Okay, what I want to do is just review. I want to try to review every time just so we're getting some of the main sections in our minds. So we're covering four areas of church history. The first is the ancient church from 5 BC to AD 590. What happened in 5 BC or approximately 5 BC? Christ was born. And then in 590, does anyone remember what happened? Gregory I. We're going to actually get to this today. Gregory I was elected as what we'll call the Pope, the Bishop of Rome in AD 590. On the 5 B.C. I know many of us know, but it might be good for some that maybe haven't learned the calendar issue. Why is it 5 B.C. and not 0 A.D.? Yeah, that's a good question. Why is it 5 B.C. and not 0 A.D.? Well, the 5 B.C. is an approximate date, so we don't know exactly when Christ was born, but I would say that that is the approximate The reason is, is because that's the approximate date. And that's, I mean, does anyone have any other further information, Randy? No, that was exactly my question, because our use of the term GC and AD comes from, does the company go in and count? Yeah. So irrespective of whether we know the exact date, that was what they chose was zero. So that's why, I have the same question. Why are we now saying 5 BC? Yeah. When by definition, it was our era that defined GC and AD. Yeah, and my understanding is that's kind of how it started and you can't change the dates, right? Do you have further knowledge on that, Phil? Yeah, I just, my understanding was there was some errors made in the beginning, and it's been corrected. Believed to be corrected, that's why we've done that. Okay, so Phil's understanding there's some errors possibly around, I mean, this is, it should say CA, which means approximate. Whenever you see CA in your handout, it means approximate. That's a reason. Number two, the medieval church from 590 to 1517. And what happens in 1517? Yes, Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the castle door. The Reformation begins and then it goes to about 1648. What happens in 1648? You guys remember? Yes, the end of the Thirty Years' War. So you're very close. The end of the Thirty Years' War, which started in 1618 and lasted to 1648, that ended the Reformation period and really ushered in what we call the modern church, the modern period. The modern church being from 1648 to the present. I have three dates on the board, 590, 800, and 1054. These three dates we're going to get to today. These are very key dates. If you don't remember any of the other dates in church history in this period, these are key dates to remember. Some of you, I know, have a hard time remembering your anniversary, let alone dates from people you have no idea who they are. don't have a relationship with them. If this works for you, great. If you're not a numbers person, fine, but for me it helps because I'm kind of a numbers person. It helps me to remember some key dates to put this in some kind of framework when I think about the past and I think what was going on and I can put what was going on in a context. This is why they did that because this was going on, because it was in this time period. We're going to get to those dates. So today, the medieval church. Really exciting time in church history. When you think of kings and knights and castles, what comes to your mind? The Middle Ages, right? The Medieval Church, which is what we're going to talk about today. Today, we're beginning this major section, this second major section, called the Medieval Church. Sometimes you might hear this referred to as the Middle Ages. Same thing, Medieval Church, Middle Ages. Goes from, again, 590, Gregory I, to 1517, Martin Luther. Now typically, during this time period, 590 to 1517, it's really kind of cut in half. And the first 500 years are usually referred to as the Dark Ages. So a lot of times people will say, The whole medieval period was the Dark Ages. Well, technically I think we should think of the first half of the medieval period as the Dark Ages, and the second half, which we're going to get to next time, is really the rise of the papacy, the rise and the fall of the papacy. Now, why is this called the Dark Ages? Why is from essentially 500 to 1,000 called the Dark Ages? Well, if you've had, all of you have had history before, general history, you know that several answers are given. Politically, people say it was the Dark Ages because of what was happening politically. Also because of what was happening culturally, with learning and scholarship. during that time. Well today, what I want to offer is a religious reason, at least one religious reason why we call this the Dark Ages. And as Protestants, I want to call this period from about 590 to 1054 the Dark Ages because of this reason. What we're going to see today In our handout, in the outline here, is we're going to see three areas of greatness. We're going to see great leaders, a great conquest, and a great schism. Great leaders, a great conquest, and a great schism. Now you might think, well, why don't you call it the age of greatness? Right? Well, I'm calling it the age of darkness because when we look back on this time period and we see what the church went through and what it was becoming, that's why we call it dark. If you're a Roman Catholic, you probably look at this time period and you say, this was a golden age of church history. But as a Protestant, I look back on it and say it was a dark age because of what we're going to see happen in the church during this time. And we know that as Jesus taught, as the gospel, as Christianity, Christianity is a religion of humility, right? The way up is the way down. It's kind of reverse. And so, people back then started to call shortly after some of these people, Gregory the Great. They would call him Gregory the Great. What I think happened is some, I think what happened, what we see as we look back is we see pride starting to creep in and really destroy, not destroy, but just really cause some bad things to happen in the church during this time. And so that's why I'm calling it the age of darkness. So we're gonna look at these three areas today, the great leaders, a great conquest, and a great schism. So, the medieval church, part one, the age of darkness. So, during this time period, what is happening is Christianity was birthed, obviously, in Palestine. And it spread very rapidly, and we saw that in the last few lessons. The persecution spread the church. And in this time period, Christianity is spreading more. Why? Because Constantine made Christianity legal and Theodosius actually made Christianity the state religion. So because of that, it was spreading into all the areas. So what was happening is the Roman Empire, if you think in your head, and you think in terms of geography in Italy, Think Italy south and then down around the Mediterranean and North Africa. That was kind of the Roman Empire before 590. And what happens in 590 and onward is the church starts to grow and spread into what we call Europe today, modern day Europe. And that's kind of the context here of Pope Gregory I. So, look at your handout here. Number one, just the background here about Gregory. The last Roman emperor fell in 476. So, the Roman Empire was crumbling, it started to crumble with Constantine, and it was crumbling, and the last Roman emperor was in 476. Rome had been invaded by the barbarians, is what we call them, actually the people that were living in Europe, just a mixture of different people and kingdoms in the north there. And they were invading Europe, And what, they were invading, excuse me, they were invading the Roman Empire. And what started to happen is, the Roman Empire started to break into all these different kingdoms. Okay, so you got one empire, and so you can think of, you know, it was, the Roman Empire was the United States, but then it broke into all the states. So you have the one Roman Empire breaking down into all these different kingdoms ruled by all these different leaders. And in 590, Gregory was elected as Pope. Now I mention here he's called Gregory the Great. He didn't actually give himself that title. Gregory was actually... He was a humble guy, yet he was also proud at the same time. We'll get to that here in a minute. To be fair, Gregory, he had no craving to be the Pope. He didn't want to be the Bishop of Rome. In fact, when he was elected, he ran from the city and he hid in the woods. And people actually went and got him and dragged him back into the city and said, no, you are going to be the Pope. And so he said, okay. So he did not want to be, he did not like to be addressed as Pope. He didn't like that title. He preferred to call himself a Servant of the Servants of God. Which if you're familiar with Roman Catholicism, they still use that title today of a Pope. A Servant of the Servants of God. So, not long after his death, though Gregory isn't mentioned, he's called Gregory the Great. Why is this? Well, this is why he's so significant. Number three on your handout. What Gregory did is he basically united an empire that was being splintered into all these different factions, groups, kingdoms. Under Gregory I, the papacy begins to assume not only spiritual power, but political power that will hold sway for a thousand years. One historian says, quote, after Gregory, the Pope was no longer only a Christian leader, he was an important political figure in the European politics. God's counsel. Gregory thus marks the beginning of the Middle Ages where the papacy rises to power in Europe. So that's why we give this, it's an artificial division, but that's why we say in 590 starts the beginning of the medieval church, because it's with Gregory as we start to see the rise of the power of the papacy within the church. And Gregory did this because he was a man of great executive ability, and he was also a man of great compassion. He was not an intellectual, but he had the gifts of organizing and administrating, and he had the gifts of pastoring and of caring for people. That's what made Gregory so Great. And so, politically, it's why it's significant. Why is it significant for the church? Well, for a few accomplishments of Gregory. He was actually the first monk to become the Bishop of Rome. So that's significant. Secondly, Gregory actually helped, he was a main influence for spreading the gospel, spreading Christianity to what we would call in modern day Europe. He sent evangelists to these German tribes and to even the British Isles. Gregory did, okay? So, I mean, you think about Europe, today we don't think about Europe necessarily as being Christian, but after 590 and up until even modern times, we would consider Europe to be Christian, right? And we have Gregory to thank for that. That's why Europe is Christian, because of Gregory. It's a huge accomplishment of Gregory. He obviously organized the Gregorian chant. Has anyone ever heard of the Gregorian chant or actually heard it? Maybe if you've been in a... several of you. What? I don't think you use that in the Greek Orthodox Church. Yeah, yep. Yep, it's still used today. And he was the main organizer of that. Gregory, he asserted authority as the Bishop of Rome over the entire Western Church. So, last week we talked about how Leo I made this argument that I am the Bishop of Rome and And he made this argument from going to Matthew 16 and tracing his leadership from Peter and Paul. So that was what Leo did. Gregory comes along and he says, I have authority over the whole church. So what we start to see here is we start to see the papacy being formed, and really, Technically, we could say Gregory was the first Pope. Now, a Roman Catholic won't say that. They will trace it back to Peter. But from our view, we could say, OK, this is where, yes, this is where the papacy started with Gregory because of what he's doing. He's asserting authority over the entire, at least, Western Church. And Gregory also laid the groundwork for much of what today is Roman Catholicism. Gregory, number one, there in your handout, he believed that the fall weakened human's free will, but with the help of grace, humankind may perform good works which are the product of man's effort and God's grace. Sound familiar with what Roman Catholicism teaches? That was Gregory. He said that God forgives sins at baptism, But sins committed after baptism must be atoned for through penance. So Gregory wouldn't like Pastor Jeff's sermon today very well, right? Sorry to ask another question. I think it's really important based on the sermon and the gospel. What do you believe? I mean, clearly now in this, we begin to see the distortion of what we consider the true gospel. Would you agree with that? Yeah, we do. We do. And so Phil's question is, or comment question was, we start here to see theologically the distortion of the gospel, and we do. And this is why I said earlier, this is why this is a dark time. This is the dark ages, because we start to see some of these things happening in the church. Number three, he said that prayers may be made to deceased saints who intercede for us. Number four, sins could be atoned for in purgatory. if not sufficiently atoned for in this life. He approved the use of holy relics, locks of hair, pieces of clothing. He believed Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and wine. Now, this is not the doctrine of transubstantiation yet. That doesn't happen until later. But he believed that Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and wine. Now, let me just note here, again, we're doing a high survey of church history. But some of these things that Gregory actually believed were being taught prior to Gregory. He didn't come up with all these things himself. The Doctrine of Purgatory, he did. That was Gregory's... That was Gregory's deal that he came up with. But all these other ones, they were being taught in seed form, in basic forms, before Gregory's time. And what Gregory did is he came along, because he was such a great organizer, is he organized these doctrines. And he promoted them as the Pope with all this power. So that's Gregory I in 590. Now fast forward about 200 years, and we have the second great leader, he's Charles I, actually called Charles the Great, or Charlemagne. A French word for Charles the Great, Charlemagne. Charlemagne was the king of France, so think France, modern day France, western Germany, he kind of ruled that area. And what Charles I did is he set up these alliances with Christian leaders, like with, well, he wasn't around when Gregory was there, but with Pope Leo III. And what happened was Pope Leo III was accused of sin, and fighting broke out, and Leo didn't know what to do, and so he turned to Charles I for help. So this is 200 years later, we have Leo III, and he's turning to Charles, this political leader, for help with this instability that's happening because of him being accused of sin. And what Pope Leo III did is he brought Charles in, he got him to his side, and he claimed himself innocent. And then on Christmas Day, The year 800, an easy date to remember, Christmas Day 800, Leo placed a golden crown upon Charles' head. Okay, think about this. The Bishop of Rome places a crown upon a political leader's head, which symbolized for us this notion that Again, that the Pope has all this power that he can crown a political leader. So what's the significance of this happening, this next major event in 800? Number one, the crowning of Charlemagne reunited the Christian Roman Empire into what we call Christendom. That had collapsed three centuries earlier. So remember I said in 470 there was the last Roman Emperor? The Roman Empire collapsed. It had fallen. And so for 300 years now, from roughly 470-500 to 800, there was no Roman Empire. It was gone. And so, the crowning of Charlemagne Basically, what it did is Charlemagne became the first Holy Roman Emperor of the West. An empire which would produce nominal Christianity that would last with a few ups and downs along the way, really for a thousand years until Napoleon in 1806. So that's the significance of Charlemagne. The crowning of Charlemagne, number two, it symbolically represented the new power of a pope to crown an emperor of the state. And Noel summarizes the significance well. Look at your handout. He says, what made the papal coronation of 800 so important was not that it represented the height of papal power. Rather, it represented a strategic alliance between the papacy's gradual expanding influence and a political power that, like the Pope, was also expanding in influence. In theory, Christianity and the state were two aspects of Christendom. You had the church and you had the state. And in theory, they would work side by side. But what started to happen is that one started to trump the other, in terms of power. Right? And so, the main question became, does the church rule the state, or does the state control the church? And this question, I would argue, was hashed out for centuries and is still being fought today. It's still being fought today. Take, for instance, the issue of homosexuality. Okay? Some Christians would argue that it doesn't matter that the Supreme Court ruled that homosexuals can marry. It doesn't matter. It's the state. They didn't care. They didn't believe that homosexuality is wrong. But they don't care. Let's get out of... Marriage should get out of the state and out of politics. And so we should have just religious ceremonies for our weddings. I bring that up just as a quick example of how these issues are being fought today. The role of the church and the state. It was a huge issue of what brought our country into existence. So this is such a critical time in the history of the church where we start to see these lines being blurred, as I talked about last time, and then we start to see the rise of the church, the rise of the power of the church, and the state, and then they start to butt heads. And we're going to see this from now on. The rest of the time we're going to see this, the church and the state butting heads. So those are the church political things happening during this time, from 590 to 1054. The second major thing is the great Muslim conquest, the rise of Islam. Muhammad was born in 1570 in Mecca. At the age of 40, he retired to some caves and he believed that an angel, possibly the angel Gabriel, what he says, came to him and told him to recite. Write down these words that I tell you. And so, that's where the Quran comes from. The Quran actually means to recite. The Quran is about two-thirds the length of the New Testament. Has anyone ever read the Quran or parts of the Quran? Okay, a few of you. It's about two-thirds the length of the New Testament. So that's what happened with Muhammad. In 622, he fled from Medina to Mecca, to Medina from Mecca. And this actually marked the first year of the Muslim calendar. So the Muslims actually use a different calendar than what we were talking about here earlier. He died unexpectedly in 632 and a successor was needed. And so there was some arguments. Who should we appoint? The Sunnis suggested the first caliph should be elected. The Shiites suggested that a successor should be selected from Muhammad's bloodline. Let me just give you basic tenets of Islam because it's so relevant for us today. We hear a lot about this today, with the rise of Islam even today. Islam has a strong belief in monotheism. There is no god but God. And Muhammad is his prophet. They believe in absolute submission to Allah. Muslim means those who submit to Allah. That's what the word means. Abraham and Jesus were prophets of Allah, but Muhammad was the last prophet. Good Muslims pray five times a day. They fast during Ramadan, which is the celebration of the month when the Qur'an was given to Muhammad. Once a year, Muslims are required to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. I think most of you are familiar with that because of what's happening in our world today. What happened here with the conquest? Good, thank you for that. It's sounding slightly different. If you go to Jerusalem and you see it, it's even able to say, shalom, shalom aleichem. It's able to say, shalom aleichem. Same word. In fact, the shahada, the one God, you find the exact phraseology. Without the reference to Mohammed, you will find the exact phraseology in Jeremiah. Throughout the Old Testament, hero Israel, it's the shah. Good. Thanks for that, Randy. So what happened here? Well, Islam is birthed with Muhammad. And after his death, Islam spread. During the first hundred years, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Cairo fell. Pagans were required to convert or die. Pagans were. Jews and Christians were actually allowed to practice their religion, but they had to pay a lot of taxes, and they also had other strict requirements on them. They had to wear certain clothes that set them apart from Muslims. Islam was finally defeated in the West at the Battle of Tours by Charles Martel, who was the grandfather of Charles the Great. I'm a Charlemagne. And so what this did is it stopped the spread of Islam for about 700 years. It's only been recently where we have seen Islam begin to spread again in Europe. And if you know anything about current events, Islam is spreading in the world. But it stopped big time in 732 at the Battle of Tours in what is today modern day France. The spread of Islam was stopped in the east by Leo III, a political leader, not the Pope. This is a different guy. This is Leo III, the political leader. The results of the conquest were Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain were subjugated by Islam. And the next time we're going to look at, obviously there's a big reaction to this spread of Islam. What is it? What's the big reaction? The Crusades, exactly. The Crusades. So we're going to get to the Crusades next time. So that's what's happening during this time. Earlier in this time, 632 to a little after 700, we see Islam rise and spread. And Islam, if you think in terms on a map, you know, think North Africa, think East, so Palestine, and think Turkey, that's where Islam really had dominance and really spread. It spread a little bit into Europe, but it was stopped, but even today, that's where Islam is the strongest, isn't it? Even today, it's in North Africa, it's in East, Palestine, Turkey, that's where Islam is the strongest, and it's all because this is when it started. in 6th, 7th, 8th centuries. Now finally, let's look at the Great Schism. Again, we're just taking some high-level survey here. The Great Schism happened in 1054. Let me give you some background of this. Four significant events from prior periods led to this great schism. Number one, Constantine, if you remember two times ago, we talked about him moving his capital to Constantinople. So the capital of the Roman Empire was traditionally in Rome. He moved it to Constantinople. What did that do? It made a division between East and West. Not an official division, but it made this division between the East and the West. Secondly, Theodosius, the ruler who made Christianity the state religion, Theodosius, on his deathbed, divided the empire between his two sons. divided the east and the west between his two sons, further divided the empire. The council of Chalcedon in 451 gave the bishop of Constantinople equal power to the bishop of Rome. We saw that last time. And then the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in the 5th century. So that's background before this time period, before 590 of what's happening to kind of set up the church for this schism 1000 year in the year 1054. So what happened? Well, in 1054, the Western Church and the Eastern Church split. The story is Cardinal Huber and two other delegates were sent by Pope Leo IX. They entered the church, a major church, in Constantinople, the Church of Holy Wisdom, and they placed a bull. This is an official papal document. We get the word bulletin, the English word bulletin. from this Latin word bull. They placed this document upon the altar and then they left the building. It was a hit and run. They left the building and they did this. They shucked the dust off their feet, the reference to we see in scripture. And so, what happens is, Basically, Leo excommunicates the Eastern Church. And what this does, this act, is what officially marks the split in 1054 between the East and the West. It's kind of like in 1517, Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door. That's what marks the start of the Reformation. But the Reformation didn't start when he nailed that there. That's just what we... what we say is the beginning of the Reformation. And what we say is this act by Cardinal Huber and these two men is when the Great Schism took place. But a lot of things precipitated this split. A lot of things did. And the Patriarch Michael Cyrillius of Constantinople, after he was excommunicated, he anathematized Pope Leo IX for having been excommunicated by him. And so, what we see now, after the rest of the church history lessons, when we talk about church history, we're going to be talking about the church in the West. Because what happens is the church in the East, in 1000, gets separated from the church in the West, and it's like the church in the East gets stuck in a bit of a time warp. Really, there's not much that develops in the East in terms of ecclesiastically. And even if you know anything about Orthodox Christianity, the Orthodox Church, you know that they're very rooted in tradition and they always go back to these first seven ecumenical councils. And so they get stuck in this time warp, and there's not a lot going on. And so we talk about the rest of church history. Recover is going to be church history in the West, because that's where all the action is really happening. What caused the split? This is the big question that scholars and historians debate. And I think personally that it's an error to tag one reason, right? It happened for multiple reasons. Things happen for multiple reasons. There's not just one reason this split happened. There are four theological reasons, five theological reasons. Number one, there was different claims to the papacy, right? Does the Bishop of Rome hold supreme power over the entire church? Do you remember the church set up these five patriarchs in these five major cities? Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch. And then the Constantinople bishop and the Roman bishop start to kind of have rise to the top. And so you have these East and West bishops. Well, who's more powerful? Who rules over who? That was a major reason for the split. Pope Leo IX said, no, I am the Pope. I am the descendant of Peter and I have the papal authority over the entire Church. The Eastern Church said, no. There's five. There's five rulers in the Church. You're not the supreme ruler. Number two, there's this issue of the Filique controversy. The Western Church changed the Nicene Creed in 589 to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, as opposed to only the Father. So, the original Nicene Creed said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Western Church came and said, changed it, and said the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And the Western Church didn't consult with the Eastern Church when they changed it. And so that is another reason why they split. The Eastern Church said, you're wrong. We have to split from you because of this. Interestingly, I found in my research that in 871, the Pope offered to drop Anne the Sun if the Eastern Church accepted the Roman Bishop's power over the whole church. They actually offered, we'll drop it if you accept the authority of the Roman Bishop. And the Eastern Church obviously said, no. further precipitating the split that happened in 1054. The iconoclastic controversy. Because of the conversion of pagans to Christianity. Okay, remember, Christianity is spreading into Europe, right? And you have all these pagans becoming Christians. Well, pagans have idols. They have all these practices that they've had, and so they bring that into Christianity, right? It's when someone becomes a Christian, they bring in their baggage, if you will. They bring in their culture and their ideas into Christianity. And so that's what's happening. And so the church starts to use icons. And then there becomes this huge debate about the merit and the use of icons in worship. That's what was happening for a hundred years, from 725 to 843. they were debating this issue of icons. And we're not going to have time to discuss this issue, but actually what I've done is I've printed on your handout in the back, you have arguments in support of icons and arguments opposed to icons. And the reason I give this to you is because you have people that you know who are Orthodox Christians or even Roman Catholics, and you have interactions with them. Okay? And I want you to interact with them intelligibly. You need to see where they are coming from. You need to see their arguments. Okay? And listen to them. Don't just say, you guys are crazy for quote-unquote worshipping statues and blah, blah, blah. Okay? So this will give you the ability to understand before you critique. That's the point. We need to understand before we critique. So that will help you on those lines. Fourth theological reason for the split is The Eastern Church had little theological development during the Middle Ages. The only exception is the work of John of Damascus, whose fountain of wisdom influenced the Eastern Church. So, the Western Church really took off, and the Eastern Church was kind of left behind. There was the issue of celibacy. The Eastern Church allowed people who were below a bishop to marry. Obviously, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't allow marriage. if you're in some kind of ordained leadership in the Roman Catholic Church, if you're a priest, or a bishop, or on up. So that was another reason for the split. Politically, there are two empires. There was the Byzantine Empire by this time in 1054. There was clearly the Byzantine Empire in the east, and the Holy Roman Empire in the west. Another reason the church split is because the Muslims really came in and they really conquered the East. Like I said earlier, that North Africa, Palestine, Turkey, the East. And they didn't have as much influence in the West. And so the church in the East is stuck having to fight Islam. And they really have no time to grow and develop as much as the Western church did. Culturally, obviously, there's two languages. The East is using Greek. The West is using Latin by this time. And it's just different cultures between the East and the West. We see that today. Even in the United States, we go south, it's a little different culture than if we go west. It was the same back then. And so, the Western church was more concerned with practical matters. They're more concerned with polity. They're more concerned with issues like that, whereas the Eastern Church was more concerned with theology and philosophy. They would debate the two natures of Christ forever, the Eastern Church. The Western Church said, forget it. Let's talk about the real practical issues. That was the cultural outlook of the two sides. Let me give you just some background about Eastern Orthodoxy. I'm sure some of you are familiar with it. When you think about Eastern Orthodoxy, you've got to think outside of the box because the questions that they bring are not even the same questions that we in the West bring to theology. For instance, humankind. Humankind, the image of God plays a significant role in the Orthodox Church. Orthodox Church doesn't view the relationship between God and man upon illegal grounds like us in the West. They view it upon grounds of incarnation and this idea of image and being recreated into the image of God. Thus, when man sins, he does not break a legal relationship. Like Pastor Jeff said today, sin is violation of the law of God. No, they view sin as breaking and diminishing the divine image of God in man. So this is why icons play such a huge part in their worship. Because an icon is an incarnation It's a visible representation of this idea of God dwelling in God's image in man. That's why icons play such a significant role in the Orthodox Church. And so if that's the view of man, salvation involves recreation of the image of God in man. Orthodox call this process theosis. Have you heard of that term? or deification, as opposed to redemption. We call salvation redeemed, redemption. They would call it deification, gaining back that image. Now there's a part to that that's true, theologically. But they emphasize that aspect, as opposed to the legal aspect. The Eastern Orthodox Church is not Roman Catholicism without a Pope. Some people think it is, it's not. There are really 14 churches that make up the Orthodox Church. 14, 15 churches that make up the Orthodox Church. How do they view the Bible? Very generally, the role of tradition in the Orthodox Church is the Bible is contained in tradition. Think about that. The Bible is contained in the tradition. And let me just juxtapose this with Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In Protestantism, tradition is contained in the Bible. And in Roman Catholicism, tradition and the Bible are both equally authoritative. You can see the differences between the three branches of Christianity there. So, I have this question, letter E, will the church ever again have unity? Well, a few attempts at reconciliation between the East and the West have actually been made. Not many, but a few. The latest one was after Vatican II in 1965. And Pope Paul VI and the patriarch, his name, Athangoras, they declared Here, look at what they declared. Strong language. Finally, they deplore the preceding and latter vexing events which, under the influence of various factors, among which lack of understanding and mutual trust, eventually led to the effective rupture of ecclesiastical communion. Yet, we still have Eastern and Western Church to this day. And the Western Church is divided into two groups, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. So, will the Church ever reunite? I don't know, is meant to be seen. I want to... I think we're at it. Are we out of time? Is it 10.15? 11.15? I really wanted to get to these discussion questions here. Maybe you can discuss these as a family or with some friends. I think they're really good. It would be helpful if you think about these things. Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father or does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son? Which view of the Trinity is more biblical? You be a council member and figure it out. And here's the important question, does it make a difference? And why? And then what impact, I think it would be so helpful to examine or think about what impact the reuniting of the church would have upon Theology upon many areas. And what does this great schism teach us about division in the body of Christ? It'd be really interesting to think about these things for a little bit, but we're out of time. So think about those things. Any questions? Comments? I know we had questions throughout today. So these are the high-level events that's happening during this time from about 590 to 1054. You have these three greats, Gregory I, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, you have the rise of Islam, the Great Conquest, and you have the Great Schism happen in the church. In two weeks, we will get back to this medieval church. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time to look at these events that happened in the past, Lord, we pray that you would give us understanding of not only what took place, Lord, but help us to learn from the past so that we can more boldly and more confidently proclaim the gospel that we heard today, that Christ died for our sins once for all, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us home to God. Lord, may all of our study of church history bring us to a better understanding of who you are and how we can communicate your message of grace to our world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.