Articles

Church History 7^th Century and Beyond

By Phil Newton

Early seventh century proved to be a transition period. Just as the empire seemed to be settling down under Gregory the Great's leadership, the obscure lands of Arabia sent forth a conquering siege. Islam had arisen as a religion that sought to subdue and govern by Islamic laws laid down by Mohammed.

Mohammed was an Arab merchant who took elements of Judaism, Christianity, and local tribal superstition and rolled it into a religion. His sayings and guidelines are found in the Qu'ran, often with incoherent ramblings as the content. 622 AD marks the beginning of the Moslem era and the 1^st Moslem community. By military and political campaigns, Mohammed was able to secure most of Arab land by his death in 632. Succeeding him was a series of "caliphs" (successor). Abu Bakr (632-634) consolidated Arabia and made the first advance of victory against Byzantine (Eastern) armies. Omar (634-644) led the Arabs in capturing Syria. In 635 Damascus fell; in 638 Jerusalem fell. Within two years they mastered the Middle East. Simultaneously, they took Alexandria, Egypt in 642 and founded their Moslem city of Cairo. By 695, North Africa and ancient Persia belonged to them with forced conversions to Islam.

In 711, a weakened Visigothic kingdom in Spain fell to Tarik, with all but the extreme north under Islamic rule. Then their eyes were on the heart of Europe. They crossed the Pyrenees that borders Spain and France with a view to conquering Europe. But in 732 the decisive battle of Tours under the leadership of Charles "the Hammer" Martel conquered the Moslem army and turned them back.

But great damage had already been done in one century with the key Christian centers of Jerusalem, Antioch, Damascus, Alexandria, and Carthage remaining under Moslem rule. The Byzantine Empire shrank all the way back to Turkey with the Moslem rule extending from Iraq across North Africa to Spain. This changed the geographical center of Christianity with new movement increasing in Italy, France, and the British Isles. This formed the basis for the near future Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne.

Eastern Church and the Great Schism with the West

This period began the drift of East and West churches, culminated in 1054. There were obvious differences.

East	West
Latin speaking	Greek speaking
Byzantine	Roman
Constantinople center	Rome center
Recognize Patriarch elected by Emperor	Recognize Pope elected by succession
Controlled by the State	Controlled the State

Key Theological Debates

Most questions centered on how the divinity and humanity of Christ are joined. The East had its own division between Antiochene and Alexandrine. These were two competing cities that sought to gain Imperial favor and control of Constantinople's church authority. They argued, not that Christ's person is divine but "how can the immutable, eternal God be joined to a mutable, historical man?"

The Alexandrines emphasized Christ's divinity, asserting it at the expense of His humanity. The Antiochenes taught that "the Godhead dwelt in Him, without any doubt;" but this must not be understood in such a way that his humanity was diminished or eclipsed. See Gonzalez 252ff.

The West didn't argue at this point but accepted Tertullian's formula: two natures united in one person. Several heresies developed:

(1) Apollinarianism - named for Apollinarius of Laodicea, championed by the Alexandrine school. Jesus had a physical body but not human intellect, instead Jesus as "the Word of God" played the role of the intellect or "rational soul" - so, a human body with a purely divine mind. The Council of Constantinople of 381 rejected this and affirmed Nicea.

(2) Nestorianism - named for Nestorius, an Antiochene school representative who was Patriarch of Constantinople in 428. Declared many should be called not qeotokoV - "bearer of God," but cristokoV - "bearer of Christ." The real issue was Jesus not Mary. His point was to divide the divine and human natures of Jesus. He taught Jesus had two natures and two persons. The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned this view.

(3) Eutychianism - named for a monk of Constantinople, Eutyches, who taught that Jesus was "of one substance with the Father" but not "of one substance with us." He implied that Jesus existed in two natures before the union in one nature at the incarnation. Pope Leo from Rome sent a representative to Ephesus in 449 for a council but was violently treated so that he shortly died. The Alexandrine school manipulated it to secure their position that declared the two natures of Christ as heretical! Emperor Theodosius II ratified it against Leo's fuming. But when Theodosius II died with a broken neck in a riding accident not too long afterward, his sister Pulcheria succeeded him, reopened proceeding after judging the Ephesus meeting in 449 as a farce, reconvened in 451 at Chalcedon with the Fourth Ecumenical Council, declaring Christ as two natures in one person. Out of this was produced a "Definition of Faith" (cf Gonzalez 257). Nestorianism (2 natures/2 persons) continued in Syria and Persia, others held to a monophysite or one nature view. This led to a permanent schism with these groups.

(4) Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 in Constantinople condemned the writings of three Antiochene theologians.

(5) Sixth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 680-681 condemned "monothelism" that was developed by the Patriarch Sergius and supported by Pope Honorius. It taught that the divine will took the place of Christ's human will, quite similar to Apollinarius. The Council condemned Honorius, which had later implications on papal infallibility and this view.

(6) Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 787 dealt with icons and distinguished between worshiping images as wrong since (latria) worship belonged only to God, and "a less worshipful veneration, dulia, which is to be given to images." Those wanting to destroy all images were "iconoclasts" and "iconodules" were worshipers of images. "In 842 images were definitively restored - an event that many Eastern churches still celebrate as the 'Feast of Orthodoxy'" (Gonzalez 260).

The Divide Continues

The monophysite heresy continued in Ethiopia (even today) and in Egypt and Syria among the Copts with the Coptic Church still holding monophysite views. Those in Syria are dubbed "Jacobites" from an early leader, Jacob Baradaeus.

Eastern Chalcedonian Christianity is called the Easter Orthodox Church. With the Arabs blocking their growth south and east, and Roman Christianity holding the west, they moved north and northwest into areas populated by Slavs, occupying much of present Poland, Balkan States, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece.

Some of what happened came at the invitation of a Slavic king that feared Western missionaries would be followed by the Frankish Empire, so this king Rostislav, invited Constantinople in 862 to send missionaries.

Two brothers, Cyril and Methodius, were sent, with Cyril developing a Slavic alphabet (Cyrillic Alphabet) and translating the Bible, other books and liturgy into it.

In Russia (c. 950), Queen Olga was converted and baptized through work of Germanic missionaries. Under her grandson Vladimir, Christianity spread in Russia. Even after the Mongols invaded them in 1240 and ruled for two centuries, the Christian faith held them together. In the 16^th century when the Turks conquered Constantinople, Russia declared Moscow "The Third Rome" with her rulers crowned imperial czar and bishop of Moscow the patriarch (Gonzalez 264).

The schism between West and East was fomented by the West's lack of dependence on the Byzantine Empire under Charlemagne (in the West) and the West saw the East as a puppet of the Emperor. "The schism of Photius" in 867 took place when Photius, patriarch of Constantinople, declared the entire West to be heretical by their position that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both the Father and the Son (filioque, "and from the Son") rather than just "from the Father." The controversy centered on the Nicean creed and changing it. So Rome reasserted the Apostle's Creed.

The final schism took place on June 16, 1054 when Cardinal Humbert who was Pope Leo's legate as ambassador sent to deal with a controversy over clerical celibacy and communion with unleavened bread (practiced by the West and declared error by the East). Humbert took offense at the married clergy and the authority Byzantine rulers had over the Eastern church, so on June 16, 1054, when Patriarch Michael Cerularius prepared to celebrate communion in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, Humbert "walked to the high altar, and on it placed in the name of the pope - who actually had died shortly before - a sentence of excommunication against 'heretic' Michael Cerularius, as well as any who dared follow him. He then walked out, shook the dust from his feet, and set out for Rome" (Gonzalez 265). The split was final!

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