Читать книгу The World's Christians - Douglas Jacobsen - Страница 28

The Byzantine Empire is the name given to the Eastern half of the Roman Empire (roughly equivalent to modern Greece and Turkey) after the empire lost political control of the Western Mediterranean Sea. This name change is also associated with the transition of the Eastern Roman Empire into a solely Greek‐speaking state, which took place during the first half of this five‐hundred‐year period. This is also when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches – the Latin‐speaking and the Greek‐speaking Christian churches of the old Roman Empire – began to drift apart, slowly taking on their own separate and distinctive identities. The reasons for this drift are complex, including political and cultural developments as well as emerging theological differences, but by the year 1000 it was clear that Orthodox and Catholic Christians were developing separate and distinct understandings of who they were in matters of faith. As if to mark this fact, the so‐called “Great Schism” that took place in the year 1054 (an event that involved the papal condemnation of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Patriarch’s responsive denunciation of the Pope) is often cited as the formal point of separation between the two churches.

Eastern Orthodoxy’s distinctive identity was forged in this era, and the Iconoclastic Controversy was a key event. This dispute took place during the 700s and the 800s and focused on whether icons should be allowed in the churches or whether they should be banned as idolatrous. The iconophiles (lovers of icons) eventually won this contest, defeating the iconoclasts (opponents of icons). Icons have played a central role in Orthodox life and spirituality ever since. While the Second Council of Nicaea, held in 787, settled this issue theologically, the final victory of the iconophile movement (often referred to as the Triumph of Orthodoxy) did not take place until 843, when the Byzantine Empress Theodora called a new synod of bishops into existence to reaffirm the Second Council of Nicaea and threw the full weight of the government behind the Council’s decision (see Voices of World Christianity 1.2).

The Orthodox tradition faced another challenge during this period that deepened and solidified its identity: the rise of Islam. Heretofore, Orthodox Christianity had defined itself by explaining how it superseded earlier forms of religion, how it corrected and improved both Roman paganism and Judaism. But Islam was a new religion that saw itself as the successor of Judaism and Christianity. The initial reaction of Orthodoxy was to treat Islam as if it was a Christian heresy, hoping it would soon disappear. Rather than disappearing, however, Islam became stronger, and it soon took control of much of the territory where Orthodoxy had previously flourished. This Muslim conquest of the Middle East changed the church’s organizational structure. Before the conquest, the four Patriarchs of the great cities of Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem had shared leadership of the tradition. After the conquest, the Patriarch of Constantinople began to exercise greater authority because he was the only Patriarch not living under Muslim rule.