Western culture did not grow out of nothing. It grew out of post Schismatic Roman Catholicism, its rejection by the Protestants, followed by the Enlightenment. Which in turn was founded on the synthesis of Old Testament Judaism, Greek philosophy and Roman law.
Jan. 27, 2021 Orthodox iconographer Jonathan Pageau talks to Fr. John Strickland about the history of the West in view of the East.
UPDATE: Our own quest is rooted in the question what went wrong in Western culture that it could bring about the insanity and destruction of Postmodernism (pomo)? Pageau and Strickland both feel there is something momentous in Charlemagne, who basically highjacked the early Roman Catholic Church to enable him to establish the Holy Roman Empire with himself at the head as Emperor. In fact there was nothing holy or even Roman about this Germanic Frankish Empire.