How does a 20th Century purge of canonized pagan deities refute the notion pagan deities had been canonized in the 8th-11th Centuries? It never happened, in 2000 years of church history, because (some) cases where it did were expunged <50 years ago?

So Irish St. Brigid and Celtic deity Brigid sharing the name, feast day and center of veneration (for the former) and worship (for the latter) is just coincidence?

It is mere happenstance St. George slew a marauding fantastic beast to which a North African princess was offered as sacrifice, just as Perseus with Andromeda?

Virginal St. Columba pursued by a suitor to a location where a spring arose at the site of her demise only superficially reflects the myth of Arethusa?

Those are only the strongest examples I found in the past day, leaving out things like purported connections between Kali and St. Sarah.


Then the TEA gets around, corrupting not only Wikipedias article on the Great Schism to state

but also its article on Pope Stephen II to claim

Apparently the TEA insidious falsehood even corrupted the Catholic Encyclopedia, or at least its online transcription, because its article on Iconoclasm begins,
Note the claim iconoclasm "prepared the way" for the Photian schism, despite ending before that schism began. The Photian schism was, of course, not the 1054 schism, but its disagreements are integral to the final formal schism. Again, the Great Schism developed over centuries of disagreement between Rome and Constantinople, only culminating in the final 1054 declaration. Iconoclasm was very much part of the preceding centuries of difference. Consider the third paragraph of the Catholic Encyclopedias article on iconoclasm:


That sure SOUNDS like the Great Schisms jurisdictional disputes. The imperial threat to march on Rome, destroy a prominent icon of Peter and imprison the Pope also sounds like "a serious matter for the West." Enough so that the Pope declared "all people in the West detest the emperor's action."

At the risk of excoriation for citing documented common knowledge, the Great Schism developed over centuries, not months, as Byzantine and Roman policy became so increasingly disparate reconciliation was impossible. Iconoclasm is widely cited AMONG factors leading to the Great Schism, though obviously not the only factor. It contributed to growing separation continuing even after the iconoclasm dispute was resolved (though I doubt Popes just forgave and forgot imperial threats to march on and imprison them for venerating icons, considering a Patriarch of Constantinople was publicly flogged and blinded for opposing iconoclasm.) The separation found its formal, final and permanent expression in the Great Schism but, although iconoclasm had long since ended by then, the documented record does not support claims iconoclasm was distinct from or trivial to the separation.