ONE of the books I bought this year was 'The Orthodox Study Bible,' prepared by the Academic Community of St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology and published by Thomas Nelson. Among its notes, there is a reference to the separation of the Orthodox and the Catholic communities — blamed, quite expectedly, on the Bishop of Rome's claims to supremacy over the patriarchs who presided over sees or jurisdictions that claimed to be as 'original' as Rome and could trace their authority to one or the other apostle.

There are, to be sure, doctrinal issues. But even as a seminary student of Church history, expertly taught by a professor I deeply revere, Fr. Frederick Scharpf, SVD, who was really an exegete but was a well-read professor of Church history as well, it became clear to me that what cut more deeply than doctrinal differences were the egos and the tempers of the key players — to which one must add the finagling and importuning of politicians who in the past — and well into the present — always sought to enlist the Church in their squabbles.