Unity has
always been a concept that it was easier for the Church to proclaim than to
actualize. When the Apostle John wrote
his first epistle, as the first generation of Christianity came to a close and
the second non-eyewitness generation came to the fore, it was already necessary
for him to counter the heretical claims of the Gnostics by reaffirming the
humanity of Jesus, both before and after the resurrection, as the one, “we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands
have touched.” Three centuries later,
the Arians would put forth the heresy that Jesus was less than God, the Church,
now the official religion of Rome after remarkable growth from humble beginnings,
responded under the leadership of men like Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria,
ultimately leading to the councils of Nicea and Calcedon where the theology of
the person of Christ; handed down from the Apostles, was codified. From that point forward, only fringe groups
would challenge the humanity and deity of Christ, but even with theological
unity regarding Jesus, division was still coming, developing along cultural
lines as the Latin West drifted away from the Greek East. The Emperor Diocletian had already
administratively split the Roman Empire in half in A.D. 284, after the fall of
the empire in the West in the 5th century, the Latin Western Church
and the Easter Greek Church grew more and more estranged.
The Protestant
Reformation, which began 500 years ago on October 31st, 1517, was
not the first major division within the Church, that occurred formally in A.D.
1054, and is known as the Great Schism.
In 1054, the functional East-West divide was made formal when the legate
of Pope Leo IX excommunicated the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople,
Michael Cerularius (Keroularios), who in return excommunicated the
representative of the Pope. There were
theological and cultural issues that divided the two sides, but the proximate
cause of the split was a dispute over power; Leo IX was seeking to assert
universal papal authority, the bishops of the East, the Patriarch of
Constantinople in particular, refused to accept that claim.
While the
Eastern and Western Churches went their own way, struggling to make a unified
response to the rise of Islam and deepening their animosity when the army of
the 4th Crusade turned under Venetian prompting from Jerusalem to
sack Constantinople, new issues of theology and politics developed in the West
that would lead toward the spirit of reform which Martin Luther inherited. The West had never been politically unified
after the fall of Rome. In the East, the
Emperor of Constantinople held authority over
the Patriarch, but in the West the authority of the bishop of Rome had been
challenged by Charlemagne and his successors, the Holy Roman Emperors. Dynastic feuds kept Christian vs. Christian
warfare in the West at endemic levels as families vied for power, and the
various kings claimed the right to choose their own bishops, typically choosing
a family relative regardless of qualifications, as an extension of those power
struggles. On multiple occasions, the
right to install a bishop was asserted against the claims of kings, by a Pope,
leading to episodes like the excommunication of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV
in the 11th century, who in response led his army over the Alps to
besiege Rome, seeking to depose Gregory VII and replace him with a Pope who
would do his bidding.
The Fall of
Constantinople in 1453 caused a flood of Greek speaking refugees to head west,
sparking a renewed interest in the original Greek of the New Testament. The Dutch priest, Desiderius Erasmus
published his Greek New Testament in 1516, spurring on those who desired the
Scriptures in the vernacular, for only the educated few could read Jerome’s
Latin Vulgate. In the 16th
century, ideas spread much more rapidly than in the past thanks to the
invention of a workable printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455; by 1500,
10 million books had been printed in Europe.
Add to this
mix of political turmoil and warfare, and ongoing struggles for power between
kings and popes, a series of would-be reformers like the Englishmen John
Wycliffe and the Czech Jan Hus. Reforms
did occur within the Church, but the pressure was building for more substantial
changes, and that pressure burst forth when a young German priest named Martin
Luther issued a call for debate concerning issues that troubled him regarding
salvation theology. Luther had been
inspired by his readings of Saint Augustine, as well as Erasmus’ Greek edition
at Romans 1:17 where the Vulgate’s Latin read “Justitia”, but the Greek read
“dikaios”, that is righteousness rather than justice. This translational nuance spoke to Martin
Luther, leading him to issue his challenge by posting his 95 objections on the
Castle Church door in Wittenberg on October 31st, 1517.
At this point,
Martin Luther was no revolutionary in intent or spirit, merely a reformer, like
many within the Western Church. One
hundred years prior, Jan Hus had been promised safe conduct to discuss his
proposed reforms, by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund himself, but had been
burned at the stake anyway as a heretic.
Knowing this, Martin Luther still came to Worms to meet with the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V and Pope Leo X’s representative, Johann Eck. Asked by Eck to recant his writings, Luther
refused saying, “Unless I am convinced by testimony of the Scriptures or by
clear reason, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is
captive to the Word of God. I cannot and
will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against my
conscience. May God help me. Amen.”
The tribunal
then issued the Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther to be a heretic and
outlaw and excommunicating him. Luther
would have ended like Jan Hus, but several German princes, opposed to Charles V
and seeking to curb his authority over them, sheltered Martin Luther, allowing
him time to translate the Bible into German, and time for the spark which he
had inadvertently lit, to fan into flame and turn from reform to Reformation,
leading quickly toward conflict and war as Luther’s ideas spread throughout
northern Europe, dividing the Western Church along roughly north-south
lines.
How did we get
here, how did the Church become divided, east-west, and then 500 years later,
north-south too? Theology was a
necessary part of it, interpretation and application of Scripture being a task
that often leads to disagreement, even among otherwise like-minded people. Cultural and linguistic differences were also
a part, when the fault lines did occur, there was a reason why they split so
neatly where differences already existed.
But in the end, the one avoidable factor, the one factor that should
have been absent within the Church,
was the pursuit of power. Fallible
people lead the Church, they always have, and they are not immune to the
siren’s call of power. On all sides men
made choices tainted by their own greed for power, and in the end, it was the
unity of the Church of Jesus Christ which paid the price.
Let us, then,
recognize our theological and cultural differences, welcoming honest and
respectful study, dialogue, and debate as we together attempt to be what the
bride of Christ ought to be, but let us fully reject as folly unbecoming of
servants in the kingdom of God, the desire for power which led our ancestors in
the faith toward division, and ultimately toward violence and war amongst
themselves; for regardless of what they did, and what we here do today, “God’s
truth abideth still: His kingdom is forever.”
