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Christodoulos of Athens and all Greece, With or without Christianity?
Page 5
In spite of the anathemas and the enmity, by the grace of the Lord, the great and catastrophic Schism never materialised to the fullest extent.
If the Church, in her historical dimension, had allowed herself to remain trapped in the Schism, then Europe, as a formation of the Church, would have ceased to exist. It is impossible to know whether the hordes of barbarians would have become states or whether they would have remained what they still were by the time they were baptised or what they continued to be for centuries in Asia: that is violent hordes, plagues of injustice and pillage, brave but inhuman. For Western Europe, the baptism of the Frankish leader Clovis, first barbarian king, in 496, was indeed a decisive development of historic significance. It was from that point onwards that the integration and europeanisation process began for the barbarians. For the Orthodox world things were different, since the Roman tradition adopted by Theodosius consisted in striking one’s enemies for as long as they fought, but also in integrating them in its world as soon as they would calm down.
If the Church in her historical aspect had remained trapped in the Schism, then Europe would have died even before being born. This is because the Church of Rome, despite her secular aspirations, did not cease to uphold the Corpus Juris Civilis, namely Justinian Law, in the course of the centuries and to put it across as a model. By this means she succeeded in teaching the barbarians that the law is more important that the state, since the latter is founded upon the former, and that the law does not die when the sovereign dies, not even when the state dies. In brief, she succeeded in teaching the sovereigns that they could only contravene the law, but they could not fail to acknowledge it, the sovereign was about to learn that going against the law counted as a sin even for him. In this way, the Church of Rome pushed the barbarians to establish "Christian states" after the model of the Roman empire and to bow to the suzerainty of the rule of law.
If the Church in her historical dimension had remained trapped in the Schism, then Europe would have been given no breathing space, because communication between its two "worlds" would have been interrupted and hindered to an extent until then unseen by man. But communication was there. Greek was always regarded as the "lingua sacra", knowledge of Greek was always a proof of sound education and the so-called "missa graeca" never ceased to be chanted in the West. There was a sufficient number of grammars of Greek. Greek manuscripts were collected by all important monasteries and great libraries. The educated of the Middle Ages had ways of communicating and collaborating with one another despite the Schism. As a result, Greek learning never ceased to be seen by the West too as a desired, if not so common, good. Greek Letters taught, even when they were absent, as an eminent master noted [Curtius].Cf. Nat Gerrs' Why Europe, where Archbishop Christodoulos' views are discussed. Cf. David Turner, Byzantium : The 'alternative' history of Europe * Pope Benedict XVI, The Papal Science * Bartholomew’s lessons of faith and intelligence * Al. Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire
