About
By Dmitri Solzhenitsyn
But first a note: This summer, the Faith & Reason Institute held its first "Enrichment Days" – conversations about the relations between Eastern and Western Christianity – in Kosice, Slovakia. We're hoping to make this a regular activity in order to promote the presence of all orthodox Christians in the world. We're delighted to have this first column in what will be a series from Dmitri Solzhenitsyn, grandson of the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Now for today's column...
In August 2026, America Magazine reported that "the liturgy wars are back (and never really left)." The fight Catholics have been having on and off – regarding the Traditional Latin Mass versus the Novus Ordo, Traditionis Custodes versus Summorum Pontificum, and so forth – is nearly six decades old. Yet where the Orthodox are concerned, the original liturgical-canonical divergence goes back more than twenty-five times further.
In the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, liturgical matters are not usually as contested as are theological questions. (Among the latter are papal authority and the filioque, as I explore in my book Reuniting Rome with the Orthodox.) Nevertheless, differences in rites can hinder the ability of communions to claim the same experience of worship and, at the extreme, can even make it harder for them to identify with one another as fellow Christians. Accordingly, the gradual East-West divergence is worth exploring.
Rome and the East still had more in common than not throughout the early Christian period. Significant differences, however, were appearing by the fourth century.
By the end of the 300s, invoking the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of the Eucharist was more emphasized among Constantinople and the Greek Churches than among the Western Churches, which instead focused on the words of institution.
Also, during the later 300s the Greek liturgy was uniquely refined: garments like the sticharion (a kind of long tunic), hymnography like the short troparia, and sophisticated vessels were a much more prominent feature of Byzantine rites than of the simpler Latin rites.
Language differences, too, arose: while Rome had initially used Greek, Latin was added in the third century and became dominant by the fourth. To express its faith, the West preferred the pre-Nicene Apostles' Creed (the "Roman Symbol"); the Greeks adopted the Symbol of Faith produced at Nicaea.
By the end of the seventh century, East and West had diverging prayers, hymns, cadences, and even iconography. And by the 9th century, the West had switched to unleavened bread in the Eucharist, while the East maintained leavened bread. All of this established the Roman rite as distinct from the Byzantine.
Meanwhile, from the fourth century on, East and West also developed starkly different attitudes toward clerical celibacy. Priests throughout the communion of orthodox Churches had been allowed to marry prior to ordination. Rome campaigned, however, to make celibacy universal. By the 700s papal decretals had solidified the Western practice.
On the other hand, the Apostolic Canons, better received in the East, forbade clergy to divorce their wives on grounds of celibacy – on pain of excommunication – and the Synod of Gangra anathematized certain radical proponents of clerical celibacy. At the Quinisext Council of 692 under Justinian II, Eastern Churches limited celibacy to the episcopate.
Those differences could be tolerated for a long time. But in the eleventh century, when cultural contacts became more widespread, the combination of erstwhile isolation and sudden contact dramatically soured East–West relations. Long-endured differences in discipline – unleavened versus leavened bread, fasting, clerical celibacy – came prominently, and painfully, into view.
Patriarch Cerularius of Constantinople wrote combatively to Pope Leo IX in 1053, critiquing the use of unleavened (azymes) bread in the Eucharist and Saturday fasting. And the infamous schism of 1054 was at least i...
But first a note: This summer, the Faith & Reason Institute held its first "Enrichment Days" – conversations about the relations between Eastern and Western Christianity – in Kosice, Slovakia. We're hoping to make this a regular activity in order to promote the presence of all orthodox Christians in the world. We're delighted to have this first column in what will be a series from Dmitri Solzhenitsyn, grandson of the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Now for today's column...
In August 2026, America Magazine reported that "the liturgy wars are back (and never really left)." The fight Catholics have been having on and off – regarding the Traditional Latin Mass versus the Novus Ordo, Traditionis Custodes versus Summorum Pontificum, and so forth – is nearly six decades old. Yet where the Orthodox are concerned, the original liturgical-canonical divergence goes back more than twenty-five times further.
In the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue, liturgical matters are not usually as contested as are theological questions. (Among the latter are papal authority and the filioque, as I explore in my book Reuniting Rome with the Orthodox.) Nevertheless, differences in rites can hinder the ability of communions to claim the same experience of worship and, at the extreme, can even make it harder for them to identify with one another as fellow Christians. Accordingly, the gradual East-West divergence is worth exploring.
Rome and the East still had more in common than not throughout the early Christian period. Significant differences, however, were appearing by the fourth century.
By the end of the 300s, invoking the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of the Eucharist was more emphasized among Constantinople and the Greek Churches than among the Western Churches, which instead focused on the words of institution.
Also, during the later 300s the Greek liturgy was uniquely refined: garments like the sticharion (a kind of long tunic), hymnography like the short troparia, and sophisticated vessels were a much more prominent feature of Byzantine rites than of the simpler Latin rites.
Language differences, too, arose: while Rome had initially used Greek, Latin was added in the third century and became dominant by the fourth. To express its faith, the West preferred the pre-Nicene Apostles' Creed (the "Roman Symbol"); the Greeks adopted the Symbol of Faith produced at Nicaea.
By the end of the seventh century, East and West had diverging prayers, hymns, cadences, and even iconography. And by the 9th century, the West had switched to unleavened bread in the Eucharist, while the East maintained leavened bread. All of this established the Roman rite as distinct from the Byzantine.
Meanwhile, from the fourth century on, East and West also developed starkly different attitudes toward clerical celibacy. Priests throughout the communion of orthodox Churches had been allowed to marry prior to ordination. Rome campaigned, however, to make celibacy universal. By the 700s papal decretals had solidified the Western practice.
On the other hand, the Apostolic Canons, better received in the East, forbade clergy to divorce their wives on grounds of celibacy – on pain of excommunication – and the Synod of Gangra anathematized certain radical proponents of clerical celibacy. At the Quinisext Council of 692 under Justinian II, Eastern Churches limited celibacy to the episcopate.
Those differences could be tolerated for a long time. But in the eleventh century, when cultural contacts became more widespread, the combination of erstwhile isolation and sudden contact dramatically soured East–West relations. Long-endured differences in discipline – unleavened versus leavened bread, fasting, clerical celibacy – came prominently, and painfully, into view.
Patriarch Cerularius of Constantinople wrote combatively to Pope Leo IX in 1053, critiquing the use of unleavened (azymes) bread in the Eucharist and Saturday fasting. And the infamous schism of 1054 was at least i...