HEALING OF MEMORIES AND CHRISTIAN UNITY 60 YEARS AFTER THE LIFTING OF THE ANATHEMAS (1965-2025)
Metropolitan Job of Pisidia
1054 in the Christian imaginary
The year 1054 remains a tragic year in the Christian imaginary. For many it represents the dramatic moment of the division between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, often identified as the “Great Schism of 1054”. This is what we can read in most encyclopedias and dictionaries as well as in the catechisms of our Churches. For centuries, unfortunately, we have long sought to nourish this imaginary and to blame the culprit.
In the 19th century, Father Wladimir, born René-François Guettée, a French Catholic priest converted to Orthodoxy, in one of his numerous works of religious history, under the evocative title: The Schismatic Papacy, published in 1863, soon after his conversion, describes the tragic events of 1054:
“Patriarch Michael refused to communicate with the legates. He undoubtedly knew that the emperor wanted, out of bias, to sacrifice the Greek Church to the papacy, to obtain some help for his throne; the letter he had received from the Pope informed him sufficiently of what was meant in Rome by the word union. The legates went to Hagia Sophia at the time when the clergy was preparing for mass. They complained aloud about the obstinacy of the patriarch and placed on the altar a sentence of excommunication launched against him. They left the church shaking the dust from their feet and pronouncing anathema against those who would not communicate with the Latins. All this was done with the consent of the emperor; which explains why the patriarch did not want to have any relationship with the legates. The people, convinced of the emperor’s connivance with these envoys, had rioted. At the moment of danger, Constantine made some concessions. The legates protested that their sentence of excommunication had not been read as it stood; that the patriarch had had the most cruel and perfidious designs towards them. Whatever the case, and even if Michael had been guilty of these evil designs, their way of acting would have been neither more worthy nor more canonical. Another reproach was made against Patriarch Michael: that of having made unfounded accusations against the Latin Church. Many, in fact, were exaggerated; but one did not want to notice that, in his letter, the patriarch was only the echo of the Churches of the East. Since the papacy wanted to impose its autocracy, a strong reaction had taken place in all these Churches. Under the impulse of this feeling, one sought everything that could be blamed on this Roman Church, which, in the person of its bishops, presented itself as the infallible guardian of sound doctrine. Michael Cerularius was only the interpreter of these reproaches; he would never have had enough influence to impose his true or alleged grievances on the Christian East, and those who wanted to portray him as the consummate of the schism begun under Photius only appreciated the facts in a superficial way.”[1]
Despite the polemical tone, it is remarkable that Guettée recognizes in this passage that on the one hand, many accusations made against the Latin Church by Patriarch Michael Cerularius “in fact, were exaggerated”, and on the other, “those who wanted to portray him as the consummate of the schism begun under Photius only appreciated the facts in a superficial way”.
A century later, we have yet another reading of the facts by the illustrious French Catholic Assumptionist and Byzantinist Martin Jugie. In his no less polemical work published in Paris in 1941 and entitled The Byzantine Schism, which he judges to be the “Cerularius’ schism” and of which he attempts to trace distant causes, among which he mentions “the ambition of the patriarchs of Constantinople, which pushed them to want to equal themselves at all costs with the bishops of Rome”, the author finally lists among the direct causes of the schism “the antipathies of race, national pride and political rivalries” between Greeks and Latins and recognizes as indirect causes of this “schism” the diversity and mutual ignorance of the Greek and Latin languages, as well as the autonomous evolution of the two Churches in the theological, canonical and liturgical domain, where the most important point according to him was the addition of the filioque to the Nicene Creed, introduced in Rome at the beginning of the 11th century, and never recognized by the East. Beyond the polemical tone of the time, Jugie’s merit is to have called into question, by showing its inaccuracy, the point of view perpetuated over the centuries according to which “the schism of Michael Cerularius” of 1054 would have been the definitive schism between the East and the West. Jugie writes:
“In the hindsight of history, the mutual excommunications of July 1054 have been considered as the fatal end of the Schisms which, for many centuries, periodically separated the Byzantine Church from the Western Church, where one saw in Michael Cerularius the author of the definitive schism. In fact, when we examine the documents closely, we realize that these anathemas did not have the general scope that one wanted to attribute to them. The Roman legates did not launch theirs against the Byzantine Church, but against one of its patriarchs and some of its clerics. Their sentence itself appears, from a canonical point of view, devoid of any value and has never been approved by the Holy See. As for the excommunication of the legates by Michael Cerularius and his permanent synod, it affects neither the pope nor the entire Western Church; it is a simple measure of reprisal against insolent foreigners, who dared to raise the most fanciful accusations against Cerularius and his clergy and in whom one only wanted to see emissaries of the Duke of Italy, Argyros. Instead of speaking of a definitive schism, it would undoubtedly be more accurate to say that we are in the presence of the first aborted attempt of reunion.”[2]
Regardless of his bias, the merit of Jugie’s study is to have underlined that the anathemas of 1054 did not target local Churches, but concrete persons; that the bull of excommunication placed on the altar of Saint Sophia by the French Benedictine cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida had no canonical validity since Pope Leo IX had died three months earlier, and above all, that the events of 1054 should be considered not as the accomplishment of a schism, but rather as an unsuccessful attempt to restore communion between the Churches.
These judicious remarks made it possible in the years that followed in the 20th century to “demythologize” the so-called “schism” of 1054. This is what the French Dominican Yves Congar did in his work entitled Nine Hundred Years After, Notes on the “Oriental Schism”, where he considers the excommunication placed on the altar of Hagia Sophia on 16 July 1054 as a “monument of an unimaginable incomprehension” and a gesture tainted with invalidity, underlining that it was only an episode of secondary importance in a long evolution, begun well before and continuing well after, which he qualified of progressive “estrangement”.[3] Thus, “the great schism of 1054” resembles more of a crude construction of historiographers and polemicists in the Christian imaginary than of a historical fact.
Commit these excommunications to oblivion
The sequal of the work of theologians not only contributed to “demythologizing” the “schism of 1054” but went even further: to erase these anathemas from the memory of the Church. Just as the cause of these excommunications had been the incomprehension of concrete persons, the lifting of these anathemas was made possible by the meeting, the sincerity and the commitment of two people who believed deeply in the unity of the Church: Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras.
On the one hand, this was made possible thanks to the opening of the Roman Catholic Church towards other Churches, and particularly to the Christian East, during the Second Vatican Council which declared in its decree on ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio, promulgated in November 1964: “For this reason the Holy Council urges all, but especially those who intend to devote themselves to the restoration of full communion hoped for between the Churches of the East and the Catholic Church, to give due consideration to this special feature of the origin and growth of the Eastern Churches”, recalling that “from the beginning the Churches of the East have had a treasury from which the Western Church has drawn extensively – in liturgical practice, spiritual tradition, and law”, before concluding: “The very rich liturgical and spiritual heritage of the Eastern Churches should be known, venerated, preserved and cherished by all. They must recognize that this is of supreme importance for the faithful preservation of the fullness of Christian tradition, and for bringing about reconciliation between Eastern and Western Christians”.[4]
On the other hand, this was also made possible by the interest of the Orthodox Church in the Christian Churches of the West during the Pan-Orthodox Conferences convened in Rhodes by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in the 1960s which gave the green light to the establishment of dialogues with these Churches and to the sending of Orthodox observers to the Second Vatican Council.
A significant historical event took place sixty years ago precisely at the end of the Second Vatican Council: the lifting of the regrettable anathemas of the year 1054. During a ceremony simultaneously celebrated in Rome in St. Peter’s Basilica and in the patriarchal church of St. Georges at the Phanar on 7 December 1965. In their joint declaration, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras observed that:
“Among the obstacles along the road of the development of these fraternal relations of confidence and esteem, there is the memory of the decisions, actions and painful incidents which in 1054 resulted in the sentence of excommunication leveled against the Patriarch Michael Cerularius and two other persons by the legate of the Roman See under the leadership of Cardinal Humbertus, legates who then became the object of a similar sentence pronounced by the patriarch and the Synod of Constantinople.”[5]
Furthermore, they rightly recognized the personal and exaggerated character of these anathemas which over the centuries resulted in the “estrangement” of the Churches:
“Today, however, they have been judged more fairly and serenely. Thus it is important to recognize the excesses which accompanied them and later led to consequences which, insofar as we can judge, went much further than their authors had intended and foreseen. They had directed their censures against the persons concerned and not the Churches. These censures were not intended to break ecclesiastical communion between the Sees of Rome and Constantinople.”[6]
Therefore, the two primates not only affirmed to “regret the offensive words, the reproaches without foundation, and the reprehensible gestures which, on both sides, have marked or accompanied the sad events of this period”, but even decided prophetically “remove both from memory and from the midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication which followed these events, the memory of which has influenced actions up to our day and has hindered closer relations in charity”, and even, “commit these excommunications to oblivion”.[7]
This constitutes a strong and courageous statement. But what does this mean concretely in practical terms? It means that there is no consummated schism between the two Churches, as is still unfortunately widely believed in the Christian imaginary. It means that the regrettable events of 1054 are forgotten and erased from the memory of the two sister Churches.
The beginning a new chapter of Christian history
After the lifting of the mutual anathemas of 1054, the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church find themselves in the similar state of broken communion that the Churches of Rome and Constantinople experienced at the beginning of the 11th century. To correct this problem, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras had previously initiated, during their historic and prophetic meeting in Jerusalem in January 1964, a dialogue of love.
This dialogue of love was intended to lead to a dialogue of truth through the creation, in 1979, of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, on an equal grounds, by mutual agreement between Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios. The purpose of this commission, from the beginning, was very clear: the restoration of full communion between the two Churches, based on the unity of faith according to the common experience and tradition of the early Church, the common tradition of the first millennium, as one can read in the plan of the commission drawn up in Rhodes in 1980. For over forty-five years, the Joint International Commission has worked tirelessly, undisturbed nor distracted by ignorant, obscurantist or fundamentalist people. And today we are able to reap some fruits from this work.
Having begun by considering what the two Churches have in common – that is, a common understanding of the sacraments of the Church and a common understanding of the sacramental nature of the Church – the Commission was then able to consider the issue of synodality and primacy. The genius of the Ravenna document of 2007 lies precisely in its emphasis that the thorny issue of Roman primacy could not be separated from the question of synodality, because primacy and synodality are interdependent. Indeed, on the one hand, no one can be first alone, without the others, and on the other, there can be no assembly, synod, without a presidency. And the document of Ravenna clarified that this is true at three levels of ecclesial experience: at the local level of the eparchy, at the regional level of the episcopal synod, and at the universal level, in the communion of the patriarchal and autocephalous Churches. The document of Chieti of 2016 then delved into the issue by looking more closely at the shared tradition of the first millennium, which is considered normative for both Churches. And more recently, the Alexandria document of 2023 studied the developments of ecclesial administration both in East and West during the second millennium and concluded that: “The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches.”[8]
Personally, I am convinced that the work of the Joint International Commission has inspired the renewal of synodality within the Roman Catholic Church in recent years, during the tenure of Pope Francis: a renewal that inspires a certain “decentralization” of the Roman Catholic Church, thus challenging the so-called “universal jurisdiction” of the Pope, and which, in this sense, looks promising to careful Orthodox Christians. At this point, Pope Leo XIV seems to wish to continue the approach of his predecessor.
Having made progress in the dialogue about truth, the commission seems ready at this point in history to confront and discuss, in a climate of scientific objectivity and mutual trust, the issues that have long divided the Churches. The issues such as infallibility or filioque, the later often regarded as the major cause of the rupture of communion between Roma and Constantinople at the beginning of the beginning of the 11th century, are now being studied by the Commission.
Regarding this second question, it is worth recalling that the 2003 document of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation entitled: “The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement” which recommended “that the Catholic Church, as a consequence of the normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381, use the original Greek text alone in making translations of that Creed for catechetical and liturgical use” that is, without the Filioque.[9]
As a matter of fact, the same was repeated in 2024 in the Common Statement of the Joint International Commission on Theological Dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and the Orthodox Church on the addition of the Filioque clause to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol of faith, which suggested “that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions between our communities and enable us to confess together the faith of the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381).”
In this regard, a recent event gives us particular joy: during the ecumenical commemoration of the martyrs of the faith of the 21st century, presided over by His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, in the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls, in Rome, on 14 September 2025, the Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople was recited, in Italian, without the Filioque. An important detail that demonstrates that things are moving forward and that the theological dialogue is bearing fruit and this gives us great hope for the future restoration of Christian unity on the basis of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed which was considered by the Church, at least since the 5th century, as a universal symbol of faith.
In the same spirit, even more recently, on the eve of his visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, Pope Leo XIV quotes the phrase from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed without the Filioque in his apostolic letter (encyclical) In Unitate Fidei, promulgated on 23 November 2025, noting in footnote 10 following this quote that: “The statement ‘and proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque)’ is not found in the text of Constantinople; it was inserted into the Latin Creed by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014 and is a subject of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.” This remark, in a papal encyclical, is of paramount importance because the official recognition of this addition by the Pope himself puts an end to a millennium of controversy that has contributed to deepening the abyss of division between the two Churches.
At the common prayer of 28 November 2025, celebrating the anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, on the very site where it took place, presided by Pope Leo and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in the presence of the Patriarch of Alexandria, official delegates of the ancient Patriarchates of Antioch and Jerusalem, and representatives of all the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Protestant World Christian communions, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was recited together without the addition of the Filioque. Of course, this also did not happen for the first time. Already in 1987, during the official visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios to Rome, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed was recited in the original Greek without the Filioque by both Pope John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch. The same happened with Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis at several similar official liturgical occasions. This proves that the Filioque is not a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church: otherwise these three popes ought to be considered as heretics by their own Church – and this is fortunately not the case!
As indicated on various occasions by Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, has the official mandate of both Churches to work for the restoration of full ecclesial communion between the two Churches. In affirming in his address to Pope Leo on 30 November that “we can only pray that issues such as the “filioque” and infallibility (…) will be resolved such that their understanding no longer serve as stumbling blocks to the communion of our Churches”, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew did not ask the Pope for more than he can give, but gave hope that the restoration of communion between the two Churches, interrupted a millennium ago, could soon be re-established provided that the divided Christians grant their goodwill to this end.
Shall we see the restoration of full communion between our two Churches before 2054? The theological dialogue undertaken between the two sister Churches has this concrete goal, not by seeking to reach a compromise nor to betray the orthodoxy of faith, but, on the contrary, to restore it on the ground of the common tradition of the first millennium. Several important theological agreements have been made towards this direction in the recent decades. To this end, theologians work hard with all scientific objectivity and truth. But it is still necessary that the fruits of their work be received not only by the episcopate and the clergy, but also by the entire pleroma of the Church, in order to purify the Christian imaginary. Hence the importance of making these declarations and documents better known. For this reason, we shall work on the reception of the agreements. This is the only way for our desire of Christian unity to become a reality in the near future.
[1] M. l’abbé Guettée, La Papauté schismatique ou Rome dans ses rapports avec l’Église orientale, Paris, Librairie de l’Union chrétienne, 1863, p. 363-364.
[2] Martin Jugie, Le schisme byzantin, aperçu historique et doctrinal. Paris, P. Lethielleux, 1941, p. 230.
[3] Yves Congar, Neuf cents ans après, Notes sur le « Schisme oriental », Éditions de Chevetogne, 1954, p. 77.
[4] Second Vatican Council, Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio, 14-15.
[5] Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I, December 7, 1965, 2.
[6] Ibid., 3.
[7] Ibid., 4.
[8] Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, “Synodality and Primacy in the Second Millennium and Today”, Alexandria, 2023, paragraph 5.1.
[9] North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation entitled: “The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement”, IV.