GetReligion, which tracks the coverage of religion in the media,
reports on a case in which reporter Ann Rodgers had to explain
the 1054 split in one sentence. Here is how Rodgers does it:
Orthodoxy developed in Eastern Europe and Asia when Christianity
split into Orthodoxy and Catholicism in 1054, primarily due to
conflict over papal authority. Personally, I don’t think this is
too bad. She doesn’t say that either Orthodoxy or Catholicism
“started” in 1054, just that Orthodoxy “developed” after the
split. The phrase “Christianity split into Orthodoxy and
Catholicism” is problematic, but can be interpreted in a
favorable light if one sees those terms as simply representing
“Eastern” and “Western” Christianity. Here is how Rodgers
explains her sentence: It was something worked out on the fly
when an editor asked for a very, very short explanation of
Orthodox history. What I was trying to do was avoid saying that
Orthodoxy split from Catholicism or vice versa. If you’re going
to say that Orthodoxy dates to the