A guy and a girl meet in school.
They start up a conversation and the girl asks the guy, what religion are you?'.
He replies, “Christian.”
She says, “Me too.”
That conversation has likely happened millions of times since there are about 2.6 billion
Christians on this planet.
On top of that, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity said in 2021 that around
the world there is something like 45,000 Christian denominations.
Throughout history, there have been splits, and more splits, with different churches believing
different things.
It would be an understatement to say it’s complicated, so today we’ll just concentrate
on one great big split and what happened after that.
But first back to the start, and we don’t mean God getting busy building the universe
or Judas Iscariot giving his buddy away in the Garden of Gethsemane.
What we mean is when the church really started to have some legs.
That’s when the problems started.
After Jesus Christ died on the cross and was later resurrected, Christianity was rife throughout
the Roman Empire, although there was a fair bit of persecution going on.
Then in the year 313, Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal and in 380 it became
the state religion.
The Catholic Church says that it began with the teachings of Christ and all his disciples.
Those guys spread the word, and today people still spread the word.
There are people called bishops, and they are supposed to be like those old school disciples.
In part thanks to them, Christianity was soon everywhere.
As the centuries passed, more churches started popping up, although they didn’t really
become pervasive until the 11th century.
That’s when things got really heated.
All you need to know is that Christianity spread over vast areas of the world, but the
head guy, the Pope, was in Rome.
Even so, many Christians weren’t even close to Rome.
They were spread over other parts of Europe, parts of Asia, parts of Africa, and the Middle
East.
Those people were part of Eastern Christianity, but this only really refers to geography,
not beliefs and customs.
Now you need to understand two words: Catholic and Orthodox.
Catholic actually comes from the word “universal”, so what it really means is universal Christianity.
Orthodox relates to following the correct beliefs, so if you’re orthodox you think
you’re just doing things the right way according to tradition and law.
Of course, no religious person is going to say I’m following the wrong beliefs.
And no person is going to say my religion is not a universal truth, otherwise, it’s
not really a religion.
In this sense, the semantic sense, all Christians are orthodox and Catholic, but that’s not
the point of this show.
Now we come to the big split, aka, the “East-West Schism.”
This officially happened in 1054 and was the result of Eastern and Western Christianity
often not getting along politically, and having different opinions on how one should serve
Christ.
One historian, speaking in academic parlance, described the reason for the split like this.
The “depths of intellectual alienation that had developed between the two sections of
Christendom.”
They had their differences and they broke up.
Nowadays the Eastern Orthodox Church is the second biggest church after the Roman Catholic
Church.
The pope is not their leader, instead, each different Orthodox church has a head bishop
who’s elected by all the other bishops in that church, and he becomes the patriarch,
or what’s called the Holy Synod.
There isn’t just one, though, in all Orthodox Christianity.
For instance, you have the Russian Holy Synod, the Greek Holy Synod, the Romanian Holy Synod
and more.
This is different from the Pope, who sits on the metaphorical throne and answers to
no one.
You also have the Patriarch of Constantinople on Orthodox Christianity, who’s kind of
the spiritual number one and the “first among equals”, but he’s not like the Pope
in that he doesn’t hold sway over all the other patriarchs around the world.
He still holds a lot of respect, but then Russia has its own spiritual top man in the
Archbishop of Moscow.
In matters of doctrine, the Roman Pope is said to be infallible, meaning he doesn’t
get anything wrong.
The Orthodox church disagrees, saying even its own leaders can make mistakes.
Those leaders, by the way, are usually ordained monks before they become a patriarch.
Orthodox Christians are usually ok with priests being celibate or not being celibate, while
Catholics don’t allow priests to have intimate partners.
Celibacy is not a big deal for most Orthodox Churches.
The difference is not really a great issue.
A really big difference and the reason for centuries of disagreement is over these few
words: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord,
the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.”
That’s talking about the Holy Trinity, which is the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son.
This disagreement over this has been called the “The Filioque fracas” with Filioque
relating to the Son.
It was actually one of the biggest reasons for the great breakup.
You see, those guys in the East said it was the Father and the Father alone that was behind
the Holy Spirit, and the Son wasn’t so involved.
They even said if you think any different, you’re a heretic.
Swords were drawn and they were never sheathed.
Still today the Son in the Orthodox Church won’t play such a starring role in proceeding
the Holy Spirit.
They say the Western Church shoehorned the Son into things by itself and that just wasn’t
right.
They preferred what they think is the original version of events told by the first theologians,
the Church Fathers.
Still, both churches agree that there is a Father up in heaven and a Son that came down
to Earth and also a Holy Spirit that is everywhere.
They just don’t agree on the relationship they have.
Ok, but why do they disagree and why do people today still argue for their side?
Let’s face it, it’s human nature to join a club and support it, and where you are born
usually determines which club you’ll be supporting.
Now you’ll see how each club has different ways of doing things, not just thinking things.
You are likely wondering what this seemingly intractable rupture means today?
If you mention the Son proceeding the Holy Spirit in say, Russia or Bulgaria, are you
liable to find yourself in a punch up?
We doubt it, but both sides do argue over certain things.
For instance, you might have seen Catholics making the sign of the cross on themselves,
such as soccer players before they take a penalty kick or mobsters when they’ve just
narrowly escaped a whacking.
You’ll notice that they make the beam of the cross from the left shoulder to the right
shoulder.
Orthodox Christians do it the other way around.
It might seem like a small deal, but it isn’t for some who believe they do it the correct
way.
We visited an Eastern Orthodox website to find out why there is a difference.
This is what we read, “They [Catholics] must explain why they have changed an ancient
and apostolic tradition.
We cannot answer as to their motivations.”
Yet again, the Roman Catholic Church gets called out for doing things its own way and
not adhering to old-school thought and methods.
The Orthodox Church says it has preserved traditions etched in stone.
It pays more attention, or most people do, to rituals.
If you’re going to try and preserve traditions, then you really have to be strict about your
rituals.
Religion is by its very nature conservative, but one of the bigger differences is the Orthodox
Church is usually more conservative than the Catholic Church.
To give you an example, we looked at Pew Research studies on Orthodox feelings about homosexuality
and same-sex marriage.
In the majority of countries that are home to mostly Orthodox Christians, the vast majority
of people were against both.
Greece was the only country where quite a large – not very large – percentage of
people said homosexuality should be accepted by society.
The Catholic Church also calls homosexuality a sin, but there are still progressive elements
within the church, more so than in the Orthodox Church.
Just to give you an idea of how a certain church might think, one person wrote to a
Greek Orthodox Church in the US.
The question was, “I am powerfully drawn to the Orthodox Church, but I’m gay.”
He asked if he could still join.
The answer was kind of yes, but with some caveats, such as this, “A repentant, struggling
homosexual who refrains from homosexual acts can be received into the church after the
usual course of instruction, but he or she would do best to keep this matter in the confessional,
just as is common with every other sin.”
Of course, all people are different.
We like this response we found on another website when someone asked which church was
more conservative: “Politically, Orthodox and Catholic Christians
are both all over the map.
You will find Orthodox Communists and Orthodox neo-fascists, but also Orthodox peaceniks
and the like.
Same goes for Catholics.”
Still, some things are just different and they always will be.
Take Easter for example, which for many people will be how this deceased American comedian
explained it: “Commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children
a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night.”
He was actually referring to Catholics or Protestants and not members of the Orthodox
Church.
They are deadly serious when it comes to the resurrection.
In both churches, Easter can fall on different days of the year, but the days will still
be different for both churches.
The reason is because of a man named Pope Gregory XIII.
In 1582, he made a change to the calendar and that’s why when you look at your phone,
you’re looking at the Gregorian calendar.
The Orthodox Church bases the days of Easter on the Julian calendar, which relates to Julius
Caesar.
Again, they are sticking with tradition since the Julian calendar preceded the Gregorian
calendar.
They are also a lot stricter about Easter.
They start fasting on Clean Monday and do it for 40 days until it ends on Lazarus Saturday
eight days before Easter.
This fasting period is called the Great Lent.
When that’s over, they might chow down on roasted lamb, or traditional soups and cakes,
but not so much sickly Cadbury’s Cream Eggs that were hidden in pairs of running shoes.
The fasting part for Orthodox Christians is a huge deal, since it relates to important
matters such as purification, enlightening yourself, and liberating yourself from sin.
In short, it shows a certain amount of dedication.
Catholics may fast too, but only on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and other Fridays during Lent.
The truth is, Catholics are more likely not to follow fasting rules than Orthodox folks.
As a matter of fact, members of the Orthodox Church are supposed to fast every Wednesday
and Friday throughout the year, and many will take this seriously.
Catholics should also fast every Friday, but many or most don’t.
As for what fasting requires, well, that changes for different people.
Some people are stricter than others.
It often means one meal a day with no meat, plus you might lay off the dairy and booze,
among other things.
For some Catholics, it might mean staying off Facebook for the day.
The meaning of Easter for both churches is a bit different, too.
In both cases, Christ was crucified and then resurrected, but the Catholics put great emphasis
on JC suffering for our sins.
That’s why he’s usually depicted covered in blood.
There’s no blood in Orthodox renditions.
For the Orthodox Church, the emphasis of the resurrection is more about Christ’s victory,
his triumph over dark forces.
If Catholics see it as Jesus taking a hit for our sins, which is a bit depressing in
a way, the Orthodox folks see it as Jesus kicking some butt.
This might seem like a small difference, but it’s not when it comes to celebrations.
For the Orthodox Church, Easter is like celebrating D-Day, but for the Catholics, it’s more
like shamefully looking up and saying, thanks dude for having my back.
There are some other differences, big and small.
A small one might be that people of the Orthodox Church are more likely to stand up while praying.
It’s not demanded by any means, but it happens more.
Again it’s down to the interpretation of God’s word and reverence to God.
That is not a big deal, but what is a serious matter is what happens after death.
In the Orthodox Church, there is no such thing as that halfway house called purgatory.
The Church also doesn’t have indulgences, those things that Catholics could exploit
to pay their way out of going to hell.
Why?
Well, again, they say these things were made up and not part of the original scripts.
To them, the difference is important.
In 2007, the Serbian Orthodox Church talked about a few small reforms such as speaking
a traditionally silent prayer.
It sounds like nothing, but people went into the streets protesting.
One person held aloft a sign that read, “Do not turn us into Roman Catholics!”
You can equally imagine a more modern-thinking Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian meeting
in a bar and one of them saying, “Remind me again, why am I supposed to not like you?”
The other just shrugs and says, “Because your parents said so.”
No doubt we’ll take a beating for our flagrant simplicity regarding this complex, and for
some people, very serious matter.
However generalizing we’ve been, we’ve at least clumsily tried to cover some bases.
Time to duck for cover.
Now you need to watch, “What Is Hell Really Like?”
Or, have a look at, “What Actually is God?”