the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult. Religious and cultural influence After the East–West Schism in 1054, significant parts of Eastern Europe developed cultural unity and resistance to the Catholic (and later also Protestant) Western Europe within the framework of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet. Western Europe according to this point of view is formed by countries with dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant churches (including Central European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). A large part of Eastern Europe is formed by countries with dominant Orthodox churches, like Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine, for instance. The Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic from the 11th century, as well as from the 16th century also Protestant) churches. This division dominated Europe for centuries, in opposition to the rather short-lived Cold War division of four decades. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic (and later additionally Protestant) churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (often incorrectly labelled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe", for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more influenced by Mediterranean cultures and contact. Cold War (1947–1991) The fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the Cold War east–west division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media. Another definition was used during the 40 years of Cold War between 1947 and 1989, and was more or less synonymous with the terms Eastern Bloc and Warsaw Pact. A similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegated. EuroVoc EuroVoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the