Second Council of Lyon

When the East-West Schism was over 200 years old, Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Paleologos (1224 - 1282) asked Pope Gregory X to help reunite the two churches. The result was the Second Council of Lyon, the 14th time the Roman Catholic Church had called an ecumenical council. It was convened on 31 March 1272, and brought together 300 bishops, 60 abbots, and over a thousand other prelates or their representatives. (Even more showed up who were not on the invitation list, and they were asked to depart since it would be impossible to accommodate them all.)

Michael VIII sent an ambassador with members of the Greek Orthodox clergy and representatives of Abaqa Khan, current ruler of the Mongols whom Edward I of England had reached out to a few years earlier in order to promote an alliance. James I of Aragon attended, as did Bonaventure (seen here speaking in front of Pope Gregory by a 17th century Spanish painter, Zurbaran). Thomas Aquinas was invited, but died along the way. Other countries represented were Bohemia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Sweden, and a few others.

Meeting for six sessions between May and July, they discussed the conquest of the Holy Land and the unification of the Eastern and Western churches. Some other concerns were paying for a Crusade, excommunication of pirates and those who protected or traded with them (because they interfere with traveling to the Holy Land), and indulgences for those willing to go on Crusade.

The Council confirmed Rudolf I (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) as Holy Roman Emperor, ending a 20-year Interregnum.

The ambassador from Abaqa Khan reported that the relations with Europe begun under his father, Hulagu, continued, and that Latin Christians were exempt from taxes in exchange for prayers for the Khan. Hulagu also had committed to returning Jerusalem to the Franks, and Abaqa intended to continue his father's commands.

One of Gregory's "successes" was getting the Eastern Church's representatives to accept the West's addition of Filioque ("and the Son") to the Nicene Creed. This did not satisfy the bishops back home, however. Patriarch Joseph of Constantinople resigned in protest, and after Emperor Michael VIII died, his son and successor Andronicus II rejected the change.

Also, Gregory's hope for a new Crusade petered out after his death in 1276; the taxes gathered were re-distributed in Italy.

Now, about that Interregnum mentioned above...what was the problem? I'll explain that tomorrow.

Purgatory

One of the differences in doctrine between the Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches that developed after the start of the East-West Schism was the idea of Purgatory.

When I was much younger, occasionally, when I would complain about the difficulty of a task I was given, I would be told by an adult that, by enduring, "Your time in Purgatory will be short."

From the Latin verb purgo ("to clean, cleanse"), the word "purgatory" starts to be used in the second half of the 12th century to refer to the need for imperfect souls to be cleansed in order to enter Heaven, and gives rise to the idea of a place where this happens. 2 Maccabees 12:46 says "It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins." This suggests that the souls of the dead need further purification that they did not receive in life.

The Second Council of Lyon in 1274 defined its teaching on Purgatory, though didn't state that it was a place:

Because if they die truly repentant in charity before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for (sins) committed and omitted, their souls are cleansed after death by purgatorical or purifying punishments…. And to relieve punishments of this kind, the offerings of the living faithful are of advantage to these, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, alms, and other duties of piety, which have customarily been performed by the faithful for the other faithful according to the regulations of the Church. [line 856]

...and just so we cover all the bases about Heaven and Hell:

However, the souls of those who after having received holy baptism have incurred no stain of sin whatever, ... are received immediately into heaven. [line 857]

The souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only, however, immediately descend to hell, yet to be punished with different punishments. [line 858] 

The dogma of Purgatory was re-affirmed in the Councils of Florence (1443) and Trent (1545-63). People can die in a state of grace but their souls still need some cleansing, and their time in Purgatory could be shortened by the prayers of the living.

Dante of course dedicates a third of the Divine Comedy to Purgatorio, in which we find people constantly praying to work their way into Heaven. His Purgatory (and others) is described as a place of purification, not punishment. (There are depictions, however, of Purgatory as a "mini Hell" where fire and torment are the cleansing method.)

The Orthodox Church rejected the notion of a third location where the souls of the dead could go, but the need for purgation is still part of Orthodox theology. In this case, the imperfect soul goes to Hell, but the prayers of the living can help purify them so that they transition to Heaven. (This is the "punchline" to The Great Divorce by C.S.Lewis: anyone can leave the bleakness of Hell and travel to Heaven, but they have to be prepared to change internally and understand their imperfections.)

Now, about the Second Council of Lyon: a lot of events were connected to it, and it has cropped up before in this blog. I want to pull the separate threads together tomorrow.

The East-West Schism

Pope Leo IX's actions in 1054 (through his delegate Cardinal Humbert, actually) were the catalyst for the great East-West Schism between the Western and Eastern churches, but only because differences had been building for a long time.

Some of the difficulties between the two rose from cultural differences. The West was influenced by Roman law, while the East had Greek philosophy at its base, leading to much more vigorous intellectual debate about dogma and doctrine and misunderstandings between them and the West.

Also, the West considered itself superior from the start as the seat of Peter, and so did not discuss things with its Eastern counterpart before making changes like adding the phrase "and from the Son" to the Nicene Creed, established at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. This phrase, Filioque in Latin, created a huge controversy over whether the Son of God was co-equal with the Father as a source of the Holy Spirit. The 879–880 Council of Constantinople (Eastern Orthodox, as opposed to the Fourth Council of Constantinople Roman that took place a decade earlier) rejected the phrase Filioque.

The Eastern Church also believed in what is now called eucharistic ecclesiology (or more recently holographic ecclesiology), the idea that each bishop is the successor of St. Peter, equal to all other bishops, and the head of his own diocese, and that all these churches constituted the whole Church. The Roman West followed universal ecclesiology, a more "feudal" system in which all bishops were beholden to the hierarchy above them, leading up to the pope. The Orthodox Church does not accept the idea of papal authority being supreme, believing in a more collaborative or collegial relationship between all dioceses.

Although the Fourth Council mentioned above affirmed the value of images of god and saints for veneration, the Eastern policy earlier had promoted iconoclasm, based on Moses' 3rd Commandment against "graven images." The West had never been opposed to such things, but there was a strong current against it in the East, which drew a line between veneration ("respect"), and worship of an image.

With these in the background, we come to Patriarch Michael I Cerularius, who adds to the differences his objection to the use of unleavened bread in the West for the Eucharist. The Eastern argument is that yeast causes bread to rise and that is a better symbol for the Resurrection. The West uses unleavened bread because that is what Jesus would have used at the Last Supper, being a Seder.

These were already points of contention in 1054, so when Pope Leo IX tried to tell Patriarch Michael to fall in line because the Donation of Constantine said he should, the East had had enough.

Of course, differences continued to be created, as both sides did their best to understand the world. One of them that started to appear a century after the East-West Schism started was the idea of Purgatory. I'll talk about that next time.