Schism or estrangement?
One of the most influential books in East-West relations is “After Nine Hundred Years,” written by Yves Congar in the 1950′s – nine hundred years after the mutual excommunications of 1054. In this book, Congar posits that the Catholic and Orthodox churches are not really in a state of schism, but of “estrangement.” By this he means that there was no formal act of schism by either side (the 1054 excommunications were not considered by anyone contemporary to them to be such an act), but instead the two churches simply grew apart over time until they finally acknowledged that they were no longer in communion with each other. Such an outlook has profound implications for how one views our current lack of communion.
I had heard about this book for years but never could get my hands on it because it is long out of print. I finally found it at a used book store about two years ago. But now, thanks to the wonders of the internet and expiring copyrights, it is available for free online. I highly recommend it.
As a revert to Catholicism, the reverted precisely because the Orthodox taught me my faith, I can readily agree. The Orthodox way of expressing the faith makes a whole lot more sense to me, but I came to realize that Catholics believe the same things…just using different language and metaphors. The existence of the Eastern Catholics confirmed my suspicions. The problem is, most Orthodox see this differently. Augustine is a key person they keep going back to as the source of the “heresies of the west”. The claim frequently made is that the east knew little about Augustine until after the schism, even though North Africa is much closer to the eastern than Rome. The estrangement goes quite far and it will take some time to work through the issues and humility on both sides. As Pope John Paul II stated, sin on both sides is what kept us apart.