Eric Plumer writes that "(t)he divergence of the Eastern and Western churches, leading ultimately to the East-West Schism, was a process of many centuries, influenced by a host of political, cultural and theological factors. Similarly, Roger Haight asserts that, "The [East-West Schism] should not be understood to have occurred in the mutual excommunications [of 1054]" because those excommunications were "only one factor in a much longer and larger story involving cultural, political and theological factors." Because so many factors contributed to the ever-widening separation between East and West, it is difficult to point to a specific date when it began or even identify a single primary cause of the schism. While most sources agree that the separation between East and West is clearly evid