In the early church, “schism” was used to describe those groups that broke with the church and

established
rival churches. The term originally referred to those divisions that were caused by disagreement over
something other than basic doctrine.
Opinions concerning the nature and consequences of schism vary with the different conceptions of the
nature of the church. According to Roman Catholic canon law, a schismatic is a baptized person who,
though continuing to call himself a Christian, refuses submission to the pope or fellowship with members of
the church. Other churches have similarly defined schism juridically in terms of separation from their own
communion.

Example of Schism:
1. Sunni and Shiite
Though the two main sects within Islam, Sunni and Shia, agree on most of the fundamental beliefs
and practices of Islam, a bitter split between the two goes back some 14 centuries. The divide
originated with a dispute over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as leader of the Islamic
faith he introduced.
Today, about 85 percent of the approximately 1.6 billion Muslims around the world are Sunni, while
15 percent are Shia, according to an estimate by the Council on Foreign Relations . While Shia
represent the majority of the population in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan, and a plurality in
Lebanon, Sunnis are the majority in more than 40 other co untries, from Morocco to Indonesia.
Despite their differences, Sunni and Shia have lived alongside each other in relative peace for
most of history. But starting in the late 20th century, the schism deepened, exploding into violence
in many parts of the Middle East as extreme brands of Sunni and Shia Islam battle for both religous
and political supremacy.
The Aftermath of Muhammad’s Death

The roots of the Sunni-Shia divide can be traced all the way back to the seventh century, soon
after the death of the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 632. While most of Muhammad’s followers
thought that the other elite members of the Islamic community should choose his successor, a
smaller group believed only someone from Muhammad’s family—namely his cousin and son-in-
law, Ali—should succeed him. This group became known as the followers of Ali; in Arabic the Shiat
Ali, or simply Shia.

“The essence of the problem is that Muhammad died without a mal e heir, and he never clearly
stated who he would want to be his successor,” says Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet:
The Epic Story of the Sunni-Shia Split in Islam. “This was important, because by the time he died,
he had basically brought all the tribes of Arabia together into a kind of confederation that became
the ummah—the people or nation of Islam.”

Eventually the Sunni majority (named for sunna, or tradition) won out, and chose Muhammad’s
close friend Abu Bakr to become the first caliph, or leader, of the Islamic community. Ali eventually
became the fourth caliph (or Imam, as Shiites call their leaders), but only after the two that
preceded him had both been assassinated.

Ali, himself, was killed in 661, as the bitter power struggle between Sunni and Shia continued. At
stake was not only control of Muhammad’s religious and p olitical legacy, but also a great deal of
money, in the form of taxes and tributes paid by the various tribes united under the banner of
Islam. This combination of money and power would only grow. Within the century after
Muhammad’s death, his followers had built an empire that stretched from Central Asia to Spain.

The Sunni-Shia Divide Into the 21st Century

In addition to Karbala, the NPR podcast Throughline identified three key milestones that would sharpen
Sunni-Shia divisions by the end of the 20th century. First came the rise of the Safavid dynasty in the 16th
century, which transformed Iran (through force) from a Sunni center into the Shia stronghold of the Middle
East. In the early 20th century, the victorious Allies divided the territory held by the former Ottoman Empire
after World War I, cutting through centuries-old religious and ethnic communities in the process. Finally, in
1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran produced a radical brand of Shia Islam that would clash violently with
Sunni conservatives in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the decades to follow.

Amid the increasing politicization of Islam and the rise of fundamentalists on both sides of the divide,
sectarian tensions intensified in the early 21st century, especially amid the upheavals caused by two
Persian Gulf Wars, the chaos that followed the U.S.-backed ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in
Iraq, and the mass uprisings across the region that began with the Arab Spring in 2011.

Sunni-Shia divisions would fuel a long-running civil war in Syria, fighting in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and
elsewhere, and terrorist violence on both sides. A common thread in most of these conflicts is the ongoing
battle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran for influence in the oil-rich Middle East and surrounding
regions.

Despite the long-running nature of the Sunni-Shia divide, the fact that the two sects coexisted in relative
peace for many centuries suggests their struggles may have less to do with religion than with wealth and
power.

“Neither of them are representative of the vast majority of Sunni Muslims or the vast majority of Shia
Muslims around the world,” says Hazleton of the fundamentalist regimes governing both Saudi Arabia and
Iran.

“When society breaks down, you fall back on old forms of identity, and Shia and Sunni are 1,400-year-old
forms of identity.”

2. East-West Schism
East-West Schism, also called Schism of 1054, event that precipitated the final separation between
the Eastern Christian churches (led by the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius) and
the Western church (led by Pope Leo IX). The mutual excommunications by the pope and the patriarch in
1054 became a watershed in church history. The excommunications were not lifted until 1965, when
Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I, following their historic meeting in Jerusalem in 1964, presided
over simultaneous ceremonies that revoked the excommunication decrees.
The relation of the Byzantine church to the Roman may be described as one of growing estrangement from
the 5th to the 11th century. In the early church three bishops stood forth prominently, principally from the
political eminence of the cities in which they ruled—the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. The
transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople and the later eclipse of Alexandria and Antioch
as battlegrounds of Islam and Christianity promoted the importance of Constantinople. Concurrently, the
theological calmness of the West, in contrast to the often violent theological disputes that troubled the
Eastern patriarchates, strengthened the position of the Roman popes, who made increasing claims to
preeminence. But this preeminence, or rather the Roman idea of what was involved in it, was never
acknowledged in the East. To press it upon the Eastern patriarchs was to prepare the way for separation;
to insist upon it in times of irritation was to cause a schism.
The theological genius of the East was different from that of the West. The Eastern theology had its roots
in Greek philosophy, whereas a great deal of Western theology was based on Roman law. This gave rise
to misunderstandings and at last led to two widely separate ways of regarding and defining one important
doctrine—the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father or from the Father and the Son. The Roman
churches, without consulting the East, added “and from the Son” to the Nicene Creed. Also, the Eastern
churches resented the Roman enforcement of clerical celibacy, the limitation of the right of confirmation to
the bishop, and the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
Political jealousies and interests intensified the disputes, and, at last, after many premonitory symptoms,
the final break came in 1054, when Pope Leo IX struck at Michael Cerularius and his followers with an
excommunication and the patriarch retaliated with a similar excommunication. There had been mutual
excommunications before, but they had not resulted in permanent schisms. At the time there seemed
possibilities of reconciliation, but the rift grew wider; in particular, the Greeks were bitterly antagonized by
such events as the Latin capture of Constantinople in 1204. Western pleas for reunion (on Western terms),
such as those at the Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1439), were rejected by
the Byzantines.
The schism has never healed, though relations between the churches improved following the Second
Vatican Council (1962–65), which recognized the validity of the sacraments in the Eastern churches. In
1979 the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and
the Orthodox Church was established by the Holy See and 14 autocephalous churches to further
foster ecumenism. Dialogue and improved relations continued into the early 21st century.

3. The Protestant Reformation

Reformation, also called Protestant Reformation, the religious revolution that took place in the Western
church in the 16th century. Its greatest leaders undoubtedly were Martin Luther and John Calvin. Having
far-reaching political, economic, and social effects, the Reformation became the basis for the founding
of Protestantism, one of the three major branches of Christianity.
The world of the late medieval Roman Catholic Church from which the 16th-century reformers emerged
was a complex one. Over the centuries the church, particularly in the office of the papacy, had become
deeply involved in the political life of Western Europe. The resulting intrigues and political manipulations,
combined with the church’s increasing power and wealth, contributed to the bankrupting of the church as a
spiritual force. Abuses such as the sale of indulgences (or spiritual privileges) by the clergy and other
charges of corruption undermined the church’s spiritual authority. These instances must be seen as
exceptions, however, no matter how much they were played up by polemicists. For most people, the church
continued to offer spiritual comfort. There is some evidence of anticlericalism, but the church at large
enjoyed loyalty as it had before. One development is clear: the political authorities increasingly sought to
curtail the public role of the church and thereby triggered tension.

The Reformation of the 16th century was not unprecedented. Reformers within the medieval church such
as St. Francis of Assisi, Valdes (founder of the Waldensians), Jan Hus, and John Wycliffe addressed
aspects in the life of the church in the centuries before 1517. In the 16th century Erasmus of Rotterdam, a
great humanist scholar, was the chief proponent of liberal Catholic reform that attacked popular
superstitions in the church and urged the imitation of Christ as the supreme moral teacher. These figures
reveal an ongoing concern for renewal within the church in the years before Luther is said to have posted
his Ninety-five Theses on the door of the Castle Church, Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, the
eve of All Saints’ Day—the traditional date for the beginning of the Reformation.
Martin Luther claimed that what distinguished him from previous reformers was that while they
attacked corruption in the life of the church, he went to the theological root of the problem—the perversion
of the church’s doctrine of redemption and grace. Luther, a pastor and professor at the University of
Wittenberg, deplored the entanglement of God’s free gift of grace in a complex system of indulgences and
good works. In his Ninety-five Theses, he attacked the indulgence system, insisting that the pope had no
authority over purgatory and that the doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel.
Here lay the key to Luther’s concerns for the ethical and theological reform of the church: Scripture alone
is authoritative (sola scriptura) and justification is by faith (sola fide), not by works. While he did not intend
to break with the Catholic church, a confrontation with the papacy was not long in coming. In 1521 Luther
was excommunicated; what began as an internal reform movement had become a fracture in western
Christendom.
The Reformation movement within Germany diversified almost immediately, and other reform impulses
arose independently of Luther. Huldrych Zwingli built a Christian theocracy in Zürich in which church and
state joined for the service of God. Zwingli agreed with Luther in the centrality of the doctrine of justification
by faith, but he espoused a different understanding of the Holy Communion. Luther had rejected the
Catholic church’s doctrine of transubstantiation, according to which the bread and wine in Holy Communion
became the actual body and blood of Christ. According to Luther’s notion, the body of Christ was physically
present in the elements because Christ is present everywhere, while Zwingli claimed that entailed a spiritual
presence of Christ and a declaration of faith by the recipients.
Another group of reformers, often though not altogether correctly referred to as “radical reformers,” insisted
that baptism be performed not on infants but on adults who had professed their faith in Jesus.
Called Anabaptists, they remained a marginal phenomenon in the 16th century but survived—despite fierce
persecution—as Mennonites and Hutterites into the 21st century. Opponents of the ancient
Trinitarian dogma made their appearance as well. Known as Socinians, after the name of their founder,
they established flourishing congregations, especially in Poland.
Another important form of Protestantism (as those protesting against their suppressions were designated
by the Diet of Speyer in 1529) is Calvinism, named for John Calvin, a French lawyer who fled France after
his conversion to the Protestant cause. In Basel, Switzerland, Calvin brought out the first edition of
his Institutes of the Christian Religion in 1536, the first systematic, theological treatise of the new reform
movement. Calvin agreed with Luther’s teaching on justification by faith. However, he found a more positive
place for law within the Christian community than did Luther. In Geneva, Calvin was able to experiment
with his ideal of a disciplined community of the elect. Calvin also stressed the doctrine of predestination and
interpreted Holy Communion as a spiritual partaking of the body and blood of Christ. Calvin’s tradition
merged eventually with Zwingli’s into the Reformed tradition, which was given theological expression by
the (second) Helvetic Confession of 1561.

The Reformation spread to other European countries over the course of the 16th century. By mid-
century, Lutheranism dominated northern Europe. Eastern Europe offered a seedbed for even more radical
varieties of Protestantism, because kings were weak, nobles strong, and cities few, and because
religious pluralism had long existed. Spain and Italy were to be the great centres of the Catholic Counter-
Reformation, and Protestantism never gained a strong foothold there.

In England the Reformation’s roots were both political and religious. Henry VIII, incensed by Pope Clement
VII’s refusal to grant him an annulment of his marriage, repudiated papal authority and in 1534 established
the Anglican Church with the king as the supreme head. In spite of its political implications, the
reorganization of the church permitted the beginning of religious change in England, which included the
preparation of a liturgy in English, the Book of Common Prayer. In Scotland, John Knox, who spent time in
Geneva and was greatly influenced by John Calvin, led the establishment of Presbyterianism, which made
possible the eventual union of Scotland with England.