East-West Schism
division of Christianity into two large parts / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The East-West Schism (sometimes also called Great Schism) describes how Christianity split into two big branches called denominations in the Middle Ages. The Western part became the Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern part became the Eastern Orthodox Church. During the centuries, views on politics and theology developed differently in several ways. It is distinct from the earlier schism that separated Nestorianism and Oriental Orthodoxy from the main church in the 5th century, that itself split in half in 1054.
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During the 5th and 6th Centuries the East and West became isolated from each other after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and due to the invasions of the Balkan peninsula. The Eastern Roman Empire, which became the Byzantine Empire, survived and developed differently from the West. They had different languages. Latin was the most important language in the West. The East mainly spoke the Greek language. Because of this, talking to each other was difficult. The West came under Frankish influence (as opposed to Byzantine) in the 8th century.
These were just some of the issues that led to the Great Schism. It seems that even after 1054 relations between the east and west were not completely unfriendly, and the common peasant was probably not immediately affected by the schism.