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A Thousand Years of Caesaropapism or the Triumph of the Christian Faith?
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13745 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1988 |
7,960 Words |
| Author
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Ernest Gordon
Ernest Gordon has been president of CREED (Christian Rescue
Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents) since its inception
in 1981. He was dean of the chapel of Princeton University
from 1955-1981, when he retired. |
There is some confusion in people's minds about the millennium of Christianity soon to be celebrated in the Soviet Union. Most people think of Russia as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; but in the USSR there are fifteen such republics with at least eighteen well-defined ethnic groups or nationalities. Armenians, for example, can trace their Christian tradition back to the beginning of the fourth century A.D.
Nevertheless, the year 988, according to tradition, marks the arrival of Christianity in Russia. That was when the Kievan Prince Vladimir was baptized, and his subjects along with him. With this event the ruler selected the religion of the people and the form of religious worship was distinctly Byzantine. Although the Great Schism of 1054 had not yet taken place, there existed in fact a Western and an Eastern branch of the church. The centers of these branches were located in the twin seats of the Roman Empire, namely Rome and Constantinople.
From the time of the Emperor Constantine, and particularly after the Fall of Rome in 410, church-state relations changed the form and polity of primitive Christianity. What is now known as the Orthodox Church expanded from the church of the East Roman Empire. Its theological position derived from a strenuous and lively conflict of wills and intellects. The Monophysite and Nestorian conflicts of the fifth and sixth centuries may have purged the church of heresies, but they also weakened it in terms of numbers and power.
The schism of 1054 greatly reinforced the particular characteristics of the Eastern and Western branches of the church. The chief doctrine contributing to the schism was the filioque clause. This dealt with the nature of the divine procession. For the Latin branch of the church, the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, whereas in the Byzantine branch the emphasis was upon the coequality of the Holy Spirit with both the Father and the Son. The theology of the Orthodox Church has been defined by the deliberations of the seven Ecumenical Councils, ending with the Second Council of Nicea in 787. Later councils were recognized only by the Latin Church.
The Spread of Christianity
The date of 988 is useful only as a convenient historical signpost. Saints Cyril and Methodius, known as the "Apostles to the Slavs," led an extensive missionary movement among the Slavic tribes in areas now known as Russia and Bulgaria. This expansion of the church
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