Objection & response

Does stopping commemoration create schism?

Whether ceasing to commemorate one’s bishop before a synod has ruled is, by definition, schism.

The objection, at its strongest

To cease commemorating your own bishop before any synod has judged him is to tear the Church’s unity, which is the very definition of schism.

Why it is raised

Communion with the bishop is the sign of ecclesial unity (St Ignatius), and private withdrawal risks anarchy; the Church has always condemned schismatics.

Evidence for the objection

St Ignatius’ insistence on unity with the bishop as the mark of the Church.
Canons against those who set up “altar against altar” and separate from their bishop, including the first clauses of Canon 15 itself.
The real danger that private judgment multiplies unwarranted separations.

Evidence against it

Canon 15’s own second clause states that such persons “have not fragmented the Church’s unity by schism, but have been eager to deliver her from schism,” and are “worthy of honour.”
The same clause calls the errant hierarch a “pseudo bishop,” locating the rupture in him.
The confessors who did this, Maximus, Theodore, Mark of Ephesus, are canonized, not condemned as schismatics.

A limited conclusion

Disputed

By the canon’s own words, withdrawal in the specified case, a publicly preached, already condemned heresy, is not schism. Whether a given modern separation actually meets those conditions, and whether it stops at withdrawal rather than erecting a parallel hierarchy, is the real question; that is where schism can genuinely reenter.