Greek East and Latin West

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Greek East and Latin West are terms used to distinguish between the two parts of the Greco-Roman world and of medieval Christendom, specifically the eastern regions where Greek was the lingua franca (Greece, Anatolia, the southern Balkans, the Levant, and Egypt) and the western parts where Latin filled this role (Italy, Gaul, Hispania, North Africa, the northern Balkans, territories in Central Europe, and the British Isles).

Greek had spread as a result of previous

Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, the collapse of the latter, and failed attempts to restore unity by the former. This Greek–Latin divide continued with the East–West Schism of the Christian world during the Early Middle Ages
.

Use with regard to the Roman Empire

The Roman Empire in 330 AD.

In the classical context, "Greek East" refers to the provinces and client states of the Roman Empire in which the lingua franca was primarily Greek.[citation needed]

This region included the whole Greek peninsula with some other northern parts in the Balkans, the provinces around the

Greek colonies or Greek-ruled states during the Hellenistic period, i.e. until the Roman conquests.[citation needed
]

At the start of

Italia (excluding the Catepanate of Italy, where they still spoke Greek) and Northwest Africa (after 395 in the Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire).[1][failed verification
]

Use with regard to Christianity

"Greek East" and "Latin West" are terms used also to divide

Northwest Africa, and Britannia, but also to areas that had never been part of the Empire but which later came under the culture sphere of the Latin West, such as Magna Germania, Hibernia (Ireland), Caledonia (Scotland). In this sense, the term "Latin" came to refer to the liturgical and scholarly language of Western Europe, since many of these countries did not actually speak Latin.[citation needed
]

Modern scholars agree that by the 12th century, theological debate (or disputatio) between Christians of the Greek East and Latin West was focused on three Christian doctrines: 'the so-called

However, it is not known when or how this began.

British philosopher Philip Sherrard (1959) claimed that the cause of Christendom's split into a Greek East and a Latin West was differing conceptions of sacerdotium and regnum, leading the Orthodox Patriarchate in Constantinople to never lay claim to secular power, but submit to the Byzantine emperor and later the Ottoman sultan (supposedly the reason for the 'eastern submission to autocracy'), while the Catholic Papacy persistently laid claim to have authority over the secular princes of Western Europe (allegedly 'the roots of modern democracy').[5] E. Evans (1960) panned Sherrard's book, writing: '...it must be said that unless the obscurity of the writer's language has dulled the reader's intelligence, neither the Filioque clause nor the developments of modern international politics are really shown to depend on the western as opposed to the eastern, the Latin as opposed to the Greek, doctrine of God and of creation: the argument, if there is one, is per saltum, and need amount to no more than an a posteriori interpretation of historical facts in the light of preconceived ideas.'[5]

According to English theologian

Councils of Lyon.[7]

The term "Greek" varies in how it is applied. In the most narrow sense, after the rise of the Roman Empire it is only applied to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.[8] Depending on the author it may also be applied to:

The term "Latin" has survived much longer as a unifying term for the West because the Latin language survived until relatively recently as a scholarly and liturgical language despite the fragmentation and religious changes in Western Europe. The Greek language, by contrast, died out somewhat quickly in the Arab lands, and the Orthodox Slavic nations never fully embraced the language despite their long religious affiliation with the Eastern Romans/Byzantines.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cf. Fishwick, Duncan. The imperial cult in the Latin West: studies in the ruler cult of the Western provinces of the Roman Empire. BRILL, 2002.
  2. .
  3. ^ a b Louth 2007, p. 3.
  4. ^ Brubaker 2018, p. 614.
  5. ^ . Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  6. ^ Louth 2007, p. 4.
  7. ^
    JSTOR 27866892
    . Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  8. ^ "The Byzantine Empire" (in German). Retrieved 2018-08-18.

Bibliography