Talk:East–West Schism - Misplaced Pages

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Erase entire article?

You know the guy that is putting "reason=" in all the tagged cns? He apparently does other things as well. He wants to erase the entire History of the East-West Schism because (he claims) it violates copyright in the same subsection I copied from here, which is East-West_Schism#Political_division_between_East_and_West. He claims it is a copy of the Romanides lecture series from http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.03.en.franks_romans_feudalism_and_doctrine.01.htm. If someone would like to talk to him about that information, which, BTW, seems largely uncited in this article, I would appreciate it.

See comments at User_talk:Student7#Suspected_copyright_violation_at_.22History_of_the_East.E2.80.93West_Schism.22. Student7 (talk) 19:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Editor said it was my fault for copying into text, what was intended as a quote. He has corrected it to his satisfaction in History of the East-West Schism. The problem is still in here. I cannot quite put my finger on it, other than what was mentioned above. Student7 (talk) 22:25, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

That editor (an administrator) is me. I never said I wanted to "erase the entire" article. That's an exaggeration. I wrote that perhaps a long series of Student7's edits on the History of the East–West Schism should be reverted back when it appeared there was a possibility that Student7 had (at least once, intentional or not) added copyrighted material. It turned out that he/she accidentally added copyright material to History of the East–West Schism by copying it from this article. In this article, the text under question used to be in a footnote, which, as it happens, was turned into regular text by Student7 (by breaking a ref tag accidentally during a large, complicated edit... do a search for "During the seventh century, however, the seeds of schism", for example, and you can find it). Once it become clear that Student7 accidentally submitted copyrighted material, the rest of his/her edits were no longer under suspicion.

Student7, you seem to be skeptical and confused about the copyright violation itself. I gave a link to the "duplication detector" on your talk page that provides the matched text between the violating article and the source URL. Using it, you can confirm that there was a copyright violation. The same tool can also be used with the URL of a version of this article. for Here's a link comparing the source URL against the recent 15:51 26 March 2013‎ version by Student7. Saying "he claims" above sounds rather dismissive when I've tried to provide the necessary material to substantiate my claims.

As for this article, I made the same solution I did at History of the East-West Schism: I deleted the entire "Political division between East and West" section because it was the only section containing large amounts of obvious violation. If you wish to sort through that material to decide what's was valid free content and what wasn't, please do.

Tracking down the origins of copyrighted material is time-consuming and tedious. It's even moreso when an editor (like me) wasn't involved in the article history until that point. In total, this probably took about an hour and a half to resolve. It's best to be very careful when editing so that mistakes don't creep in in the first place. If you are having trouble following your own edit diffs, Student7, perhaps you are making too many changes per edit.

Lastly, I'm curious about the "You know the guy that is putting 'reason=' in all the tagged cns?" remark. Is there some discussion somewhere about that? Why did you mention this? If other editors have complained about me fixing those, I'd like to tell them that there's more to it than meets the eye. This copyvio was, for example, found and solved as part of fixing of {{citation needed}} templates (or "reason=" editing, if you wish to call it that). Jason Quinn (talk) 03:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

One last thing, when copying text from one Misplaced Pages article to another, it needs to be cited (see Misplaced Pages:Copying within Misplaced Pages). The cite is typically made in an edit summary. The original edit on the History of the East–West Schism article that introduced the copyrighted material from this article did not give a cite. This caused confusion and prolonged the investigation. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Well either way this data should be re-integrated by into the article.

The Franks applied their policy of destroying the unity between the Romans under their rule and the Romans under the rule of Constantinople and the Arabs. They played one Roman party against the other, took neither side, and finally condemned both the iconoclasts and the Seventh Ecumenical Synod (786/7) at their own Council of Frankfurt in 794, in the presence of the legates of Pope Hadrian I (771–795), the staunch supporter of Orthodox practice. Their obliteration of the Empire's boundaries and an outburst of missionary activity among these peoples who had no direct links with the Eastern Roman Empire and among Celtic peoples, who had never been part of the Roman Empire fostered the idea of a universal church free from association with a particular state. On the contrary, "in the East Roman or Byzantine view, when the Roman Empire became Christian, the perfect world order willed by God had been achieved: one universal empire was sovereign, and coterminous with it was the one universal church"; and, according to the author of the Encyclopedia of World Religions, the Empire's state church came, by the time of the demise of the Empire in 1453, to merge psychologically with it to the extent that its bishops had difficulty in thinking of Christianity without an Emperor.

As this is central (right or wrong) to the more common Greek perspective (called Frankokratia and Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae).. LoveMonkey (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I apologize to Jason Quinn and thank him for fixing the problem in both places. Student7 (talk) 19:31, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

"FRANKS, ROMANS, FEUDALISM, AND DOCTRINE Part 1". Romanity.org. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
Gerland, Ernst. "The Byzantine Empire" in The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. Retrieved 9 November 2012
Johannes P. Schadé, ''Encyclopedia of World Religions (Foreign Media Group 2006 ISBN 978-1-60136000-7), article "Byzantine Church". Books.google.com. 2006-12-30. Retrieved 2013-02-23.

Who is Jeffrey D. Finch?

His quote is used quite a bit on various Orthodox articles and I was just wondering if anyone knows who this person is? LoveMonkey (talk) 17:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Good question. He apparently has the key to "East-West rapprochement," but you probably found that out yourself. :) I tried all ways I could think of, in searching for his background and could find nothing that isn't already in Misplaced Pages. Do we need hard copy on this? Student7 (talk) 21:07, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Well no. It is just that I find this something odd from Richard and Esoglou (inner glory or whatever he is). They are Richard largely responsible for Mr Finch being so prominently mentioned here on Wiki. LoveMonkey (talk) 17:43, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi guys. I don't hang around Misplaced Pages as religiously (forgive the pun) as I used to. Instead of checking my watchlist several times a day, I give it a quick glance once every couple of days, sometimes only a couple of times a week. If there is something that you would like me to take a look at, please send me an email. My Misplaced Pages account is email-enabled.

That said, I confess that I don't know who Jeffrey Finch is either. If you Google his name, it shows up prominently in 3-4 Orthodox-related Misplaced Pages articles and not really anywhere else on the first page of results. I'm sure if I worked hard enough, I could eventually figure out who he is. Presumably, he is some scholar specializing in the boundaries of Eastern and Western Christian theology. Still, LM's point is well-taken. His name sticks out like a sore thumb and it would be OK if we were describing a view of Lossky, Meyendorff or Kallistos (Ware) but Finch appears to be a relatively minor star in the theological community. (NB: The last time I wrote something like this, it was about Edward Siecinski who subsequently emailed me to take umbrage at my having slighted his reputation. Quite good-naturedly, of course.)

I do feel that the current text (and its copies in other Orthodox-related articles) is not satisfactory and I'd like some thoughts about how to fix it. I think what Finch wrote is reasonable. Perhaps some might take issue with it but I think it's a reasonable assessment of the situation from a Western point-of-view.

I ran across the quote in this book and thought it was useful. Here is a link to the beginning of Finch's essay titled "Neopalamism, Divinizing Grace and the Breach between East and West". I will grant that the book is described in at least one review as looking at Eastern Orthodox ideas from a Western perspective and so the essays in it may be more canted towards the Western point of view. Perhaps we need to rephrase the sentence that mentions Finch in a way that de-emphasizes or even drops his name and says something like "Some Western scholars such as Jeffrey Finch believe....". Better yet would be to find a reliable source who surveys all of the essays in Christiansen and Wittung's book and provide a summary of Western views regarding deification. I am, alas, not aware of such at the moment. When time permits, I might look further for one. In the meantime, I am open to suggestions on how to implement a temporary fix to the problem that LM has brought to our attention.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:24, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Here is a review of the Christiansen and Wittung book by Andrei Antokhin (yeah, I know, another "who is that?"). Still, I think what Antokhin writes provides some perspective on the ideas presented in the book.

The problem, I think, is that we have "big names" in the East (Lossky, Romanides, Meyendorff) who have held forth on these topics and no "big names" in the West who have held forth in the same depth and breadth. Even Fortescue doesn't have the stature in the West of any of the preceding "big names" from the East. This fact alone speaks volumes about the relative importance of the topic to the West vs. the East. (NB: I'm not saying it's not an important topic; I'm just saying that the West doesn't tend to focus on it and this is, perhaps, precisely the criticism that the East makes against the West.) So we are left with a bunch of "little lights" in the West trying to explain the Eastern views to a West that is, for the most part, not really listening.

Meyendorff tried to bridge the chasm by explaining the East to the West. The West took some notice but then moved on. Some in the East criticized Meyendorff for having "got it wrong".

It remains a difficult patch of ground to till.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 19:38, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Astonomical coincidence?

1054 AD is considered the year of the Great Schism, but is also the year when the Crab Nebula Supernova (M1 - Messier object #1 / SN 1054) was observed by the chinese astronomers. Bigshotnews 01:53, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Damaged sentence

Hi, today the intro has a damaged sentence, starting with lowcase "attacks": "of the churches. attacks that had the support". I cannot find at what revision the sentence was mutilated, please someone who know this page better restore the original text. Ciao, Nick Nicola.Manini (talk) 07:20, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for drawing attention to the problem. Esoglou (talk) 07:53, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Change Title?

Hey everyone, in the majority of the academic literature on the subject, the name historians have given to this slow divergence of Western Christianity away from the historic theological traditions which began in Jerusalem, is almost always referred to as the "Great Schism". In terms of population, this is the largest schism which has ever developed in Christian history, and has had the largest consequences and theological ramifications. It makes the other "Great Schism", nearly always termed "The Papal Schism" seem less-than-great. Certainly this was the more lasting schism. Can the title change, but the disambig page remain? Ri Osraige (talk) 20:20, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I favor this idea, and agree that there is a primary well-recognized meaning to "Great Schism". It seems to me that this is therefore the most appropriate name for the article under WP:TITLE. And in general, WP should tend to use such common terms internally as well. It doesn't help if we develop a WP-specific terminology/language. We need to keep a focus on how things are described "out there" in order to describe them well "in here". Evensteven (talk) 20:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

It would be interesting to learn what basis Rí Osraige can present for his claim that most academics and historians use the term "Great Schism" rather than the clear, specific, unambiguous term "East-West Schism". 86.43.174.235 (talk) 20:55, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Has this been discussed thoroughly before? Perhaps there are some bases for either term that can be found in a prior discussion. Evensteven (talk) 21:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

The Great Schism here: Another is a website devoted to the great schism here: However, the Papal Schism has many mentions as the great Schism in this google books search: A noted difference is that the Papal Schism has years next to it when its called the Great Schism while the Catholicism-Orthodox split does not. I would rather rename this article to be the Catholocism-Orthodox Schism and rename Western Schism to be Papal Schism. These titles would be much more descriptive. I have to admit though that I always thought of the Catholocism-Orthodox Schism as the Great Schism. Perhaps this should be opened up to RFC. PointsofNoReturn (talk) 22:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

I've just added a notice for the Christianity, European History, and Middle Ages Projects. Evensteven (talk) 23:15, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Please note St.Anselm's suggestion at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard#East-West Schism article proposed name change that this discussion should take place by filing a move request. I'm not going to get to that filing right away if someone else wants to go ahead. Evensteven (talk) 01:03, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this split is called "Great Schism" in the literature. I can only assume this was named "East-West Schism" for an audience unfamiliar with history. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:38, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the vast majority of hits in Google Books (8 out of the first 10) for "Great Schism" are about the schism of 1378. St Anselm (talk) 05:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages rules for article titles are given at WP:TITLE. What rule given there demands a change of title here? "Great Schism" is ambiguous. Deciding to call something great is largely subjective. From the point of view of Coptic, Armenian, and Ethiopian Christians, the real Great Schism was the Chalcedonian. From their point of view, the 1054 schism was a domestic quarrel between those who broke from Orthodoxy in 451, and it was followed by further interior schisms within each of these further divisions of those who split in the basic, the great, schism. From their point of view, the fact that the now divided group that broke away is now more numerous than those who preserved the faith whole and entire does not alter what is or is not Orthodox faith (as Ri Osraige would agree if another date were put in place of 451). Thus, selecting one particular schism for the title of "The Great Schism" may not be in accord with the NPOV principle. Common use? Whichever use is more common, it is clear, as PointsofNoReturn and StAnselm have pointed out, that "Great Schism" is widely used in academic circles of what Misplaced Pages calls, in the title of the article about it, the Western Schism. "East-West Schism" is what WP:TITLE calls a "non-judgmental descriptive title" and is "precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". If someone does start a formal proposal of change of title here, it will be a waste of time and effort, for it is quite unlikely to win consensus. "Any potentially controversial proposal to change a title should be advertised at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves, and consensus reached before any change is made. Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Misplaced Pages." Esoglou (talk) 06:49, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm very open to what Esoglou is saying. He's absolutely right about the way the Coptics view the schisms, and Copts, EO, and RC all share the idea that schism means a reduction in the Church's size, but leaving only one Church, and that numbers of members have nothing to do with that. "Great Schism" may be ambiguous, but it is used commonly, more so than others. Western Schism's lead paragraph says it refers more commonly to the East-West Schism. I'm not so sure that there a judgmental (condemnatory) character about application of the term "Great Schism" so much as a matter of what one's principal perspective is. Never having been RC myself, although I knew of the 14th-century competition among rival claimants to the papacy, I've never really considered it to be a schism myself. It had the potential, but it burned out and was eventually resolved. RC/Protestant was a schism. So we of various faiths all have our perspectives, though I have no reason to condemn another's. Precision and clarity are the arguments I find most persuasive in what Esoglou has to say, yet common usage comes into applying WP:TITLE also. And I am not going to push one direction or another. I thought this item to be worth considering, but I wouldn't like to see it become controversial. Evensteven (talk) 16:27, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

By "schism" you seem to mean a difference in faith, since you say that the so-called Western/Great Schism was not a schism and only had the potential to become one. and you call the division between Catholicism and Protestantism a schism. "Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him" (Code of Canon Law, canon 751). The Catholic Church generally sees itself divided from the Eastern Orthodox Church by schism, a break not of faith but of communion, with the fault not necessarily lying on one side alone. Accusations of heresy have indeed been exchanged between theologians on both sides, but on the Catholic side (not so clearly on the Eastern Orthodox side) that is not the official line. The Catholic Church sees the relationship as similar to the schism known as the Western Schism or Great Schism. On the other hand, the Catholic Church sees itself divided from Protestantism not just by schism but by heresy, by a difference on some point or points of faith, though not as severe a break as apostasy, which is total repudiation of the Christian faith.

I don't think it is clear that "common usage" normally understands "the Great Schism" to mean the East-West Schism. You have only cited an unsourced and therefore unreliable Misplaced Pages statement that "Great Schism" is "more often" applied to the East-West Schism than to the Great Western Schism. It doesn't go so far as to say that in common usage the East-West Schism is the normal or even the usual meaning of "the Great Schism". PointsofNoReturn and StAnselm have cast doubt on that idea and have cited something a little better than Misplaced Pages. So I don't think the "common usage" argument would win a change of title. It seems the question is unavoidably controversial. Esoglou (talk) 19:22, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I have changed the text at Western Schism. St Anselm (talk) 19:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, if "Great Schism" is not the common usage term for East-West Schism, I have the impression that it changed somewhere in the last X years, but that can happen. I wasn't trying to cite the article, just to point out that its text was relevant to this discussion and might also require examination.

Thanks for your observations on how the RC views the east-west schism. I hadn't understood it quite that way before. It's also pretty clear that the EOC would not define schism as a refusal to submit to the Pontiff. But for the EOC, it is also a break of communion; however, the break of communion constitutes a break (separation) of faith, and the separation is the fullness of the point. But perhaps that's one way of saying that schism is just what one recognizes it to be; if one sees a break, there it is, and one break is not necessarily just like another. Personally, I find the schism to be one of the great tragedies of church history, perhaps the greatest, and long to see it overturned. It's a tall order, restoring trust after bad blood, but a proving ground for faith. So if there's no way to avoid controversy here, I'm in favor of leaving it alone. Evensteven (talk) 22:39, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

What the schism is

@Haldraper:, I almost feel I must apologize for continuing to revert your well-intentioned edits here, but you do seem continually to be missing the point I have been trying to make to you in the edit comments. The schism itself was a one-time event. It occurred, and became a historical event, and does not continue. True, depending on how it is defined, it took quite some time to happen, for it was a developing event through centuries of time. But the reason 1054 is so often used as "the time" of its occurrence is that this was the single point at which the churches, formerly one church, underwent the division of faith, the break in inter-communion, which was and is the primary mark of disunity, which is the essence of schism itself. Being a "one-time" event, it happened, and does not continue to happen. It is the results of that schism that continue into the present day, the consequences. But those are a series of ongoing events in themselves, not the schism itself. They are related without being the same thing in essence. The consequences (literally, "events following"), sharing in meaning and effect that which produced them (the schism itself), are separate in not being the schism, and also in not being each other, and yet the whole does retain a connection of effect. I am not trying to deny the nature of the continuation, especially as history also records many attempts, first to prevent the schism, and afterwards also to heal and overturn it, and some of those are going on today as well. But the schism is the break, the division, the sundering, the setting in place, the cause, and not the multiple effect(s). It's just mistaken to say the schism is still happening. It is its results which continue. Have I made this clear and understandable? Evensteven (talk) 15:17, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

There is still schism between EOC and RCC, isn't there? The word does not mean only the initial break. The break can endure. The schism can widen or narrow. It can perdure or be transitory. Unfortunately, the East-West Schism is an enduring one. Esoglou (talk) 17:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I must have misunderstood Evensteven, since I see his latest edit was to make Misplaced Pages say the schism persists. I confess my inability to understand what Evensteven sees wrong in saying the still persisting schism began in the 11th century. Something still persisting must have had a beginning. Saying something "occurred" in the 11th century suggests it is just a past event, not something that is still ongoing. The assassination of Julius Caesar and the Battle of Marathon are events that "occurred" but are not now ongoing. The East-West Schism is ongoing, is persisting. For that reason, Haldraper's "began" seems more suitable than Evensteven's "occurred". Esoglou (talk) 19:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

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