The mutual excommunications issued one to the other by Rome and Constantinople in the 11th century opened a wound that would remain unhealed for more than 900 years.
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Constantinople, summer of 1054. Imagine standing inside the monumental Hagia Sophia, the beating heart of Eastern Christianity. It's Saturday, and the patriarch himself is celebrating the liturgy. Suddenly, three Western men walk in. With determined steps, they cut through the crowd, stride straight down the central nave, and head directly for the high altar.
The leader of this small group is an envoy sent from Rome, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida. Reaching the altar, Humbert makes a highly theatrical and incredibly grave gesture. He slams a piece of parchment down onto the sacred marble. Then, he turns on his heel, heads for the exit, and, just before walking out the door, shakes the dust from his shoes. May God see and judge. That parchment is a bull of excommunication for the Patriarch of Constantinople himself, Michael Serularius.
To understand the reasons behind this move, we have to look at the political climate of those years. For centuries, the Church of Rome in the West and the Church of Constantinople in the East had been eyeing each other with suspicion. They spoke different languages, Latin on one side, Greek on the other.
They had different customs and, most importantly, opposing views on who should be in charge. Rome claimed the supreme authority of the Pope. Constantinople considered itself the new capital of the empire and wasn't about to take orders from anyone.
The bull left by Humbert on the altar is a crystal formal excommunication, but drafted in incredibly harsh tones. The result? A total diplomatic disaster. Patriarch Michael Serularius, far from intimidated, convenes a synod a few days later, indignantly rejects the papal document, and in response, excommunicates the envoys from Rome right back. It's a complete standoff, a short circuit that triggers what will go down in history as the Great Schism.
Christianity is literally split in two, Catholics on one side, Orthodox on the other. A political and spiritual fracture that redrew the map of the world. Healing this wound caused by those two crossed excommunications wouldn't take months or even years. It would take a staggering 911 years. A first step finally arrives in 1964, when Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras embrace in Jerusalem, in a historic meeting that makes headlines around the world. But it isn't until the following year, in 1965, that through a joint declaration, the two churches officially erased those excommunications from their memory.
