A Schism is a formal breach between sects of the Catholic Church. The Great Schism of 1054, between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, was caused by the enduring differences of religious beliefs and political views between the eastern and the western churches, the challenge to the absolute authority of the pope to make decisions concerning all of the Christian people and Christian doctrine, and the different views concerning the Filioque.

In 284, Diocletian, a Roman emperor, split what remained of the Roman Empire in half. He felt that it was already split culturally by natural occurrences of time and distance. Diocletian split it bureaucratically, putting an Augustus and a Caesar to rule in both the eastern part of the empire (the "East") and the western part (the "West") of the empire. Maximaian, the Augustus, and Galerius, the Caesar, were put in Rome, the "capital" of the...