The bonds so often and so painfully knit between the Eastern and Western churches were destined at last to be completely torn asunder, and the truth of our Lord's words, "Who is not for Me, is against Me," was again to be proved. The Greek schism places strikingly before our eyes the fate of such churches as supinely yield their rights and independence, and submit willingly to State tyranny. In the year 857 the wicked Bardas, uncle to the reigning Emperor, who wielded an almost absolute power and disregarded all laws, human and divine, unjustly banished from his See, Ignatius, the rightful patriarch of Constantinople, and placed in his stead the learned, but worthless, Photius. Such bishops as refused to recognize the intruder (who had received all the orders in six days from an excommunicated bishop) were deposed, imprisoned and exiled. Photius tried, by cruel ill-treatment, to force the aged Ignatius to abdicate, and by a well-contrived fabrication endeavored to obtain the support of Pope Nicholas I. When, however, this great Pope learned the true facts of the case from the imprisoned Ignatius, he assembled a synod in Rome in 864, by which Photius and all the bishops whom he had consecrated were deposed. Fired by ambition, Photius now threw off all concealments. He summoned the bishops of his own party, laid various charges against the Roman Church, and in his inconsiderate rage ended by anathematising the holy Father. Pope Nicholas, in a most powerful letter, exhorted the Emperor Michael III to set bounds to the disorders of Photius, warning him that a fearful judgment would await him if the faithful were misled and so many believers caused to swerve from the right path. It was not, however, till the reign of his successor that Photius was banished and the much-tried St. Ignatius restored to his rights.