herents. It was
answered by one at Constantinople, in A.D. 866, wherein Nicholas was
pronounced unworthy of his office and outside the pale of Christian
communion. Yet another council of Constantinople, A.D. 869, approved the
action of Basilius, the new emperor, who recalled Ignatius, and
imprisoned Photius. When Ignatius died, Photius was reinstated (A.D.
878), and he was acknowledged by the Roman pontiff, John VIII., at
another council of Constantinople, A.D. 879, on the understanding that
the jurisdiction over Bulgaria, claimed both by Pope and Patriarch,
should be definitely yielded to Rome. This, however, was not done; and
the Pope sent a legate to Constantinople, recalling his declaration in
favour of Photius. The legate, Marinus, was cast into prison; and when
he was later raised to the pontificate, he remembered the outrage, and
anew excommunicated Photius. A.D. 886 saw the fall and imprisonment of
Photius, and union might have been maintained but for the extravagant
demands of the Roman pontiff, who required the degradation of all
priests and bishops ordained by Photius. The Greeks indignantly refused,
and at last the great schism took place, which severed from each other
entirely the Eastern and the Western Churches.

The ancient heresy of the Paulicians had not yet died out, spite of
having suffered much persecution at Catholic hands, and under the
Emperors Michael and Leo, a fierce attack upon these unfortunate beings
took place. They were hunted down and executed without mercy, and at
last they turned upon their persecutors, and revenged themselves by
murdering the bishop, magistrates, and judges in Armenia, after which
they fled to the countries under Saracen rule. After a while, they
gradually returned to the Greek empire; but when the Empress Theodora
was regent, during her son's minority, she issued a stern decree against
them. "The decree was severe, but the cruelty with which it was put in
execution, by those who were sent into Armenia for that purpose, was
horrible beyond expression; for these ministers of wrath, after
confiscating the goods of above a hundred thousand of that miserable
people, put their possessors to death in the most barbarous manner, and
made them expire slowly in a variety of the most exquisite tortures" (p.
212).

In addition to the heresies inherited from the previous centuries, three
new ones, important in their issues, arose to divide yet more the
divided indivisible Church