Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merritt and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the Eastern Orthodox Church and by the end of today's lesson we'll be able to explain the features of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the extent to which Christianity was transformed by the Great Schism.

In order to do that we need to use some key terms and our key terms for today are schism and patriarch.

A schism is a split between strongly opposed parties, and a patriarch is the title used by the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Today's lesson will comprise of two separate learning cycles.

Our first learning cycle is, what was the Eastern Orthodox Church? So, let's get started.

The Eastern Orthodox Church was established in 1054 as a result of the Great Schism.

In reality, though, the Church was effectively in operation long before this date, centuries before this date, due to the growing differences between the Western Christian Church which was based in Rome and the Eastern Church which was based in Constantinople.

These differences had been growing for roughly 700 years and had resulted in splits in the past.

Those splits had been repaired.

The split in 1054 was not.

But because of the previous splits and the previous repairs, as a result, at the time in 1054, nobody really expected this split to be a permanent one.

Okay, let's have a quick check for understanding now then.

So, true or false.

The Great Schism in 1054 was completely unexpected because something like this had never happened before.

Is that true or is that false? Alright, if you chose false, then congratulations, that's the correct answer.

But let's justify that statement, why is it a false statement? Is it false because the Eastern and Western Churches had split several times in the past and reformed? Or is it false because the Eastern and Western Churches had split 700 years ago but had recently reformed? So choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose A, then congratulations, that is indeed correct.

Now in the 11th century, the Eastern Orthodox Church was led by the Patriarch in Constantinople.

And at the time of the split, it was Patriarch Michael Cerularius who's sitting down on the screen in front of you there.

This leadership though was somewhat by default, as Eastern Orthodox Christians believed that no one single person should have the authority to control the Church.

Instead, a group of highly-respected bishops should lead together.

And for centuries, the Patriarch of Constantinople would lead the Eastern Church alongside the Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem.

However, after these cities had been conquered and their residents had converted to Islam, only the Patriarch of Constantinople was left to lead the Church in the East.

Right, let's have another check for understanding now, so a true or false statement again.

The Eastern Orthodox Church was led by the Pope in Rome.

Is that true or is that false? Okay, if you chose false, then congratulations, that is the correct answer.

But let's justify this statement now, though.

Why is it a false statement? Is it false because the Eastern Orthodox Church was led by the Patriarch in Rome? Or is it false because the Eastern Orthodox Church was led by the Patriarch in Constantinople? So choose your justification now.

Alright, if you chose B, then very well done, that is the correct answer.

So, Eastern Orthodox Christianity was the religion of the Byzantine Empire.

And as such, many features of the Byzantine Empire became fundamental aspects of the Eastern Orthodox Church, such as the use of the Greek language in church services and the restricted use of religious artwork.

The Byzantines were capable of producing incredibly beautiful works of art that's absolutely centuries ahead of what was being produced elsewhere in Europe at this time, and there's examples of that in the screen in front of you there.

And the artwork was so beautiful that some people feared that Christians would worship the artwork instead of what it represented.

So you can see in the screen there there is a sitting mosaic of Christ, and people were concerned that people would worship the mosaic as opposed to worshipping Jesus which is what the mosaic is representing.

And this led to the periodic destruction of religious art throughout the Byzantine Empire.

Now, the Eastern Orthodox Church did allow the beautiful imagery inside its churches, but it forbade the use of sculptures to prevent people from worshipping the statues.

So you could have these beautiful mosaics of Jesus but you couldn't have a sculpture of Jesus, and that was kind of the compromise that the Eastern Orthodox Church put in place.

Alright, let's look at another check for understanding now.

So, what two features of the Byzantine Empire were adopted by the Eastern Orthodox Church? Was it that church services were spoken in Latin? Church services were spoken in Greek? Churches were decorated with beautiful artwork? Or churches were filled with life-like statues? Choose two on the screen now.

Alright, if you chose B and C, then very well done, those were the correct answers.

Alright, let's go for our first task of the day then, so, I have a series of statements on the screen in front of you and what I'd like you to do, nice and simple, is just take the statements that correctly apply to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

So, if the statement describes an aspect of the Eastern Orthodox Church, give it a tick.

If it doesn't, then just leave it blank.

So pause the video whilst you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got along fine with that task.

Let's go through it now and see which statements are correct.

So, we can see that the Eastern Orthodox Church was led by the Patriarch of Constantinople.

We can see that they spoke church services in Greek, and that they decorated churches with beautiful works of art.

Now looking at the incorrect statements, we can see that although the patriarch did lead the Eastern Orthodox Church, it was by default.

They actually wanted to lead as a group, but the other leading patriarchs from the other major cities unfortunately were no longer residents in their cities.

And in terms of sculptures, that was forbidden, but other works of art were absolutely fine inside of Eastern Orthodox churches.

Let's go for our next task of the day then.

So, I'd like you to explain two features of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and I'd like you to include details such as why they hold these beliefs or act in the way that they do.

So pause the video while you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got along fine with that task.

I've got a model answer on the screen here in front of us so let's have a quick read through that and just see what I've got here.

So I said, "One feature of Eastern Orthodox Christianity was that they spoke Greek in their church services because the Church was founded in the Byzantine Empire, which spoke Greek.

Another feature of Eastern Orthodox Christianity was that they were led by the Patriarch of Constantinople.

The Church used to have several patriarchs who led their religion together, but they lost their positions when their cities were converted to Islam." So hopefully there, if you got two different features, that's absolutely fine.

But hopefully what you have done is explained why they have those features.

That's what I'm looking for, that level of explanation, just demonstrating you understand why they believe or why they do whatever it is that they believe or do.

Right, let's go for our second and final learning cycle for today, which is a summary of the Great Schism.

Now, the greatest change that occurred after the Great Schism was that Christianity was no longer a single religion, it was now two distinct Churches.

And although discussion between the Eastern and Western Churches had declined in the centuries prior to the Great Schism, part of the reason for that was that churchmen in the West spoke Latin whilst in the East they spoke Greek, and there were increasingly fewer people that spoke both languages.

In the years immediately after the Great Schism, the relationship had deteriorated to such an extent that communication was effectively cut off.

And as a result, the Churches continued to drift even further apart, as they had been, to be fair, before the Great Schism.

It wasn't like they were fine, the Great Schism happened, then they started drifting apart.

They'd been drifting apart for hundreds of years.

So in that respect, the Great Schism brought in nothing new.

Church leaders in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church had not been on good terms before the Great Schism, but this became worse in the years immediately after the split.

Having said all of this, for many ordinary worshipers of both religions, nothing much really changed because of the Great Schism.

The fundamental differences between the two changes didn't change after the Great Schism, and most worshipers of both religions were able to focus on the many beliefs and practises that they held in common rather than the few differences that separated them.

There were several differences in beliefs and practises between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy that upset Church leaders in particular, and particularly East, which led to the events of the Great Schism, and one was the question of who should lead the Church.

So while the Eastern Church favoured the collective rule of several Church leaders, the Western Church believed that the Pope in Rome alone controlled the Christian Church.

And the Eastern Church believed that the Pope should certainly be held in the highest of honour.

He was the first among equals.

But he was just that, he was first among equals.

He had no more authority than any of the other patriarchs in the East.

And there were also differences in how church services were conducted as well.

And although both Churches performed the Eucharist, they performed Mass, the Roman Catholic Church used unleavened bread, which means they used flat bread, while the Eastern Orthodox Church used leavened bread, they used raised bread which they dipped in wine.

Fundamentally, though, the two Churches believed the same things, so in that respect there was nothing really different there.

They believed that God was the only God and Jesus was His son, so that fundamental aspect of Christianity was still exactly the same regardless of whether it was Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox there.

However, the two Churches differed in their beliefs about the origin of the Holy Spirit.

Eastern Orthodox Christians believed that the Holy Spirit came only from God, whereas Roman Catholics believed that the Holy Spirit came from both God and Jesus.

And these differences, they were significant and they were damaging for the leaders of both Churches in the 11th century.

But for most ordinary Christians, for the common people of both faiths, these sort of things, these sort of questions, these sort of disputes could mostly be ignored in favour of the overwhelming amount of similarities that they would share.

So, just to summarise some of the things that changed after the Great Schism.

There were two Christian Churches now.

The Pope was no longer involved in resolving differences between the patriarchs.

The Patriarch of Constantinople was now leader of a separate religion.

This was a permanent split in 1054.

Previous splits which had occurred had always been repaired.

Sometimes it had taken decades, but they had been repaired.

But there has been no repair of this particular split.

And now think about things that stayed the same after the Great Schism.

So, the fundamental Christian beliefs stayed exactly the same.

There was no fundamental difference between was Eastern Orthodox Christians believed and what Roman Catholics believed.

Church leaders continued to rarely speak to each other, so that was no different really from years and years before the Great Schism.

Eastern and Western Churches continued to drift apart.

And again, this is nothing new.

This is part of the reason why the Great Schism was permanent in the first place, because for centuries these two branches of Christianity had been drifting further apart anyway, and that continued to happen after the Great Schism.

Christianity, though, did remain the dominant religion in the region.

And by the region I mean all of Europe pretty much and the Middle East to a lesser extent as well.

But everywhere that Christianity had been just before the Great Schism, it continued to be dominant in that area after the Great Schism as well.

Christianity also continued to spread to new regions as well.

At this point in time primarily the new regions were up towards Scandinavia, towards what is now Russia as well.

So that was the primary area for both Eastern Orthodoxy and for Roman Catholicism to start spreading and gaining new followers.

And most people barely noticed a difference in how they worshipped.

I mean, certainly if someone from the Byzantine Empire went to the Papal States and went to a service there, they'd certainly notice that the language was different and vice versa, if someone from the Papal States, if someone from Rome went to Constantinople, they would certainly notice that the language was different.

But fundamentally, if they were able to speak both languages, what was being said and what was being believed by the people in the Church was essentially the same.

Alright, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So, what language did the Roman Catholic Church use in its services? Was it Greek? Was it Latin? Or was it both Greek and Latin? Okay, if you chose B, Latin, then very well done, that is the correct answer.

Alright, let's think about some of the things that the two Churches had in common and things that they differed on as well.

So, the fundamental beliefs regarding God and Jesus were essentially identical.

They performed the same sacraments, so the very, very special religious rites were the same effectively in both Eastern Orthodoxy and in Roman Catholicism.

They used the same holy book, so the Bible was still the same.

It was used in a different language, but what the words were saying was still the same.

The places of worship were broadly similar as well.

They might differ somewhat in terms of the aesthetic, in terms of kind of just the feel inside of the church by how it looks and how it's decorated, but it's essentially the same sort of building performing the same sort of function.

And both Churches believed that it was important to spread the faith to new people.

In terms of things that the two Churches differed on, well, one of the things was leadership.

The Roman Catholics believed that the Pope was in charge of all churches in both East and West, whereas Eastern Orthodoxy believed that leadership was a shared responsibility between a number of different patriarchs.

The language used was different.

In Roman Catholicism, Latin was the prominent language for services, whereas in Eastern Orthodoxy, it was Greek.

Religious art also differed as well.

In Roman Catholicism, all art was fine.

It doesn't matter what style of art it is, it's welcomed in the church.

Whereas in Eastern Orthodoxy, although arguably the artwork, although obviously art is subjective but I think you can make a strong argument and say that the artwork in Eastern Orthodox churches would have been more beautiful at this point in time.

However, there were no statues, that was absolutely forbidden at this point in time.

And in terms of the Eucharist, so that really important sacrament, that really important church service, Roman Catholics used unleavened or flat breads, whereas Eastern Orthodox used leavened or raised bread.

Okay, let's have another check for understanding now, so this is a discussion question.

I want you to think about why would differences, such as different languages used in church services or differences in the bread used in the Eucharist, why would they be seen as a problem with the the Christian Church? So pause the video while you discuss this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that little task there.

So you could have said something along the lines of that it proves that the Church was not united in either belief or action.

You could say it could make it difficult for worshipers from one place to worship in another location.

I wouldn't necessarily say it would prevent people from worshipping elsewhere, but yeah, it would increase the difficulty certainly.

And you could say that these churches, some people might say that they were relatively minor, but the fact that they exist means that other more significant differences could occur in the future as well.

Alright, let's look at our next task now.

So we have a series of statements on the screen and what I would like you to do is to colour code those statements into one colour for aspects of Christianity that changed after the Great Schism and a different colour for aspects that stayed the same.

So pause the video whilst you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

So hopefully your answers look very similar to mine here.

So let's think about things first of all that changed.

Well, relatively few on the screen there.

So, the Pope resolved differences between the patriarchs.

That doesn't happen anymore.

I mean, partly because there's only one patriarch now.

But also a significant part is because the Pope and Patriarch in Constantinople they're not really talking to each other anymore.

Another thing that changed is that there were now two Christian Churches as opposed to one united Church.

In terms of the things that stayed the same, well, the belief that God was the only God and Jesus was His son, that's a fundamental belief shared by both Churches.

There was limited discussion between Church leaders that had been happening for centuries but prior to the Great Schism.

The fact that ordinary people were pretty much unaware of these differences was the same both before and after the Great Schism.

The fact that the Eastern and Western Churches were drifting apart.

That had been happening for hundreds of years as well to this point.

The fact that Christianity was continuing to spread regardless of the problems within the Church.

It was still gaining more followers elsewhere.

And the fact that Christianity remained the main religion in the areas in which it had been conducted prior to the Great Schism, that stayed the same as well.

Alright, let's look at our next task of the day.

What I'd like you to do this time is complete a table by identifying similarities and differences between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

And I've completed the first one for you, the first row for you to give you some idea.

So a similarity you could say is their belief in God and Jesus is still very similar.

And for the differences, we could say we've got leadership.

Roman Catholics believed the Pope was in charge, whereas Eastern Orthodox believed that it was a shared responsibility for running the Church.

So, there are two more rows available to you.

If you can come up with two more similarities and two more differences, that's great.

If you can come up with either more for either side, that'd be even better.

So pause the video now whilst you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

Let's see what sorts of things you could have written then.

So you could have said in terms of similarities that they both, both Churches performed the sacraments, those really special religious rites.

And they also both believed in spreading the faith to try and gain new followers.

In terms of differences, the Eucharist, or how the Eucharist was performed was a big difference.

So the Roman Catholics, they used unleavened bread, so flat bread, whereas Eastern Orthodox used leavened bread or used raised bread for that particular rite.

And another difference was the language that was used in services.

So Roman Catholics, they spoke in Latin, whereas Eastern Orthodox spoke in Greek.

There are other similarities and differences as well.

If you got different ones, then that's great, absolutely fine.

But hopefully you've got a complete table there in front of you.

Alright, let's move on now to our final task for the day.

I want you to answer this question here.

How completely did the Great Schism of 1054 transform Christianity? And I want you to use at least two pieces of evidence to support your answer.

And by all means look back at the last few tasks you've been doing to help you out with that.

But just how big of a change was the Great Schism within Christianity? There's not necessarily a right or wrong answer.

What I'm looking for is for you to use those pieces of evidence to really support whatever your opinion is.

So make sure that you justify why you think whatever it is that you think.

So pause the video now while you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine with that task.

So I've got a model answer on the screen in front of us now, so let's have a quick read through of that and let's see what I've got, and hopefully yours follows a similar sort of thing to mine even if you got a different answer than mine, that's fine.

Hopefully it follows a similar structure.

So I said, "The Great Schism of 1054 only partially transformed Christianity.

Although there were now two Christian Churches after the Schism, the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East, in reality this had unofficially been the case for hundreds of years before the Schism.

The Church had been growing apart for the past 700 years and already had differences before the Great Schism, such as the language used in services and the bread used in the Eucharist.

The Church leaders might have considered the Schism to be transformative, as the Patriarch of Constantinople was now the leader of a separate religion.

But for most believers, nothing much changed after the Great Schism." Again, if you've got a different answer, different opinions, that's absolutely fine.

The key aspect here is that you've explained or justified what your opinion is.

Alright, let's summarise today's lesson now.

So the Eastern Orthodox Church was led by a single patriarch based in Constantinople, after the other patriarchs lost their positions when their cities converted to Islam.

The Great Schism in 1054 was caused in part by the differences that had emerged between the Western Church and the Eastern Church, although there were still many similarities between the two Churches.

And there were great changes in Christianity after the Great Schism, although some things did remain the same.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

I hope you've enjoyed yourself, I hope you've learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time, bye bye.