Religion Western Europe

religious division in 1054

the east–west schism, has lasted since 11th century, divided christianity in europe, , consequently world, western christianity , eastern christianity.

with simplifications, western europe catholic or protestant , uses latin alphabet. eastern europe orthodox , uses cyrillic script.

according definition, western europe formed countries dominant roman catholic , protestant churches, including countries considered part of central europe now: austria, belgium, croatia, czech republic, denmark, estonia, finland, france, germany, hungary, iceland, ireland, italy, latvia, liechtenstein, lithuania, luxembourg, malta, netherlands, norway, poland, portugal, slovakia, slovenia, spain, sweden, switzerland , united kingdom.

eastern europe, meanwhile formed countries dominant eastern orthodox churches, including greece, belarus, bulgaria, serbia, romania, russia, , ukraine instance.

the schism break of communion , theology between eastern (orthodox) , western (roman catholic 11th century, 16th century protestant) churches.

this division dominated europe centuries, in opposition rather short lived cold war division of 4 decades.

since great schism of 1054, europe has been divided between roman catholic , protestant churches in west, , eastern orthodox christian (many times incorrectly labeled greek orthodox ) churches in east. due religious cleavage, eastern orthodox countries associated eastern europe. cleavage of sort is, however, problematic; example, greece overwhelmingly orthodox, included in eastern europe , variety of reasons.