Christianity East and West

1
Christianity East and West

• From the 4th to the 9th century Christians
  continued to live solitary lives, whether in the
  deserts or in monasteries on mountain tops, etc.
• In 537 Hagia Sophia was built by Justinian in
  complete contrast to the simplistic designs to
  date.
• Hagia Sophia means Holy Wisdom and it stood as
  the center of Christian life in the East until
  the 1400s. Its dome, the largest for its time,
  sits on 4 pillars 32 x 32 it is 260 x 270 or
  roughly 1.6 acres and is 210 feet to the top of
  the dome.
• It was taken over by the Ottoman Turks in 1453
  and serves as a Muslim mosque now
• From the 4th c on, churches were built as
  monuments to the faith of a community and as a
  gathering place for the town. It was the center
  of life for the community.

2
( 1 Contd)

• As Christianity grew, more and more tribes were
  being assimilated. Often times, the people were
  forced to convert because their ruler did. Their
  faith was shallow and often was overshadowed by
  their traditions
• The Church saw a need to become unified
• The Church developed uniform practices and
  beliefs under the Bishop of Rome Peters
  successor
• The Church formed One Body of Christ with the
  four marks of the Church being one, holy,
  catholic, and apostolic.

3
Major Christian Centers

• The major cities of the empire (now Christian)
  became patriarchates, places under the control of
  a patriarch.
• Rome, Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch, and
  Jerusalem
• Most of the Greek Church often recognized the
  patriarch of Rome as having a primacy of honor
  First among equals
• The Eastern Churches started to draw away by
  remaining with Greek lang. and the West was
  turning to Latin. Soon both sides of the empire
  were unable to communicate with each other
• In the East especially, Caesaro-papism was the
  norm. The Eastern emperor used his office to
  remove and name new patriarchs

4
( 2 Contd)

• The East/West relations were also strained
  because of practicestype of bread used for the
  Eucharist, married priests, beards on priests
• One of the biggest differences in the two
  Churches was the experience of the Liturgy. In
  the East, the Liturgy was a time when humans
  share in the divine life, a union of God and
  humans so to speak.
• In the West, it was a celebration of the Paschal
  Mysterythe life, death and resurrection of
  Christ thus providing salvation for His people.

5
Christianity Meets Islam

• It began in 610. Muhammad, a caravan driver,
  told everyone that God was speaking to him. Many
  people in Mecca were convinced he was telling the
  truth and formed a grouping called Muslims ---
  those submitting to the will of God.
• To escape Mecca, In 622 the Muslims made a hijrah
  meaning flight to Yathrib renaming it Medina
• The people of Medina welcomed them and accepted
  this as their new way of life. The religion was
  called Islam
• 622 became the first year of the Islamic calendar
  because this was the first time they became a
  community.
• Muslims saw the Christians and Jews as people of
  the Book followers of the Scriptures but that
  somewhere along the line they had corrupted the
  message

6
( 5 Contd)

• Many Christians converted to Islam to avoid
  paying the high taxes charged to non-Muslims
• For 5 years beginning around 700 the Muslims laid
  siege to Constantinople which did not fall, but
  the Muslims did manage to spread as far as Spain
• The Muslims tried to invade France from Spain but
  Charles Martel, at the Battle of Tours, in 731
  managed to defeat the invading forces, thus
  saving all of Europe.

7
The Christian Experience

• What difference did Jesus and His Church make
  between the 4th and the end of the 8th century?
• One of the most extensively discussed concepts
  during this period was grace
• Grace is Gods presence within us, or the
  participation in the life of God as freely given
  by Him helping us to live up to our vocation
• We can participate in the life of God because
  Christ participated in our life as humans
• Life was sacramentalized from birth to death
• Even the seasons were sacramentalized and became
  the liturgical calendar the seasons of Advent,
  Christmas, Lent, the Triduum, Easter, and
  Ordinary Time

8
( 7 Contd-A)

• Rogation Days --- Resulting from calamities in
  the French countryside in the early 500s
• Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting,
  instituted by the Church to appease God's anger
  at man's transgressions, to ask protection in
  calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful
  harvest. Rogations were introduced by St.
  Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne, and were afterwards
  ordered by the Fifth Council of Orléans, which
  was held in 511
• This type of activity shows that no aspect of
  life was outside Gods concern in the mind of the
  Christians, but this was one of those influences
  from the Roman tradition which had crept into
  Christian practices, where the legalistic and
  angry Roman gods had to be appeased.

9
(7 Contd-B)

• It is from this point of view that Mary and the
  Saints became safer intercessors to appease the
  angry God. Mary and the multitude of Saints,
  became the advocates for humanity to talk to God
  for us.
• Nick and Jared pay attention --- this answers
  your questions

10
The Christian Calendar

• A 6th C Russian Monk, Dionysius Exiguus,
  attempted to fix the dates of the Christian holy
  days. He started with the idea of the beginning
  for the current Roman calendar as being the
  building of Rome. He concluded that Christ was
  born in the 753rd year after the beginning of
  Rome. He set the new year to begin January 1,
  754 on that calendar as the beginning of the
  Christian calendar. Hippolytus in the 2nd C had
  set the date of Christs birth as December 25th
  on the Roman calendar to coincide with the Roman
  holiday for Mithras (sun god). Dionysius simply
  agreed with his colleague. The calendar years he
  called anno Domini year of the Lord and
  anti-Christi before Christ Eventually this was
  accepted as the calendar used worldwide because
  of the European influence on trade, etc.
• http//www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Arti
  cles/Dionysius/dionysius.html

11
Developments in the Church Practice

• The seven sacraments as we know them did not
  officially exist until 1274 (Lyon II)
• The sacrament of baptism was performed in a
  baptistry a building set aside specifically for
  this purpose
• Basilicas rectangular shaped buildings with one
  rounded end where the altar would be placed.
  Originally the altar rail separated the people
  from the Liturgy/priest
• The Liturgy was performed for the people rather
  than with the people which was changed by Vatican
  II
• Also in the 600s from Gregory the Great we got a
  new form of chant (Gregorian Chant) vocal music
  with a very simple melody chords D, E, F, and G
• http//www.christusrex.org/www2/cantgreg/cantus/pa
  ter_noster_A.mp3

12
(11 Contd- A)

• The idea of celibacy was first started seriously
  in the 4th C but it never took until is was
  forced in 1123. The idea that spiritual
  fatherhood was superior to physical fatherhood
• 1st Lateran Council in 1123 made it a policy
• The East allowed marriage before ordination but
  bishops had to remain single.
• Until the 7th C, if you did a major sin, you had
  to be reinitiated (re-baptized), a long public
  process overseen by a bishop taking years.
  Deathbed confessions were the rule of the day for
  this reason

13
( 11 Contd B)

• St. Columban, an Irish monk, suggested the
  private confessions of the Irish monasteries and
  it was accepted in the 7th C by most of Europe
• Today we know it as the Sacrament of
  Reconciliation
• The sacrament of marriage came about mainly
  because as the public ceremony was now done more
  often by a priest or bishop rather than a local
  official, by the 8th C, a priests blessing
  became the norm. This developed into the full
  marriage ceremonies of today.