4814 AM · 1054 CE · world history
The Great Schism
Christianity splits for good into the Catholic West and the Orthodox East.
The disagreements had accumulated for centuries: language, rite, the primacy of the bishop of Rome, the filioque clause. In 1054 papal legates lay a bull of excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia, and the patriarch replies in kind. A quarrel between two prelates hardened into a split between two civilisations.