the fifth century. From Spain it spread into France, was accepted by Charlemagne and the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in a.d. 809, and finally, approved at Rome, became an obligatory article of belief throughout the West. The Greek Church obstinately adhered to the old faith and letter of the creed. It absolutely rejected the Double Procession, and both parties appealed to the records of œcumenical councils. The interpolation of the words "filio-que," in the creed established by the Council of Constantinople in a.d. 381, was detected. Nevertheless the Latin Church maintained the dogma, while the Greek persisted in denying it.
The seventh general council, convened at Nicæa in a.d. 787, is, in the estimation of the Eastern Church, the last œcumenical council. It completed, by its decrees, the entire body of doctrine of the Universal Church of Christ. By it unity was apparently restored, and in outward appearance the ecclesiastical fabric was then one and indivisible. The innumerable shades and differences of opinion within it were indiscriminately distributed through the whole mass. Sects and denominations abounded, with mutual denunciations and revilings; but no schism, properly so called, arrayed any great geographical division of the world in open religious hostility to the others.
In the middle of the ninth century the emperor, Michael III., deposed the patriarch Ignatius for daring to rebuke the licentiousness of the court, and named Photius in his stead. The new prelate was a man of unimpeachable character, commanding genius, and vast ambition. He excelled in theological erudition, but, as he was a layman, his appointment was irregular. Ignatius appealed to Nicholas I., Pope of Rome, who was glad of the opportunity to assert his right of interference. He anathematized Photius, and endeavored to reinstate
