For example, the Fathers of the first ecumenical council (325), in addition to recognizing the status of the three dioceses of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, also gave honorary precedence to Jerusalem because of its central importance in the whole stream of Christian history. With the emergence of Constantinople as the new capital of the Empire, this patriarchal system was further modified. Quite simply, the change wrought in the civil administration by Constantinople's new status could not but affect ecclesiastical structure. A rearrangement of the existing pattern was obviously necessary. Thus, at the ecumenical council of 381, Constantinople, as the "New Rome," was given second place after old Rome, while Alexandria was assigned third place. This legislation received further confirmation at the fourth council of Chalcedon (421).
The Pentarchy
Thus, by the fifth century, a "pentarchy" or system of five Sees (patriarchates), with a settled order of precedence, had been established. Rome, as the ancient center and largest city of the empire, was understandably given the presidency or primacy of honor within the pentarchy into which Christendom was now divided. Plainly, this system of patriarchs and metropolitans was exclusively the result of ecclesiastical legislation; there was nothing inherently divine in its origin. None of the five sees, in short, possessed their authority by divine right. Had this been so, Alexandria could not have been demoted to third rank in order to have Constantinople exalted to second place. The determining factor was simply their secular status as the most important cities in the empire. Additionally, each of the five patriarchs was totally sovereign within his sphere of jurisdiction. The primacy of Rome, as such, did not entail universal jurisdictional power over the others. On the contrary, all bishops, whether patriarchs or not, were equal. No one bishop, however exalted his see or diocese, could claim supremacy over the others. The bishop of Rome was simply vested with the presidency, as the senior bishop - the first among equals.
The preceding section has provided a survey, not exhaustive but sufficient for our purposes, of the Church's Byzantine period. Before examining the long Turkish domination that followed the fall of Constantinople, we need to explore one final event in the life of the medieval Church - the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity. To begin with, this tragic division was not an event, but a prolonged process stretching over centuries. The cracks and fissures in Christian unity are indeed visible as early as the fourth century. As such, 1054, the traditional date marking the beginning of the schism and the excommunication of patriarch Michael Cerularius by papal legates, is highly inaccurate.
There is, in fact, no precise date. What really happened was a complex chain of events whose climax was only reached in the thirteenth century with the sack of Constantinople by western Crusaders (1204). Equally, we need to remember that the events leading to schism were not always exclusively theological in nature. Cultural, political, and linguistic differences were often inextricably mixed with the theological. Any narrative of the schism which emphasizes one at the expense of the other will be both fragmentary and misleading. Unlike the Copts or Armenians who broke from the Church in the fifth century and established ethnic churches at the cost of their universality and catholicity, the eastern and western parts of the Church remained loyal to the faith and authority of the seven ecumenical councils. They were united, by virtue of their common faith and tradition, in one Church. The transfer of the Roman capital to the Bosporus inevitably brought mistrust, rivalry, and even jealousy to the relations of the two great sees, Rome and Constantipole. It was easy for Rome to be jealous of the "upstart" Constantinople at a time when it was rapidly losing its political prominence. In fact, Rome refused to recognize the conciliar legislation which promoted Constantinople to second rank. But the estrangement was also helped along by the German invasions in the West, which effectively weakened contacts. The rise of Islam with its conquest of most of the Mediterranean coastline (not to mention the arrival of the pagan Slavs in the Balkans at the same time) further intensified this separation by driving a physical wedge between the two worlds. The once homogenous unified world of the Mediterranean was fast vanishing. Communications between the Greek East and the Latin West had now become dangerous and, as a consequence, practically ceased.
HISTORY OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH