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?”
