We just learned about the Peace and Truce of God.
Another part of early Christianity is the East-West Schism.
Long ago when the first leaders of Christianity started building churches after Jesus died, the most powerful of all the churches was in Rome.
Saint Peter was seen as the first leader of the church in Rome, and so even though many other cities in Europe had leaders, Rome was the one in charge.
We learned about the emperor Constantine that ruled around the year 300, and he wanted to change things so he made a new city called Constantinople, in the country that is now called Turkey.
After that, people argued over whether Rome was better or Constantinople.
Through the centuries Christianity spread to the east into countries like Turkey, Romania, Ukraine and Russia.
It also spread west to countries like Spain, France, Germany and England.
After hundreds of years of Christianity spreading through the world, some people started to disagree with each other about who was really in charge, how the churches should be run, about how people should act in church, about what people should believe, and a lot of other things.
The people started to break up into two groups:
- The Roman Catholic Church - They supported Rome as the head of the church, and people from the western countries followed Rome.
- The Eastern Orthodox Church - They supported Constantinople as the head of the church, and people from the eastern countries followed them.
The word "schism" means splitting up.
When these two churches started splitting up, they called it the "East-West Schism" and it started the two groups of churches splitting up into east and west, for hundreds of years.
(from: wikipedia - east-west schism)
Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Edict of Serdica
