Looking at history, something started nagging me.
Back in the days when the Roman Orthodox Patriarch was starting to make changes,
and claims beyond his position of honor rather than uniform authority, there was a
final break between the Roman Patriarch aka pope (a term meaning father in a familiar
form like daddy, and also used by the Alexandrian Patriarch,) and the Patriarch of
Constantinople, in AD 1054.
Some argue that this was not the actual final break, which was solidified much more
later and for some time after that, priests of both segments concelebrated the Eucharist.
This date however is a key point. The excommunication against Constantinople was
only against Constantinople, which had no authority outside its own jurisdiction.
However, in the ensuing disputes, the rest of the patriarchs took the side of the Patriarch
of Constantinople, and joined in its excommunication of Rome. (this was not the first
time a Roman pope was excommunicated by the east, and one of those councils that
did so is accepted by Rome, oddly enough.)
Some time before this, southern Italy had been briefly transferred by an emperor to
the jurisdiction of Constaninople, resulting in churches operating there, and continuing,
under the Patriarch of Constantinople, even after southern Italy was returned to Roman
jurisdiction later. These churches were closed. In response to this, Constantinople
closed Latin churches operating in Constantinople (exactly how these came to be there
I didn't notice in reading up on all this).
During this closure, necessarily somewhat violent because of resistance by priests,
laity and monastics, the Holy Eucharist of the Latins was trampled underfoot in
sacrilege, because it was held to be invalid, not a real Eucharist, not the Body and
Blood of Christ, because made with unleavened bread (azymes).
The dispute regarding the use of unleavened bread had developed a few centuries
before, when Rome getting too focused on details of form started using unleavened
bread to make the Eucharist, instead of leavened bread, the bread of the common
people and easily available to all.
Various complicated arguments including allegations that use of unleavened bread
implied some kind of heretical belief, were made by the East. These probably partook
more of the scholastic sense developing in the West, which laid too much authority
on human reason, and less of the tradition view that the Eucharist is a Mystery (the
term musterion being called sacrament in Latin).
But before the Great Schism of AD 1054, an Eastern priestmonk was visiting a church
in Lanciano, Italy, which used azymes. and he had doubts in his heart, while performing
the Eucharist with this, that this really was the Body and Blood of Christ. And God
worked a miracle, the host turned into flesh and the wine into five clots of blood.
It remains to this day. However, the details on why the priestmonk was having doubts
are usually left out. It was a preschism miracle, so we Orthodox should take note of it.
Tests of the time showed that the blood clots weighed the same, whether weighed
separately or all together, the weight was the same. This according to the Wikipedia
article on this has diminished and ceased over the centuries, but the following
information is from recent (20th century) tests.
The flesh is human cardiac muscle.
The blood is human, same blood type as on the Shroud of Turin and the Veil of Oviedo.
The blood tests as chemically the same as FRESH blood, which is impossible after
over a thousand years. But it does.
Constantinople then did commit sacrilege. And maybe this is why it fell later. And
maybe we Orthodox need to repent of this event, as distinct from the rest of rejection
of Roman errors.
The usual traditionalist view in Orthodoxy is that grace was totally lost in the schism.
I think it is more like what St. Paul called quenching the Holy Spirit, not a full loss
but a diminution. The Holy Water of RC is good, but weaker and less tolerant of
dilution than Orthodox Holy Water. Both camps hold to the same core doctrine, with
the exception of the filioque clause, which RC is increasingly arguing does not mean
double origin, but clearly it did at one time. And it implies this. you have to have a
special caveat thrown in to NOT get this idea from the plain words. And Jesus did
not say once that The Holy Spirit proceeded from The Father and from Himself, but
rather that He would send The Holy Spirit FROM THE FATHER and that The Holy
Spirit PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER.
All references to The Holy Spirit as The Spirit of Christ, does not validate the filioque
but rather reflects what Christ said, that all that The Father has is His, that is, Christ's,
also.
Some writer I can't find now, said that the Eucharist in the monophysite churches
rendered wrath to the heretics partaking of it and grace to the Orthodox Chalcedonians.
Which of course is recognition that the Eucharist is valid, being performed with
bread and wine and invoking The Holy Spirit to make these into the Body and Blood
of Christ.
But there is more to this than getting to eat Christ. While that is the primary issue,
there is also, once you understand these things, the issue of implied or explicit agreement
with the Christology and Pneumatology of the church doing this.
uber traditionalists in the RC of course have a similar notion of lack of grace regarding
us. and in some cases, regarding post Vatican II Roman Catholicism and its sacraments.
