The Schism of the Eastern and the Western Churches

For a thousand years the church was regarded as a unit in spite of various sects and occasional violent disagreements among prominent churchmen. Nine hundred years ago it broke into a Greek and a Roman segment. Repeated efforts have been made to heal the breach, but only with passing success. It took a millennium to effect the schism; there is at present no indication that the two segments will ever reunite. The year 1054 has been accepted as the date of the schism. This date, however, merely serves the convenience of the historian. It is a handy road marker along the path of history. Actually the break between the East and the West had taken place in the hearts of many long before the dramatic incident of that year, when, on July 13, Cardinal Humbert desecrated the altar of the Hagia Sophia with his blasphemous pronouncement of the Patriarch\u27s excommunication