01 — What the Schism Is and Is Not

The Great Schism was not a single event of 1054 but a progressive, layered estrangement completed only after 1204 — and the Orthodox Church’s own reckoning of it is embedded in diptychs, canonical practice, and the conciliar rejection of false unions rather than in any decree of separation. This section states the scholarly consensus, the Church’s frame, and the standpoint of the whole collection.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Contents

File Description
a-progressive-estrangement.md The processive account (Runciman, Ware, Sherrard, Kolbaba, Chadwick): why no single date marks the schism; the cultural, political, doctrinal, and popular layers; the milestones from the Photian crisis to 1484
how-the-church-dates-and-frames-the-schism.md The Church’s own reckoning — non-commemoration, the 1484 synod, the 1848 and 1895 encyclicals; the Orthodox ecclesiological frame; and an open statement of this collection’s §4.1 standpoint and method

Reading Order

Begin with a-progressive-estrangement.md for the historical shape of the separation, then how-the-church-dates-and-frames-the-schism.md for the ecclesial frame and the rules by which every file in this compendium is written.

See Also