The Schism of the Byzantine Church

TJ Pellegrin 11/17/15 8SS6 Social Studies

The Schism of the Byzantine Church Justinian’s code, which Justinian I created in 529 CE, was a huge help and improvement to Byzantium. His code assisted in shaping the government and even inspired many of the laws we abide by today in modern society. Justinian I had a very positive impact on Byzantium, unlike the schism of 1054 which was the beginning of the end. The schism became a huge difficulty for Byzantium. The pope and emperors didn’t get along too well. The emperor didn’t want the church to pray to icons because he thought that the icons would be seen as more holy than Allah. Meanwhile, the pope wanted icons to be used. As said in Schism of 1054, the schism of 1054, also known as the east- west schism, occurred when the pope excommunicated the emperor and the emperor excommunicated the pope (par. 1). The double excommunication caused a formal split within the Christian Church (par. 1). Eastern Orthodox split from Western Roman Catholic (Jacobs, 288). The beginning of the schism comes from the cultural, political, and historical differences between the east and west of Byzantium (par. 2). The Schism of 1054 further states that after the schism, it was problematic for Byzantium to function because of the religious variances between the east and west. Although later emperors tried to resolve this separation, they were not able to do so; with both churches still separate today (par. 8). The schism in the Byzantine church was the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire. The Roman Catholics didn’t want to help or support the Orthodox Church at all. Without the much needed military support from the Roman Catholics, the Byzantines lost much of their territory to the Seljuk Turks (par. 8). The Byzantine Empire lasted many decades after the Roman Empire fell. However, after many years the Turks eventually overtook the Byzantine Empire. TJ Pellegrin 11/20/15 8SS6 Social Studies

Annotated Work Cited

Jacobs, Heidi and LeVasseur, Michael. History of Our World. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.

From this book, I got the information about what two religions split during the Byzantine Empire. I learned about why these religions split and what occurred as a result.

Schism of 1054. World History: Ancient and Medieval Eras. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.

I got just about all of my information in my essay from this very informative article. This article informed me on why the schism happened and what occurred post Schism.