In general, in the Greek liturgy the Latin polemicist finds for himself many occasions to attack the Greek Church, attacks that are often strange and absurd. According to Hugon, the Greeks think that the name Lord means more than the name Christ, which is why they never sing during services: Christ, have mercy, but Lord, have mercy – very often.

The same polemicist reproaches the Greeks for fasting only on Holy Saturday, and on all the others they allow themselves feasts, pleasures, and baths; that the Greeks even eat meat without a twinge of conscience on some Fridays; that they fast only seven days during the year: five days instead of the entire Forty Days, on Great Saturday, and even on the eve of Theophany. For during the Forty Days they never fast until evening, moreover, their Forty Days consists of 30 days, or rather, writes the polemicist, they do not have a Forty Days at all. The polemicist sees many other aspects that deserve censure in the liturgical practice of the Greeks. The Greeks, declares Hugon, anoint their foreheads with paper soaked in oil from the lamps burning in front of the images, and sprinkle themselves with water, with which they wash the relics of the saints; moreover, on the first day of each month (in singulis calendis – an indication of the pagan origin of the custom) they bless the water with great care. They carry this consecrated water to their homes and not only sprinkle themselves with it, but also wash in it. The Greeks, according to Hugon, also allow themselves the following: they pray before the images of the Mother of God when they wish to have male offspring, and make Her their godfather by means of the same image, namely: they hang a cloth on Her image, so that She, like a real foster child, would receive the child to be baptized from the hands of the priest. In the category of this kind of profanation, Hugon includes some Greek religious rites concerning the saints.

While the Greeks, writes the polemicist, hate living brothers, they make holy saints their brothers against their will. It happens like this: they give money to the priest, and during the liturgy he lifts up a prayer for fraternization between the living sinner and the holy celestial. In order for the saint to enter into this relationship, the one who wishes to fraternize lights at least two candles in front of the image of the saint, anoints himself with oil from his icon and embraces the icon on which the saint is depicted, who is being chosen as a brother. Continuing his attacks on the liturgical practice of the Greeks, the Latin polemicist blames the Greeks for their burial habits. "When they gather for a funeral," says the polemicist, "relatives and acquaintances kiss the corpse, in which they act like pagans who said to the dead: 'Go where nature has called you, and we will follow you.' The polemicist interprets the last kiss in the sense of disbelief in the future life after death). The polemicist finds it unseemly to perform the service on weekdays, when there are few people in Derquay, and sneers at this custom. Here are the words of the polemicist: the Greeks' priests perform services without an audience, and what is strangest of all, being surrounded by his wife and son, they say, greeting the absent believers: "Peace be unto you." The wives of the Greek priests, according to Hugon, enter the altar platform (chorum), take bread from the altar (de altari), perform the deacon's service, and prepare everything necessary for the Liturgy. At the end of his attacks on the liturgical practice of the Greeks, Hugon reproaches the latter for intolerance towards the Latins. He points out, first, that if a Latin priest has celebrated the Eucharist on their altar, the Greek priest will not celebrate the Liturgy at it before he has washed it; secondly, that if a Latin goes over to the Greek Church, he must be baptized again either secretly or publicly.

Very extensive and rich material for reproaches against the Greek Church and for mockery of it is given to Hugon by facts, real or misinterpreted, from the life of the clergy and monasticism. Hugon was inexhaustible in all kinds of accusations against the Greek clergy and monasticism. The Greek bishops, according to the polemicist, belong to the followers of Simon Magus, since they will not open a church to anyone for free, will not perform a single service without payment, and will not send burials. The Greek clergy, in the opinion of the polemicist, is completely dependent on the laity, for their patriarchs, bishops and archimandrites are elevated to their dignity by the laity (here, without a doubt, the Byzantine attitude of the state to the Church is understood). According to the polemicist, the Greeks consider only monks to possess the priesthood par excellence, since among them only monks give absolution of sins. The polemicist blames the Greek clergy for the growth of hair. He writes: "Contrary to the commandment of the Apostle, who said, 'If a man grows his hair, it is a disgrace to him' (1 Corinthians 11:14), the Greeks take care of growing their hair, especially the clergy and monks; the latter (clerics and monks) do not cut their hair in the form of a circle on the crown of the head, but parting it on the forehead, like a woman." In the same way is Hugon's censure of the Greek clergy for growing a beard. The Greek priests, in his opinion, grow beards, which they moisten (through negligence) in the blood of the Lord when they eat it. The polemicist does not ignore the marital status of the clergy; He asserts that Greek deacons marry in order to attain the highest ecclesiastical degrees and not to lose their rank. Hugon reproaches the Greek Church for its unscrupulousness in the ordination of priests; According to him, in many places among the Greeks, their priests are men of blood, for they inflict wounds on others with their own hands· Hugon, finally, paints the most pitiful picture of the state of Greek monasticism. Their monks, complains Hugon, spend the night outside the monasteries like beasts, and eat every minute in the street; They always have some fruit and something edible in their mouths and hands. They go into taverns. Their monks do not have a common treasury, but each has his own, separate one.

Hugon finds a lot of shortcomings in the religious state of the people and tries to expose them, with the aim of humiliating the Greek Church. Of the Greek people, he says that the Greeks do not give their priests the honor they deserve, and make them stand at the dinners at which the latter are compelled to be. On the most trifling pretexts, the Greeks inflict heavy punishments on priests and clerics, as the pagans did, and beat them with whips, and in mockery they knock down and crumple the headdresses of their priests, whereas it is written: "Whoever lays his hand on a cleric without cause or under an imaginary pretext, let him be anathema" (similar to 27 Prov. Apostol.) The Latin polemicist reproaches the Greek people for intemperance in food: "The Greeks," says Hugon, "are distinguished by their immoderation, and do not eat twice a day, but as much as is imagined. They do not abstain from blood and strangled, for they eat thrushes and other birds strangled with snares, and eat entrails, i.e. intestines filled with pig's blood (sausages), and this is considered a dainty." According to the polemicist, the Greeks, who heal by means of bloodletting, in this case give human blood to pigs. According to the same Hugon, the Greeks do not value the marriage bond: as soon as one of the spouses does not like the other, they declare it to the city praetor, destroy the marriage documents and the belt (instrumentis et cingulis praecisis), and enter into a new marriage without any opposition.

The polemicist finds among the Greeks a lack of attention to public sanctuaries. In this regard, the polemicist notes: "In their homes the Greeks have chapels decorated with images of saints and lamps and candles; are honored by smoking; and on the contrary, they care little about the fact that the churches built by their ancestors are falling into decay and almost desolation." He reproaches women for addiction to false hair and rubbing. [64]

Thus we see that the Latins made very many accusations against the Greeks in the religious sense, but the Greeks did the same against the Latins in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Latin errors in the time from Photius to Cerularius, the number of points of these errors varied between 10 and 22. Cerularius, together with the Greek polemicist Nicetas Stiphates, significantly increased the number of accusations against the Latins. At the beginning of the twelfth century, Nicetas Seid already knew 32 points of apostasy of the Latins; in the thirteenth century, the number of errors of the same Latins more than doubled. And in the fourteenth century the Greeks were already talking about innumerable Latin heresies. [65] Let us review the most important accusations made by the Greek Church against the Latin. In doing so, we will mainly deal with those aspects of the case that are something new in comparison with the Greek polemics of the twelfth century. As for the Latin doctrine, the Greeks do not make any new accusations in this case, except that from the thirteenth century onwards they begin to mention the peculiarities of Western teaching concerning the condition of the dead before the general resurrection and regarding purgatory. But on the other hand, the Greeks see many errors in the Latin Church in the liturgical respect. Thus, in the thirteenth century, they primarily reproached the Latins for many deviations from the norm in the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist.

They said: 1) the Latins commune only on Good Friday and on their deathbeds, and moreover only with ordinary, and not consecrated unleavened bread, defending themselves in such a practice by the fact that it is not known who is worthy of the Eucharistic gift; 2) the communicant rinses his mouth with water, then spits it out on the floor, tramples it under his feet, and thus dishonors the most holy; 3) even earlier they accused the Latins of placing a lamb on the altar on the feast of Pascha (?), but now they added to this that after the slaughter this lamb was eaten, the remains were burned, and the ashes were kept for a year (obviously, this custom was some kind of addition to the most solemn, Paschal Liturgy, perhaps in remembrance of the Last Supper of the Gospel); 4) Communion under one form was denounced. It should also be noted that some of the Greeks began to look very strictly at the celebration of the Eucharist by the Latins on unleavened bread, to such an extent that the twelfth-century Greek writer Nicholas, Bishop of Meton, compares the Greek Eucharist with the sacrifice of Abel, and the Latin Eucharist, celebrated on unleavened bread, with the sacrifice of Cain. [66] Concerning the sacrament of Baptism, the Greeks indicated the following deviations of the Latins: 1) that they baptize by a single immersion, and thus the three Persons of the Godhead are mixed into one; 2) that salt is put in the mouth of the baptized infant and smeared with saliva, and not anointed with oil, as prescribed by the Church; 3) that they baptize twice, because adults, when forgiving their sins, are anointed with oil (?); 4) In later times, the Latins were accused of baptizing not by immersion, but by sprinkling, and especially by pouring. As for the sacrament of Penance, the Latins were accused of having no spiritual fathers, since otherwise they would have to know who was worthy of the Eucharist (let us recall one of the accusations mentioned above), and also of the fact that when an excommunicated person received absolution, he was scourged on the naked body. The sacrament of the priesthood of the Latin Church was also the subject of attacks on the part of the Greeks, namely, that the latter declared that the Latins did not perform this sacrament at all times, but only four times a year, and that suddenly a large number of deacons and bishops were consecrated. It was also asserted that the pope, after being elected by the council, was ordained to his dignity through the laying on of hands of his deceased predecessor. Marriage in the Latin Church also gives the Greeks a lot of room for various kinds of accusations against Western Christians. In this regard, it was pointed out first of all that marriages in impermissible degrees of kinship were allowed, and then that the second and third marriages were quite permissible among them. The fasts of the Western Church gave rise to many reproaches against it; But there are few new reproaches. Let us note in particular that the Greeks sarcastically described the so-called day of ashes among the Latins, which opened the fast of the Forty Days. Eastern polemicists asserted that in the spring the Latins began to collect the bones of all kinds of unclean animals, then burned them, and mixed the ashes with water, which was sprinkled for the purpose of consecration. With this mixture, the Greeks said, the Latin clergy anointed the faithful at the beginning of the fast: they anointed the head, forehead and face, on the assumption that this gave strength to observe the fast. Other censure of the Latins by the Greeks concerns the way of life and behavior of the clergy. The Greeks pointed out the following strange custom, which allegedly existed in the Latin Church: the highest of the bishops, when they go to church to celebrate the liturgy, have naked boys with them, which they sprinkle, claiming that this rite gives them invulnerability and invincibility in war when they reach maturity. The Greeks then condemned the frequent transfer of bishops, simony, the immorality of the clergy, the disrespectful treatment of the Eucharist, which the clergy carried with them in their travel bags, and the variety of monastic orders. The everyday life of Latin Christians also did not remain without polemical remarks from the Greeks. They were accused of eating blood and strangled flesh, becoming "soul-eaters," of eating unclean food in general, of often swearing, that it was their custom to break oaths, that they did not read the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and church ordinances, that they eat with the dogs, let them lick the plates, and then eat from them again, that they wash themselves with urine and drink it. In general, the Greeks considered the Latins to be religiously no higher than the heretical Armenian Church. [67] Some of the Greeks considered the Latins to be so ingrained in error that they found it useless to carry on any discussions and debates with them on religious subjects; they were considered to have deviated too far from the way of views and opinions of Orthodox people.

The well-known Byzantine historian Nicephorus Gregoras tells about himself that when (in 1333) two Latin bishops came to Byzantium to discuss the faith, he made a speech in which he proved by all means that it was by no means necessary to enter into discussions with the arriving Latins.

therefore have no need to enter into completely useless discourse; that, finally, the Latins do not enter into a debate in order to take the right side, but in order to boast of their imaginary victory, although without any grounds, after the debate. [68]

Speaking so far about the conditions under which the religious enmity of the two Churches, Latin and Greek, developed and in what forms was expressed in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we should not, however, think that at that time all religious ties between the West and the East were really broken. Such a view should have some limitations. We wish to point out facts from the time we are studying, which testify to the fact that it happened that the most prominent representatives of both Churches forgot their mutual religious hostility, treating each other as members of a single, indivisible Church. To such facts we include the frequent marriages of the Latins with the Greeks, and vice versa, and religious differences do not prevent the conclusion of marriage ties. Thus, in the twelfth century, the first and second wives of Emperor Manuel Comnenus were Latins. The niece of this emperor, Maria Comnena, was married to Frederick Barbarossa, and then to the Hungarian prince Stephen. The son of the same Manuel, Alexius II Comnenus, was married to the French princess Agnes. [69] Numerous examples of such marriages can be found later. The same limitation of the idea of a complete rupture between the Greek and Latin churches is also led by the fact that at that time there were still cases of liturgical communion between the Greeks and the Latins. This is evident during the visit to Constantinople in the middle of the twelfth century by the French king Louis VII, Conrad III and other Western princes. During the reign of the Emperor John Comnenus, Abbot Peter of Cluniac appealed to the Emperor and the Patriarch of Byzantium with a request to restore the monastery in Constantinople belonging to the Cluniac Congregation, and this implied a more or less friendly disposition between the Churches. Further, it should be mentioned that the emperor Manuel, in a letter to Conrad III, calls the Latins and Greeks: όμονρήσκους, i.e., coreligionists. The Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, who lived in Constantinople in business of trade during the time of this emperor, were given an honorable place at divine services in the famous St. Sophia Church. Many Latins lived at the court of the emperor Manuel, and no renunciation of error was required of them. Two Italians, Hugon Etherian and his brother Leo, were of great importance to Manuel. [70] Such was the practice, but in theory some Greek writers and theologians of those times looked condescendingly at the Latin Church with its theological and ritual features, and vice versa — some Latin writers looked at the Greek Church with the same eyes. Both of these writers rejected the idea that the division of the Churches is a decisive and irrevocable matter. On the Latin side, the views of Peter of Cluniac and Bernard of Clairvaux deserve attention in this respect. The first wrote to the Byzantine Patriarch John of Chalcedonia in the twelfth century: "Although we are separated from you spatially and by the difference of languages, we are nevertheless inseparably united by the unity of faith and love. I wish to conclude an indissoluble alliance of friendship with you, if you will not be ashamed of it." [71] The Western saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote to Pope Eugene III in the same twelfth century: "The obstinate Greeks, we are united in faith and not with them, united in faith, divided in love, although they are also mistaken in some things." — The tone is generally soft. [72] Let us cite the testimonies of the Greeks in the same way. The Greek philosopher Theorian, to whom the emperor Manuel entrusted so many missions in religious matters, and who occasionally entered into disputes with the Latins, exhorted the monks to look upon the Latins as brothers, and Orthodox Christians at that; He considered most of the points of disagreement to concern only disciplinary issues and had nothing to do with doctrine. [73] Bishop John of Kytra in Macedonia (end of the twelfth century), when asked whether it was possible to be present at the Latin divine services, replied that the dissensions between the Churches concerned only two points – the filioque and unleavened bread, that the reading of the Holy Scriptures was not the same. Scriptures, prayers, hymns, churches, veneration of the precious Cross and the Holy Trinity. icons — all this among the Latins does not differ from what we have. Latin worship (meaning funerary) is not pagan (φαλμωδία όυκ έστιν έύνική), but in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. Scripture. [74] Not without Christian sympathy, Demetrius Chomatin, Archbishop of Bulgaria (thirteenth century), also treats the Latins, who were asked whether the Eucharist, celebrated by the Latins on unleavened bread, should be considered holy or not, and also whether the church vessels and vestments of the Latins should be considered sacred. In answer to the question, Demetrius does not approve of the Latin custom of celebrating the Eucharist on unleavened bread, but finds that many of the Greeks show exaggerated zeal in the struggle against this custom. At the same time, he points out that some of the Greeks look more leniently at the Latin custom of celebrating the Eucharist, and only on the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. They do not make concessions and do not agree with the Latins. Demetrius further draws the following conclusion: neither the Eucharist of the Latins, nor their ecclesiastical vessels and utensils can be considered unclean.

Italy, notes Demetrius, is full of churches, the most significant of which is the church of St. Paul. Peter in Rome. This church includes both our clergy and our laity, praying here, and they do not suffer any harm from being in Latin churches. [75] Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, also speaks of the Latins in a spirit of tolerance, and it should be noted that he lived in the fifteenth century, when the discord between the Greek and Latin churches had gone very far. [76] With what condescension the representatives of the Greek Church treated the Latin Church even at the time under study, and with what benevolence the representatives of the Latin Church treated the Eastern Church, this can be clearly judged from the tolerant views expressed in literature, both Greek and Latin, on one of the most controversial questions between the two Churches – we speak of unleavened bread. Among the Greek writers of this epoch we find not only those who did not think of judging the Latins harshly for the use of unleavened bread among them, but even those who were not averse to admitting that it was most likely that Christ celebrated the Eucharist on unleavened bread, but did not see the need to hold on to unleavened bread in the further life of the Church. Such writers include, first of all, Theophylact of Bulgaria (who died at the beginning of the twelfth century). Here is how Theophylact wrote on this issue: "The use of unleavened bread (among the Latins) causes great rivalry in many, and as they say, it is hotter than fire, so that some are ready to give up their spirit rather than abandon their protest." He finds that such excessive jealousy cannot be praised, and considers it his duty to explain how unimportant it is in fact that which the jealous consider especially important. He expresses his fear that the controversy over unleavened bread would stir up more and more enmity towards the Latins. Moreover, he recognized that since the Supper of Christ took place at the same time as the Old Testament Passover, Christ used unleavened bread at the Supper. "I believe," he says, "that first the Lord tasted the lawful Passover, and then handed down to His disciples also the sacrament of His Passover, having celebrated it, evidently, from the bread that was then and then was unleavened." [77] Another prominent representative of the Greek Church of the twelfth century, Nicetas, Archbishop of Nicomedia, disputing with a Western bishop about unleavened bread, expresses the following humane view on the question: proposing as the best means of resolving the question the assembly of an Ecumenical Council (of Eastern and Western bishops), Nicetas wants this council to decree either that everyone should accept the rite of eating leavened bread, or that that all should eat unleavened bread, or, if there is no general agreement, at least agree that neither the Greeks should recklessly condemn the Latins, nor the Latins should condemn the Greeks on account of leavened bread. In general, he calls both the Greeks and the Latins to peace and mutual love. Nicetas, for example, said: "It is necessary that all should flock to the riches of love, for both love in the holy offering (the Eucharist) and the holy offering in true love cover a multitude of sins, and just as the saving sacrifice does not bring salvation without love, so perfect love is not offended by the different offerings of the same sacrifice." [78] A similar view, moderate and meek, of the difference in the use of bread for the Eucharist was sometimes found at the same time among Western theologians.

The famous Anselm of Canterbury (in the twelfth century) wrote about leavened bread as follows: "Regarding the sacrifice, in which the Greeks so disagree with us, for many reasons it can be seen that they perform it not contrary to the Christian faith, since the sacrifice is equally offered by the one who blesses leavened bread and the one who blesses unleavened bread. When it is told about the Lord how He made His Body out of bread, having accepted the bread and blessed it, it is not explained whether it was unleavened bread or leavened." Anselm desires one thing on the part of the Greeks, that they should not condemn those who celebrate the Eucharist on unleavened bread. [79]

Unfortunately, these few voices, in the East and in the West, calling for mutual peace and love of the members of the Greek and Latin Churches, were not strong enough to drown out the voices of a different mindset, and the separation between the Churches could not be replaced by harmony and brotherhood.