Orthodoxy. From Empire to Empire

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On July 16, 1054, a dramatic event occurred during the worship service in the Church of Hagia Sophia: a papal delegation delivered a document excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarch promptly excommunicated the Pope in return. Known as The Great Schism, the act divided Eastern from Western Catholic Christianity. Going on location to the most venerated sites in the Byzantine world, this program presents a history of Eastern Orthodoxy. The video focuses on the tenacity of the Church as it survived Muslim invasions, the destruction by Crusaders of its holy city, the crumbling of the Byzantine Empire, czarist exploitation, and being shut down by the Soviet regime. It also covers the conversion of the Slavs, the use of icons - banned in a desperate reversal of loyalties as Rome sided with Islam in condemning religious images - and the rise and fall and rise again of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church.