Christian Pure

Orthodox vs Catholic: How the Two Churches Differ and Why They Split

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches were one communion for about a thousand years; the break is usually dated to 1054, when papal legates excommunicated Patriarch Michael Cerularius and two others, and the patriarch and his synod answered with an excommunication of their own.
  • The main differences are the Pope’s authority, which the Catholic Church calls “full, supreme, and universal,” and the filioque, the words “and the Son” that the Latin Church added to the Creed.
  • The Orthodox do not accept purgatory, the Immaculate Conception or papal infallibility; both churches pray for the dead and honor Mary as Mother of God.
  • Orthodox priests may be married men, though bishops are celibate; Latin Catholic priests are normally celibate, while the 23 Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men.
  • Catholic canon law lets Orthodox Christians receive Communion if they ask, but the Orthodox Church does not give Communion to Catholics or let its members receive in Catholic churches.
  • In 1965 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I lifted the excommunications of 1054, and in 2025 Pope Leo XIV and Patriarch Bartholomew marked the 1,700th anniversary of Nicaea together.

The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches were one communion for about a thousand years, and both still have the same seven sacraments, bishops in apostolic succession and the first seven councils. They separated in a break usually dated to 1054, chiefly over the authority of the Pope and the words “and the Son” in the Creed. Most of the other differences are smaller: purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, married priests, the bread used at Communion and the date of Easter. The…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
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