). 3. They despised married priests and thereby show themselves to be infected with Manichæan error. 4. They do not acknowledge Confirmation administered by a priest.^[53] 5. They have changed and corrupted the Creed by adding to it the Filioque. The doctrine that the Holy Ghost proceeds from God the Father and God the Son he described as "godless, atheistic, and blasphemous." Photius then declares: "We, by the decree of our holy synod, have therefore condemned these forerunners of apostasy, these servants of Antichrist who deserve a thousand deaths, these liars and fighters against God … and we have solemnly excommunicated them."^[54] He then proceeded to pretend to depose Pope Nicholas for these offences, and he tried to get the Western Emperor, Lewis II, to carry out his sentence. It should be noted that all these five points are local customs of the Latins. No one has ever tried to make Easterns fast on Saturday, eat cheese in Quinquagesima week, be celibate, stop priestly Confirmation, or say the Filioque in the Creed. The only quarrel against them was the iniquitous usurpation of Photius. In trying to turn his personal quarrel into a general dispute between the two great Churches he can find nothing better to say than to complain of some differences of custom, that were in no way his business, and on the strength of them to excommunicate all of us, over whom he had no pretence of jurisdiction, as well as our Patriarch, who was his own overlord as well. From this point the quarrel has shifted to a general one. It is no longer a question of Ignatius or Photius; it has become what it still is, an issue between Latins and Greeks. And no one can doubt who in that issue was the aggressor.^[55] It is the last of Photius's five accusations that eventually became, and still is, the shibboleth of the quarrel. It seems that Photius at first did not think more of it than of the other points he had discovered. But it was soon found to be by far the best charge that could be made. It had much the most appearance of being a real abuse, and it has given them the chance of calling us heretics. In order not to interrupt the course of this story we may put off the consideration of the question itself till we come to examine the faith of the Eastern Churches to-day. We need now only note that this Encyclical of Photius (867) is the first occasion on which the accusation was made against us, that although the question itself is far too subtle and too abstruse to have really caused so much bad feeling for its own sake, nevertheless it has ever since been looked upon by the Easterns as a sort of compendium of all our offences; this very remote speculation, that either way has certainly never for a moment affected the trinitarian faith or piety of any single human being, has become to them a standard of anti-Latin orthodoxy, and they cherish and value it accordingly. And it has always been their accusation against us, not ours against them. They have anathematized us for what we believe and have added to the Creed. We have never asked them to add the word to their Creed. And in the main issue (the anathema pronounced at Ephesus in 431 against any one who modified the Creed) they are absolutely, incredibly wrong about the fact.^[56]

Photius, then, had launched his thunderbolt, deposing our Pope, excommunicating us all. It is not easy to know what at this juncture the other Orthodox patriarchs thought about the matter. They could have had no conception how far-reaching its effects would eventually be. They only knew that there was a violent quarrel going on between two claimants to the See of Constantinople, and that one of them was very angry with the Pope. Neither fact was in any way a new one. Eventually, of course, they all sided with Constantinople. But, indeed, these Melkite Patriarchs were rather poor creatures. They had lost nearly all their sheep long ago. They all sat under the tyranny of the Moslem; the only great Christian lord they knew anything about was the Eastern Roman Emperor. They were already not much more than vassals of him and of his Patriarch. Soon they even came to live at Constantinople, as idle ornaments of a dying Court. The real chiefs of the Christian populations of Egypt and Syria were the Copt and the Jacobite. And they, as we have seen, had already for centuries been cut off from both Old and New Rome and had nothing whatever to do with this business, unless perhaps they took an unholy joy in seeing the persecuting Melkites at last fall foul of one another.

Photius, then, had won along the whole line. In spite of the Pope he sat firm on the patriarchal throne; the Court was all for him, no one could touch him, and he had punished the Latins for not recognizing him by excommunicating them. If the Pope had deposed him, he had answered by deposing the Pope. Suddenly there came what was the most dramatic change in Church history. In the midst of his triumph he fell. Ignatius came out of his prison back to the Hagia Sophia, and Photius had to taste the very punishment he had given to Ignatius. It was no just or loyal movement that brought about this crisis. It was only one of the endless sordid and bloody Palace revolutions that fill up Byzantine history. The Imperial Equery,^[57] Basil the Macedonian, was a clever and ambitious fellow, and just as great a rogue as all the other courtiers. He succeeds first in murdering the Cæsar, Bardas (866), and becomes Cæsar himself. This was not enough for him; so in 867 the wretched Michael III ended his career by being murdered too. It was after supper on September 23rd when he was, as usual, drunk, that one of Basil's servants stabbed him to death. In the supper room reeking with spilt wine and blood, while Michael's mistresses were shrieking amid the overturned tables, Basil I (867–886) was proclaimed Augustus. From no love of justice or respect for the Pope's decree, but only out of a general hatred for all Michael's friends, Basil promptly deposed Photius and shut him up in a monastery. He then sent for the head of the rival party, Ignatius, and told him to be Patriarch again. As usual the people made no fuss, and, as long as they were not massacred, were just as ready to shout for Basil Augustus and Ignatius Patriarch as they had been for Michael and Photius.

In the same year, before he had heard of the sudden change at Constantinople, in the middle of many grave questions that were still undecided, Pope Nicholas I died (November 13, 867).

 

6. The Eighth General Council.

Nicholas's successor, Adrian II (867–872), was not unworthy of the great Pope whose place he took. He gathered up the reins, and in all the questions then pending, Lothar's divorce as well as the trouble at Constantinople, he carried on the policy of his predecessor. Soon after his accession he heard the news from the East. In the horrid but typical piece of Byzantine history that had just taken place neither Ignatius nor the Roman See had had any sort of part. On the other hand Rome had always recognized Ignatius as the rightful Patriarch, and however abominable the occasion by which he had been restored had been, Adrian, of course, could not cease to recognize him now that he had again come to his own. He also, according to the general practice of the Popes, accepted the situation in political matters and treated with Basil as Emperor.^[58] It was Ignatius who first asked for a general council to clear up the whole business. As soon as he was restored, both he and Basil sent legates to Rome with exceedingly submissive and respectful letters to the Pope, asking among other things for a general council. Adrian first held a provincial synod at Rome (June, 869), in which Photius was again condemned, this time for having pretended to excommunicate Pope Nicholas. The same synod appointed the Papal Legates for the coming general council at Constantinople. They were Donatus, Bishop of Ostia, Stephan, Bishop of Nepi, and a deacon, Marinus.^[59]

These Legates arrived in Constantinople in September of the same year (869) with letters from Pope Adrian to Basil and Ignatius. They were received with great pomp, and on October 5th the council was opened in the Hagia Sophia: this is the Eighth General Council (Constantinople IV). The attendance was always very small: only in the last sessions were there as many as 102 bishops present. The Legates presided; then sat Ignatius, then the legates of the Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem; those from Alexandria did not arrive till the ninth session.

At the beginning of the first session the Emperor's representative and Ignatius asked the Legates to show their commission from the Pope. At first they are offended by what was an unusual request; but Ignatius explains that no one means any want of respect to them, still less to the great see they represent, only after the disgraceful way in which the former Legates—Rodoald and Zachary—had exceeded their powers the Eastern bishops thought it pertinent to ask this. The Legates are then satisfied; Marinus reads outs their instructions from the Pope in Latin, and Damian the interpreter translates what they have read into Greek. "Praise God," says Ignatius, "who has now so completely satisfied us as to your Holiness."^[60] All the members of the synod then signed the formula of Hormisdas (pp. 85, 86), which to Catholics has therefore the authority of a general council. The Imperial Commissioner asks the Legates of the other patriarchal sees why they had not also condemned Photius long ago. Elias from Jerusalem answers that Ignatius's right was so evident that it had not needed their support, and, in any case, the Patriarch of Old Rome had done all that was needed. The session then ended with the usual acclamations, the Polychronion that Greeks will always work in on every possible occasion: "To the Lord Basil Augustus many years! To the pious Lady Eudokia Augusta many years! To the Roman Pope Nicholas eternal memory! To the Pope Adrian, to Ignatius and the three holy Patriarchs many years! To the Orthodox Senate many years! To the holy and œcumenical synod eternal honour!"

The next sessions appointed penances to the repentant Photian bishops. On the whole they got off very easily. They expressed the deepest sorrow for their schism; there were ten bishops, eleven priests, nine deacons, six sub-deacons, who signed a document expressing their contrition. They are suspended till Christmas (this was in October); during that time they are to abstain from fleshmeat, fish, cheese, and eggs every Wednesday and Friday, say Kyrie eleison and "Lord have mercy on me a sinner" a hundred times a day, and say the 5th, 37th and 50th psalms^[61] once a day. Then on Christmas Day they are all to be restored to their functions. In the fifth session the arch-offender of all, Photius himself, is brought before the council. He could not possibly expect to be acknowledged by this synod as Patriarch of Constantinople, that it should declare him an intruder was its obvious duty. Nor could the synod allow him to exercise the orders he had received from the excommunicate Gregory Asbestas. Otherwise he was treated well and respectfully. But he himself behaved very badly. First he sulked; then he played the martyr, and finally used the words that our Lord had spoken at his trial, making a comparison that was simply blasphemous. At first he would not speak at all. "Speak, Lord Photius," said Baanes, the Emperor's delegate; "say whatever you will to justify yourself. The whole world is represented here; take care that the synod does not withdraw all sympathy from you. To what tribunal would you appeal? To Rome? It is represented here. To the East? Here are its delegates. For God's sake defend yourself." All Photius will say is: "Jesus did not escape condemnation through his silence," and "My defence is not of this world, if it were of this world you should hear it." True to the Erastian policy he had always followed, he ignores the Legates, refuses to speak to them, and only answers Baanes, the civil commissioner: "We will give an account to our holy Emperor," he says, "not to the Legates." He describes the repentant Photian bishops as "mice in tar," apparently meaning that they had got into as great a mess as a mouse would in a barrel of tar. The judgement of the synod on him was not harsh. He has to renounce his usurped claim and to acknowledge Ignatius, then he shall be admitted to lay communion. As he refuses to do so, he is again excommunicated. The council then passes a few more laws, chiefly against whatever remnants of the Iconoclasts may have still existed and against the interference of the State in ecclesiastical affairs. These last laws prove that, in spite of the presence of the Emperor's Commissioner (a presence that was according to the precedent of all former general councils), the synod was quite a free one.

The tenth and last session was held on February 28, 870, in the presence of the Emperor and of his son, Constantine. The Canons were read out and approved by all the members. Basil made a speech insisting on the independence of the Church, on her right to arrange her own affairs, and on the iniquity of civil interference in them—strange words in the mouth of an emperor. But he himself soon became the chief offender against these principles.

The synod ended with some pomp of display and with endless Polychronia. Its Acts were solemnly confirmed by Pope Adrian II.^[62] It was acknowledged as the eighth general council by all the Easterns, except the Photian party, and it has always been so acknowledged by the Catholic Church.^[63]

Photius now had to go into exile to Stenos on the Bosphorus, where his uncle Tarasius had built a monastery. He was certainly treated as a prisoner, but he was not starved nor tortured as Ignatius had been. The worst he complains of is that he is guarded by soldiers, and separated from his friends and books. Meanwhile he wrote an enormous number of letters. The undaunted courage of this really wonderful man never let him despair for a moment. He spent these years of exile encouraging his friends, consolidating his party and waiting for another turn of the wheel. He had to wait just eight years.

Ignatius was again Patriarch. Hitherto all we have heard of him has been good. He had bravely borne outrageous injustice and ill-treatment, his attitude towards the Roman See had been all that was correct, and now that see had restored to him his rights. Alas! at the end of his life Bulgaria proved too great a temptation for him, and because of these everlasting Bulgars he at last fell foul of his best friends. Was it that he now wanted to conciliate all his Byzantines by standing out for the aggrandizement of his see, or was there something in the air of Constantinople that made its Patriarch jealous of Rome? Ignatius, too, now begins to copy his rival and to try to filch Bulgaria from the Roman Patriarchate. He ordains an Archbishop for Bulgaria and persuades the Bulgar Prince to drive out the Latin hierarchy. One can imagine how edifying these quarrels between their mighty Christian neighbours must have been to the new converts. Pope Adrian II was dead; his successor was John VIII (872–882). John had prepared a bull of excommunication for Ignatius, when the news arrived in Rome that the Patriarch had ended his chequered life (October 23, 877). The Roman Church, forgetting this last episode, remembering only the trials he had so patiently borne and his otherwise unfailing allegiance to her, has canonized him. "It is very indulgent of her," says Mgr. Duchesne.^[64] We may, perhaps, say rather that one offence, even against the rights of the Holy See, cannot outweigh the whole of a long and really saintly life. St. Ignatius was the type of a stern and God-fearing bishop, who was not afraid to rebuke the wickedness of an atrociously corrupt Court, even at the cost of his own fortunes. He was severe, perhaps even harsh, to his clergy, demanding from them in a bad time and at a luxurious and immoral city the ideal of earlier ages. That is why he was unpopular with some. But he was even more severe to himself. No one has questioned the austerity of his own life, and when he was persecuted he bore his trial with the firmness and dignity he had learnt during years of restraint in the Patriarch's palace. He stood out for the liberty of the Church against the State at a time when the worst Erastianism that has ever troubled the Church^[65] was at its height, and he was loyal to the real authority in the Church, that of the first throne. We, too, may forget his one offence, the attempt upon Bulgaria, and remember him as one of the best bishops who ever sat on the soul-endangering throne of New Rome.

 

7. Photius lawful Patriarch (878–891).

Long before Ignatius died Photius had managed to gradually get back the favour of the Court. He was always servile to the civil authority. Now that he was deposed he professed to accept very respectfully the command of the Emperor. Then he began flattering the murderer of his former patron. Pride of good blood is a weakness upon which one may always count. So Photius set about to establish that Basil I was a gentleman. He worked up a mythical pedigree for him. As Basil was an Armenian by birth, he could not well be made to descend from King David, or Alexander, or Julius Cæsar; the one possibility was St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Apostle and national hero of Armenia. And so from St. Gregory he did descend, through King Tiridates, in a younger but true branch of the noble house of the Arsacides. Moreover he discovered ancient prophecies that had foretold that some day a scion of this house should eclipse all his forbears and be the mightiest, the most generous, noble, and virtuous lord in the whole world, and his name would begin with a B. It was all forged upon old parchment.^[66] One can imagine how pleased Basil was. What better teacher could the Prince Imperial, Constantine, have than the man who had made these beautiful discoveries and who, if he looked again, might perhaps find something about a boy whose name would begin with C? So Photius was brought back to Constantinople and made the Prince's tutor (876). Having now got a place at Court, he goes on improving his position, making himself popular and strengthening his party. The next move was a reconciliation with Ignatius. How far he persuaded Ignatius to make friends really is doubtful,^[67] but he is never tired of insisting on the reconciliation and the affection now existing between him and his former enemy. So when Ignatius died every one cried out for Photius to succeed him. All his party, which had always been a very strong one, clamoured for their candidate, and the Court now wanted him too. Once more an Embassy sets out for Rome to ask the Pope's consent to Photius' succession. They assure him that the whole Byzantine Church and the Court want Photius. And John VIII agrees; he absolves Photius from all censures, and acknowledges him as Patriarch. So Photius after all became lawful bishop of the see he had so long coveted. This concession of the Pope has been much discussed. It has been said that it was a deplorable weakness, and showed the most hopeless want of character.^[68] It is true that Photius was very far from being the ideal man for such a place. On the other hand, the See of Constantinople now really was vacant, and the Byzantine bishops had the right of choosing whom they liked. The Pope was very anxious to get the Emperor's help against the Saracens, and it has always been the policy of the Roman See to concede whatever can be conceded without sin for the sake of peace. The Emperor in his letter had again protested his obedience to the Holy See.^[69]

As soon as he was recognized, Photius wanted a council to meet at Constantinople, really, of course, to counteract the effect of the one that had excommunicated him. There does not seem to have been much reason for yet another synod; but they persuaded John VIII that it would clear up all remains of schism, and greatly help to strengthen the union between East and West; so he gave in and sent three Legates, Peter, Cardinal Priest of the Church of St. Chrysogonus across the Tiber; Paul, Bishop of Ancona; and Eugene, Bishop of Ostia. They were told to acknowledge Photius, and to make every one else acknowledge him too, but to insist that Bulgaria belongs to the Roman Patriarchate. These Legates, however, behaved nearly as badly as Rodoald and Zachary of unhappy memory. The council was opened in the Hagia Sophia in November, 879. As soon as the Legates are announced, Photius goes up and kisses Cardinal Peter, and says: "God has brought you here. The Lord bless your efforts and your sacred persons, and may he graciously confirm the protection and care shown to us by our most holy Brother and Fellow-Bishop, our Spiritual Father, the most blessed Pope John."

All that, however, was only meant to look nice before the synod. Photius had long become confirmed in his hatred of Rome and the West, and he meant this council to declare open war against them. The church was full of his friends, and he had it all his own way. There were seven sessions; the Emperor came to the two last. Photius talks all the time. He violently abuses the Synod of 869, rakes up again his charges against the Latins, especially the Filioque charge, makes an anathema against any one who adds anything to the Creed, claims Bulgaria and quashes all the Acts of 869.^[70] The Legates agree to all this, and then they go back to Rome, and Photius sends the Acts of his council to the Pope for his confirmation. Instead, the Pope, of course, again excommunicates him. The schism had once more broken out. It lasted till Basil I's death (886). Photius and his friends had by now definitely taken up their line. They were a National Church, and, in spite of all their former appeals to Rome, now that Rome had pronounced against them, they were not going to recognize the authority of any foreigner. Let Old Rome look after the West, the Queen of the East was New Rome.

 

8. The End of Photius.

There is one more change before Photius dies. Again the wheel turns, and, after all his trouble, Photius once more has to go into exile. Basil I was succeeded by his son, Leo VI (886–912)—the eldest son, Constantine, was dead. And Leo, although he had been Photius's pupil, did not like his former tutor—it is difficult to know exactly why. So Photius is deposed and banished for high treason,^[71] just as Ignatius had been thirty years before. Prince Stephen, the Emperor's younger brother, for whom no suitable provision had yet been made, becomes Patriarch (886–893)—a circumstance that probably explains the whole business. Whether Photius in exile again began making plans for his restoration we do not know; we do not even know where he was exiled. Suddenly, at this moment (886) the man who had made his name famous throughout Europe entirely drops out of history. He never got another chance, never reappeared in the city that had taken up his cause as her own. There is not even a letter that can be certainly dated as belonging to this second banishment. Where, in what distant monastery the old man ate out his heart during his last years, what bitter memories of his chequered career, what vain plans he may still have been forming, or what regret for the awful harm he had done, he may, perhaps, now in his loneliness have felt, of all this we know nothing. The gorgeous life of the great city went on, feasting and solemn synods, then silent murders and torture in the vaults of the palaces, and, far away, the old Patriarch waited, hoped, perhaps repented, till he died (February 6, 891).^[72]

And then, after his death, gradually his people and his Church remembered what he had done for them. Rightly, all "Orthodox" Christians look upon Photius as the great champion of their cause. He delivered them from the tyranny of Rome, and because of that they have forgiven everything else. They have forgotten all his intrigues, his dishonesty, his miserable subservience to the secular power, the hopeless injustice of his cause. All the modern Greek or Russian knows of this long story is that Ignatius, a holy old man, resigned the patriarchate because of his great age, and was succeeded by St. Photius, greatest, wisest, best of Œcumenical Patriarchs, who valiantly withstood the tyranny of the Pope of Old Rome, and "broke the pride of the West." He appears always as a saint. In exile he is the most patient and heroic of confessors, on the patriarchal throne he is the grandest and justest of bishops; he is the most learned and orthodox of theologians, and always, whether prosperous or persecuted, the hero of their independence of Rome. They keep his feast on February 6th, and their hymns overflow with praise of him. He is "the far-shining radiant star of the Church," the "most inspired guide of the Orthodox," "thrice blessed speaker for God," "Wise and divine glory of the hierarchy," he who "broke the horns of Roman pride."^[73]

The Catholic remembers this extraordinary man with very mixed feelings. Had he not given his name to the most disastrous schism in Church History, he would perhaps have been the last of the Greek Fathers. One cannot refuse to recognize his astounding learning. He was really a genius. There is no shadow of suspicion over his private life: he bore his troubles very manfully and well. But still less can one forget the dishonesty with which he pushed his utterly unjust claim. "Whilst in writing himself to the Pope he explicitly acknowledges him as the head of the Church, at the same time, in the letter he composes for Michael to Nicholas, he directly denies the Primacy."^[74] "The story of this man offers us two sides that must be well distinguished. The Christian conscience is deeply pained by the schism of which he was so entirely the cause, to which he gave a permanent theological basis, that he by every possible means fostered and nourished, misusing his magnificent gifts for shameful selfishness. But this will not prevent the historian from acknowledging his amazing learning, his rare merit as a theologian and philosopher, a philologist and historian—indeed, as a scholar of every branch of knowledge."^[75] There is one short sentence of his predecessor, St. John Chrysostom, that Nicephorus the philosopher, Photius's friend, quotes. It stands as the reason of his final condemnation: "Nothing can hurt the Church so much as love of power."^[76]

 

9. Reunion after Photius.

Once again after Photius had disappeared the quarrel between the Churches was patched up. At first Rome would not acknowledge the new Patriarch, Stephen, either; he had been intruded into the See of Constantinople just as much as Photius in 857, and he was only sixteen years old. Stephen tried to persuade the Pope (Formosus, 891–896)^[77] to recognize him, but apparently in vain. Stephen, in spite of his uncanonical age, had a double title to Byzantine canonization; he was a Patriarch and a Prince. So he is another of these astonishing saints (p. 103). Anthony II (893–895), Stephen's successor, held a synod in the presence of Roman Legates, and a union was arranged that lasted more or less for a century and a half. But it was rather a half-hearted union. Officially the two Churches were in communion. The Pope's name was restored to the Byzantine diptychs, and the many Latin monasteries in the East celebrated their Mass in communion with the local bishops. But the cleft was never completely healed after Photius. The Latins had always the profoundest distrust for Greek shiftiness, and the Byzantines were equally suspicious of Roman interference. Then came another imperial disturbance, in which the positions were reversed. The Emperor, Leo VI, married for the fourth time. A fourth marriage is forbidden by Byzantine Canon Law. So the Patriarch, Nicholas I (895–906), forbade the marriage. Leo, as usual, deposed the Patriarch. The Latin Church has never limited the number of wives a man may have, as long as all the others are properly dead; so Pope Sergius III (904–911) allowed the marriage and approved of the deposition. The Latin custom is undoubtedly more in accordance with Scripture (1 Cor. vii. 39, which applies also to men); on the other hand Leo ought to have obeyed the Canon Law of his own Church. Perhaps he thought that as Cæsar Augustus and Lord of the World he could use the privilege of any part of the Empire left to him by his predecessor, Octavian Augustus. But it was certainly hard on the Patriarch to be deposed for having judged according to his own law. If only the Pope had taken the opposite line, the situation of Ignatius would have been exactly repeated.

However, Leo VI died in 912, and his successor, Constantine VII (Porphyrogennetos, 912-958) at once restored the Patriarch, and so this trouble blew over too. The Emperor Basil II (the Bulgar-slayer, 963–1025) sent Pope John XIX (1024–1033) a sum of money in 1024 to persuade him at last to acknowledge the title "Œcumenical Patriarch." John took the money, and seems to have been ready to do so. But a wave of indignation over the West (the title had so long been the watchword of the anti-Latin party in the East) and a stern letter from Abbot William of Dijon made him change his mind.

The union, then, during this interval between Photius and Cerularius was not a very firm one, and all the time there was a strong anti-papal party in the East, which had inherited all Photius's ideas, which already looked upon him as its chief hero and saint, and which only waited for an opportunity of renewing his work. Yet the great mass of the faithful on either side knew nothing about the danger, and John Bekkos (John XI, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1275–1282) was not altogether wrong in saying afterwards that during this time there had reigned between East and West "perfect peace."^[78] Thousands of Latin pilgrims went to the Holy Land, following the way by land down the Danube to Constantinople, and all the way they were received in the Eastern monasteries hospitably and kindly. Richard, Abbot of St. Vito in Lothringen, stops at Constantinople in 1026; he calls on the Emperor and the Patriarch, is courteously entertained by both, and receives from the Patriarch a relic of the true Cross and his blessing. Richard II, Duke of Normandy (996–1026, the grandfather of our Conqueror) sends large sums of money to the monasteries of Jerusalem and Mount Sinai to help pay the expenses of the Latin pilgrims they entertain. Equally pleasant were the relations of Greeks who came to us. St. Gotthardt, Bishop of Hildesheim, built a hospice on purpose for them. He says that he himself is not fond of Greeks, but that strangers must always be well treated for the sake of Christ. St. Gerard, Bishop of Toul, had numbers of Greeks and Scots in his diocese. He built special oratories for both, where they might worship God in the manner of .their own countries. It was these Greeks at Toul who, little thinking what they were doing, taught their language to the man who was to be their foremost adversary, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida. In all these relations there is no hint of suspicion of heresy on either side. The Greeks heard the Latins sing the Filioque, apparently without emotion, and the Latins were quite content to see them leave it out.^[79]

 

GROTTAFERRATA.

[To face page 169.

 

There still exists an interesting witness of these last friendly relations before the final disaster. On the road between the Alban Lake and Tusculum, where the first slopes of Monte Cavo rise out of the great Roman plain, there stands a monastery. Its grey walls and bastions rise out of the vineyards amid the olives and peach trees, while above, the tawny roofs cluster around the great church and the slim red Lombard tower. From the court of this monastery you may look across the haze of the Campagna to the long white line and to the great dome of the Eternal City. And the stranger who, turning back from the glare of the Italian sun, goes into the cool church will learn from the Greek "Hail Mary" written round the walls, from the great screen across the chancel, perhaps from the unfamiliar chant of the monks, that here, in the middle of the Latin world, he has found a Greek Laura.

In the 10th century St. Nilos was driven from his Abbey of Rossanum, in greater Greece, by the Saracens. He might have gone to any other part of the Greek world and he would have been eagerly received as a confessor of the faith and as an already famous Saint. But he feared lest his own people would make him too proud, so he came rather to the country of the Latins, thinking to live there unknown. But he was mistaken. The Franks knew how to be generous and chivalrous to a stranger in trouble. He came, with his sixty Greek monks, to the great Benedictine mother-house at Monte Cassino. The Benedictines, always the most hospitable of religious, met him, says his biographer, "as if St. Anthony had come from Alexandria, or their own great St. Benedict from the dead."^[80] He was very surprised, still more so when the Abbot asked him to use their church to sing his Greek Office, alternately with the Latin Opus Dei, "that, according to the word of God, all should be complete in him." Sixty Greek monks then kept their hours regularly in the Benedictine Abbey Church. And St. Nilos, as generous as his hosts, wrote a hymn about their founder, and, forgetting the prejudices of generations, trained his tongue to pronounce their strange language, and when his own office was done, turned the unfamiliar leaves of a Latin psalter to join them in theirs. Then he talks with the Benedictines, and, naturally, the question of their different customs is raised. The Saint's attitude is very unlike that of the arrogant schismatics at Constantinople. "As for Saturdays," he says, "whether we eat, or you fast, we both do all things to the glory of God," and he advises them by all means to keep the custom of their fathers. Some time later, however, he and his monks leave the monastery, thinking that they cannot encroach on even Benedictine hospitality for ever, and they set out for Rome. The Pope (Gregory V, 996–999) and the Western Emperor (Otto III, 993–1002), who was then also at Rome, went out to meet the strangers beyond the walls, and received them with every possible honour and respect. And out there in the Campagna, at Grottaferrata (κρυπτοφέρη) St. Nilos at last built a home for his wandering monks, and there he died, looking out towards Rome. Through all the changes that have taken place since, Grottaferrata has stood unchanged; not only has no Pope ever tried to destroy or Latinize it, it has always been a point of honour with them to endow it and to protect it. Still, after ten centuries, it stands within sight of the Roman walls, and still its monks sing out their Greek Office in the very heart of the Latin Patriarchate, while outside the Latin olives shelter its grey Byzantine walls.^[81]

 

Summary.

Prepared by the ill-feeling of ages, the Great Schism between East and West at last came in the 9th century. The Byzantine Government in 857 iniquitously deposed Ignatius, the lawful Patriarch of Constantinople, and intruded Photius into his place. Both Ignatius and Photius then appeal to Pope Nicholas I. The Pope sends Legates who, however, take bribes and accept all that has happened. Then the Pope, better informed, punishes his Legates, acknowledges Ignatius only, and excommunicates Photius as an intruded anti-bishop. Photius answers by striking the Pope's name off his diptychs. The feelings of both sides were very much further embittered by the question of the Bulgarian Church, which each claimed for his Patriarchate. In 867 Photius publishes a manifesto against the Pope and all the Latins, making five charges, of which the most important eventually was that we have added the Filioque to the Creed. In the same year Nicholas dies and a Palace revolution causes Photius's banishment and Ignatius's restoration. Peace was at once restored between Rome and Constantinople. In 869 the eighth general council is held, confirming Ignatius, again excommunicating Photius. Then, in 877, Ignatius dies and is succeeded by Photius, who is now recognized by the Pope (John VIII). Another council meets in 879, again attended by Roman Legates. But this council, entirely led by Photius, who now hated Rome as his own personal enemy, on the strength of the Filioque and the Bulgarian affair, again causes open schism, which lasts till, in 886, a new Emperor (Leo VI) again banishes Photius. He dies in exile in 891. After his death peace is restored between the Churches, although by this time there is already a strong anti-papal party at Constantinople. But the great mass of Christians on either side are reconciled, and have no idea of schism for one hundred and fifty more years.

 

1. Kattenbusch, art. Photius in Herzog and Hauck's Realenz. f. prot. Theol. u. Kirche Leipzig, 1904).
2. Nicholai I, cp. 8, ad Michaelem Aug. M.P.L. cxix. 946.
3. Nich. I, ep. 5, ad Mich. I.e. p. 119; ep. 13, p. 791.
4. Sicily belonged by right to the Roman Patriarchate, but Leo III, the Isaurian (717–741), had joined it, as well as Illyricum, to Constantinople by force (p. 44). Under Syracuse were all the Sicilian dioceses (except Catania) and Malta.
5. For instance, Gregory accused Ignatius of speaking disrespectfully o the memory of Methodius, and thereby becoming a parricide: Cf. Hergenröther, Photius, i. pp. 358, seq.
6. For all this story see Hergenröther, i. 357–373, and the authorities there quoted. The facts are not, as far as I know, disputed by any one. Ignatius was condemned and exiled without any sort of trial, l.c. 372.
7. Cf. Hergenröther, i. pp. 317, seq.
8. This is an exact parallel to the legend of a great Western scholar, Gerbert (Sylvester II, 999–1003).
9. P.G. ci.–cv.
10. Monumenta græca ad Photium eiusque historiam pertinentia, Regensburg, 1869. Cf. Krumbacher: Byz. Litt. 73–78, 515–524.
11. This was a further breach of Canon Law. The Interstices in the Eastern Church were one year for each order. Can. Ap. 80, Sardic. 10. The three offences Photius committed on that Christmas Day were that he was ordained to an already occupied see by an excommunicate bishop without having kept the Interstices. Offence number two made him excommunicate latæ sententiæ.
12. This, which is the cardinal fact of the whole story, is not now disputed by any historian. Kattenbusch, in his article "Photius" in the Protestant Realenzykloplädie für prot. Theol. u. Kirche, says: "Ignatius (at this time, 857) had not resigned his office, nor did he ever do so" (ed. 1904, vol, 15, p. 378).
13. Hergenröther, i. 384, and his references.
14. The letter quoted l.c. pp. 388, seq.
15. The monks of Studium were always faithful to Ignatius and formed the centre of his party.
16. This is, of course, the affair of Hincmar of Rheims († 882) and Rothad of Soissons. Hincmar was a tyrant on that occasion, although otherwise one of the greatest, wisest, and best of all mediæval bishops.
17. Regino: Chronicon. an. 868. Mon. Germ. hist. Script. i. 579.
18. The whole letter is printed in Hergenröther, i. pp. 407–411.
19. So Nicholas thought, l.c. p. 407.
20. This letter is not extant. Its contents are to be deduced from Nicholas's answer, ep. 9. M.P.L. C. 1019, ep. 98. Cf. Herg. i. p. 407.
21. He addresses Photius very cautiously, only as: "Vir prudentissime"; he blames his neglect of the Interstices, but promises to acknowledge him eventually, if he finds that everything has been done justly and rightly.
22. Photius. The name is deserved in this case; he had taken to himself the Church of Constantinople, the lawful spouse of Ignatius. What Ignatius means is that if the Legates join themselves to Photius they act, not as judges, but as his advocates.
23. οὕτω θέλει ἐκεῖνος.
24. Ἰγνάτιος ἀνάξιος.
25. Herg. i. pp. 419–428.
26. The synod that the Orthodox now call the eighth œcumenical one is not this but that of 879 (p. 163).
27. Præf. in Conc. viii. (Mansi, xvi, p. 11.)
28. Nic. ep. 9, cit.
29. Quoted by Herg. i. pp. 439–460.
30. L.c. p. 452.
31. L.c. p. 457.
32. He was "Archimandrite of the Laura of Old Rome" at Constantinople, one of the many Latin monasteries in the East.
33. This is an example of the use of the title by other people, whereas the Popes never used it themselves, see p. 43, n. 3.
34. The episcopi suburbicarii.
35. The letter in Herg. i. 460–461.
36. I.e., the disgrace of Ignatius's deposition would reflect on the Pope himself, unless he tried to prevent it.
37. Some of the most famous instances of Popes who had received appeals from the East.
38. Herg. i. p. 356, n. 36.
39. Symeon Mag. de Mich. and Theod. (ed. Bonn, 1838), p. 674. The Khazars were a branch of the great Turkish family who were attacking the Empire from the north. The statement was naturally offensive and doubtless wholly untrue.
40. L.c. p. 674. κύων ἕλκων δέρμα. I have no notion what the language is, but Photius explains: Mar = dog; zu = thief; kas = shoe leather, and he was a great philologist.
41. Herg. i. pp. 511–516.
42. Herg. i. pp. 516–519.
43. Ibid. pp. 510–511.
44. Ep. 98, ad Mich. M.P.L. cxix. p. 1030.
45. His divorce was then the burning question.
46. Herg. i. pp. 519–523.
47. They found some supporters in the West, among the Frankish bishops who were defending Lothar's divorce and so were already in opposition to the Pope. It was an alliance of which any respectable person would be ashamed.
48. Herg. i. pp. 552–554. There can be no doubt from internal evidence that this letter is Photius's work.
49. These are the points quoted one by one in the Pope's answer; the letter itself is not extant.
50. Herg. i. pp. 601–604. It is a very edifying and correct letter.
51. The text in Herg. i. pp. 607–616.
52. Now Ochrida, in Macedonia. Achrida was long the Metropolitan See of Bulgaria, see pp. 305, 317.
53. This is false, p. 421.
54. Herg. i. pp. 642–646. Kattenbusch (l.c. p. 380) calls this document the Magna Carta of the Eastern Churches.
55. Kattenbusch (l.c. 381) says: "He tried to lift New Rome above Old Rome. This Œcumenical Patriarch really thought he could obtain the Primacy for Constantinople." These admissions are the more significant, since there is no question as to the animus of the writers in the Prot. Realenzyklopädie against Rome.
56. For all this see p. 372.
57. Πρωτοστράτωρ. He was the "count of the horse department," κόμης τοῦ ἱπποστασίου.
58. In any case, the Roman Empire was an elective monarchy and there was now no other claimant.
59. Marinus afterwards became Pope—Marinus I (882–884).
60. We now call only the Pope His Holiness; but such styles were long used very loosely. At Constantinople especially, where politeness was a very great consideration, such addresses as Your Holiness, Beatitude, Lordship, Clemency, Illustriousness, and what not, were thrown around recklessly.
61. Of course in the LXX numbering.
62. Mansi, xvi. 247, 413, 414.
63. All this description of the Council is taken from Hergenröther: Photius, ii. 63–132, where a detailed account of the proceedings will be found The Acts of the council are preserved in the Latin version of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, the Roman librarian, as well as in a shorter Greek account, in Mansi, xvi. 308–409.
64. Égl. sép. p. 216. St. Ignatius of Constantinople occurs in our Martyrology on October 23rd: "At Constantinople St. Ignatius, Bishop, who, when he had reproved Bardas the Cæsar for having repudiated his wife, was attacked by many injuries and sent into exile; but having been restored by the Roman Pontiff Nicholas, at last he went to his rest in peace."
65. The Catholic Church of course. Every schismatical body gets under the heel of the State at once. It is the unfailing result of schism: to be independent of the Pope, a National Church and what not, always works out as a substitution of the king for the Pope, nowhere more than in the Eastern Churches.
66. This absurd story looks almost too crude to be possible; but it is all in Nicetas and in Symeon Magister (Mansi, xvi. 284). Cf. Herg. ii. 258, seq.
67. There are two accounts. Some say that they became real and warm friends during the last years of Ignatius's life, others describe the whole thing as a fraud. Herg. ii. 280.
68. One of the explanations of the Pope Joan myth is, that it began as an irony on this very act of John VIII. She was inserted between Leo IV (847–855) and Benedict III (855–858) at just about this time.
69. Quoted in Herg. ii. 383.
70. The Acts of this council (the Pseudosynodus Photiana) in Herg. ii. Book 6, pp. 379–528.
71. He had conspired to depose the Emperor, and to put one of his own relations on the throne. These charges never mean anything. If the Court did not want a man, he was always condemned for treason on some absurd charge (aiding and abetting the Saracens was the favourite), and then banished, or blinded, or strangled—anything as long as he did not trouble Cæsar any more.
72. Even this date is not quite certain.
73. Maltzew: Menologion, February 6th (i. 916, seq.).
74. Pichler: Gesch. d. kirchl. Trennung, i. 180.
75. Herg. Photius, i. vi.
76. Chrys. Hom. ii. in Ephes. M.P.G. xi. 89.
77. The very worst time of all was just beginning at Rome. Nearly all the Popes now for about a century were horrible people.
78. Quoted by Allatius: Græcia orth. i. 37.
79. For all this see L. Brehier, Le Schisme Or. chap. i. Les rapports entre l'église grecque et l'église romaine depuis le début du xe siecle jusqu'au milieu du xie siècle, pp. 1–34.
80. M.P.G. cxx. 124.
81. For the history of Grottaferrata see A. Pellegrini (the present Abbot) : Ἡ ἑλληνικὴ μονὴ τῆς κρυπτοφέρης (Syra, 1904).