The Huffington Ecumenical Institute
Invites you
to a lecture
East and West: Cultural Dissonance and the Great Schism of 1054
By Professor Margaret Trenchard Smith
(History Dept. LMU)
Before
1054 A.D. Christianity was ONE Apostolic Church. In that year the
Christian world split into the Eastern Church (Orthodoxy) and the
Western Church (Catholics).
When
Patriarch and Pope excommunicated one another in the year 1054, neither
could have anticipated a permanent severance of relations. The Church
had withstood schisms before in its long history, each of which had
been resolved. The year 1054 is chiefly of symbolic importance, since
the Great Schism of the Christian Church was the culmination of a
process rather than a single event. Cultural dissonance—religious,
political and linguistic—that had originated in Late Antiquity from the
East/West division of the Roman Empire, underlay the schism. Shared
memories strengthen identity. Disparate memories weaken it.
This lecture will examine how memory (and oblivion)
contributed to cultural dissonance among Christians and
the sundering of the Church.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
7:15 p.m.
Loyola Marymount University
University Hall 1000– Ahmanson Auditorium
1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Free and Open to the Public
For more information call: 










(310) 338-1917
or 










(310) 338-4463