The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology

1964–5
Meeting between Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople and Pope Paul VI of Rome; formal lifting of anathemas of 1054.

1652
Liturgical reforms of
Patriarch Nikon of Moscow: ‘Old Believer’ schism

1596
Union of Brest: creation of uniate church in Ukraine; establishment of lay ‘brotherhoods’ in Kiev to defend Orthodoxy

1438–9
Council of Florence–Ferrara: official end of
schism between Rome and Eastern Churches (but overturned in 1484)

1274
Council of Lyons: failed attempt at reunion between Constantinople and Rome

1054
‘Great Schism’: anathemas exchanged between Rome and Constantinople

630s
Rise of
Islam; Muslim conquests of Damascus (635),
Jerusalem (638),

350
Church of
Georgia founded

the Orthodox understanding of what theology is: not an academic discipline or a set of philosophical propositions, but an expression of the Christian life of prayer, both corporate and personal, from which it can never be separated.