Christianity in the 15th century
The
Eastern Orthodoxy
Reunion attempts
The eastern Emperor
Fall of Constantinople
In 1453, the
Eastern Christians expressed a belief that the fall of Constantinople was God's punishment for the emperor and clergy accepting the West's doctrines of
Under Ottoman rule, the Orthodox Church acquired power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the entire Rum Millet (Ottoman administrative unit), which encompassed all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the empire. Those appointed to the role were chosen by the Muslims rulers not the Church.
As a result of the Ottoman conquest, the entire Orthodox communion of the Balkans and the Near East became suddenly isolated from the West. For the next four hundred years, it was confined within the Islamic world, with which it had little in common religiously or culturally. The Orthodox Churches from East Slavic states, Wallachia and Moldavia were the only part of the Orthodox communion that remained outside the control of the Ottoman Empire.
Isolation from the West
As a result of the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, and the
Religious rights under the Ottoman Empire
Islam recognized Jesus as a great prophet and considered Christians as another People of the Book. But it imposed severe penalties including frequent deaths for non Muslims. As such, the Church was not extinguished nor was its canonical and hierarchical organization completely destroyed. Its administration continued to function though in lesser degree, no longer being the state religion. One of the first things that Mehmet the Conqueror did was to allow the Church to elect a new patriarch, Gennadius Scholarius. The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium, were converted into mosques, yet most other churches, both in Constantinople and elsewhere, remained in Christian hands. Because Islamic law makes no distinction between nationality and religion, all Christians, regardless of their language or nationality, were considered a single millet, or nation. The patriarch, as the highest ranking hierarch, was thus invested with civil and religious authority and made ethnarch, head of the entire Christian Orthodox population. Practically, this meant that all Orthodox Churches within Ottoman territory were under the control of Constantinople. Thus, the authority and jurisdictional frontiers of the patriarch were enormously enlarged.
However, these
Devastating, too, for the Church was the fact that it could not bear witness to Christ. Missionary work among Muslims was dangerous and indeed impossible, whereas conversion to Islam was entirely legal and permissible. Converts to Islam who returned to Orthodoxy were put to death as apostates. No new churches could be built, and even the ringing of church bells was prohibited. Education of the clergy and the Christian population either ceased altogether or was reduced to the most rudimentary elements.Corruption
The Orthodox Church found itself subject to the Turkish system of corruption. The patriarchal throne was frequently sold to the highest bidder, while new patriarchal investiture was accompanied by heavy payment to the government. In order to recoup their losses, patriarchs and bishops taxed the local parishes and their clergy. The patriarchal throne was never secure. Few patriarchs between the 15th and the 19th centuries died a natural death while in office. The forced abdications, exiles, hangings, drownings, and poisonings of patriarchs are well documented. But if the patriarch's position was precarious so was the hierarchy's.
Devshirmeh
Antioch
The Church of Antioch was moved to Damascus in response to the Ottoman invasion of Antioch. Its traditional territory includes Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Turkey. The remainder of the Church of Antioch, primarily local Greeks or Hellenized sections of the indigenous population, remained in communion with Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.
Serbia
In the second half of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire gradually conquered all Serbian lands. Finally, the Serbian capital of
Western Christianity
Western Schism
In 1409, a council was convened at
Italian Renaissance (1399–1599)
The Italian Renaissance was a period of great cultural change and achievement, marked in Italy by a classical orientation and an increase of wealth through mercantile trade. The city of Rome, the Papacy, and the Papal States were all affected by the Renaissance. On the one hand, it was a time of great artistic patronage and architectural magnificence, where the Church supported such artists as Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Donatello, and Leonardo da Vinci. On the other hand, wealthy Italian families often secured episcopal offices, including the papacy, for their own members, some of whom were known for immorality, such as Alexander VI and Sixtus IV.
Scholasticism and Movements
Scholastic theology continued to develop as the 13th century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments. The 14th century saw in particular the rise to dominance of the
Notable authors
- Jan Hus (c.1369–1415)
- Pierre d'Ailly (1351–1420)
- Jean Gerson (1363–1429)
- Nicholas of Clemanges(1360–1440)
- Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464)
- Thomas a Kempis(1380–1471)
- Denis the Carthusian (1402–1471)
- Rudolf Agricola(1444–1485)
- Wessel Gansfort (1419–1489)
- Gabriel Biel (1425–1495)
- Johann Heynlin (1425–1496)
- Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498)
- Jan Standonck (1454–1504)
- Conrad Celtis(1459–1508)
- Johann Geiler(1445–1510)
- Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522)
- Johann von Staupitz (1460–1524)
- Jacob Wimpfeling(1450–1528)
- Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples(1455–1536)
Protestant Reformation roots and precursors
The Council of Constance confirmed strengthened the traditional medieval conception of Churches and Empires. It did not address the national tensions or the theological tensions which had been stirred up during the previous century. The council could not prevent
Historical upheaval usually yields much new thinking as to how society should be organized. This was the case leading up to the Protestant Reformation. Following the breakdown of monastic institutions and
The outcome of the
But as recovery and prosperity progressed, enabling the population to reach its former levels in the late 15th and 16th centuries, the combination of both a newly abundant labor supply as well as improved productivity, were 'mixed blessings' for many segments of Western European society. Despite tradition, landlords started the move to exclude peasants from "common lands". With trade stimulated, landowners increasingly moved away from the manorial economy. Woolen manufacturing greatly expanded in France, Germany, and the Netherlands and new textile industries began to develop.
The invention of movable type leads to the Protestant zeal for translating the Bible and getting it into the hands of the laity. This would advance the culture of Biblical literacy.
The "humanism" of the Renaissance period stimulated unprecedented academic ferment, and a concern for academic freedom. Ongoing, earnest theoretical debates occurred in the universities about the nature of the church, and the source and extent of the authority of the papacy, of councils, and of princes.[5] [6]
Spread of Christianity
Through the late 15th and early 16th centuries, European missionaries and explorers spread Catholicism to the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Pope Alexander VI, in the papal bull Inter caetera, awarded colonial rights over most of the newly discovered lands to Spain and Portugal.[7] Under the patronato system, state authorities controlled clerical appointments, and no direct contact was allowed with the Vatican.[8]
On December 1511, the Dominican friar
Timeline
- 1408 Council of Oxford forbids translations of the Scriptures into the vernacular unless and until they were fully approved by Church authority
- 1408 - Spanish Dominican Vincent Ferrer begins a ministry in Italy in which it is said that thousands of Jews and Muslims were won to faith in Christ [13]
- 1409 Pope Alexander V(called the Pisan Pope)
- 1410 - Bible is translated into Hungarian[14]
- 1414–1418 Catholic burned at the stake
- 1420 - Franciscan missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to Madeira [15]
- 1423–1424 Council of Siena
- 1425 Catholic University of Leuven
- 1430? Andrei Rublev, the greatest of medieval icon-painters
- 1431 - Franciscan missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to the Azores [15]
- 1431 St. burned at the stake
- 1431–1445 Catholic Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence
- 1435 - Forced conversion of Jews in Palma de Mallorca, Spain[16]
- 1439 Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, highest building in the world until 1874
- 1445 - First Christians reported in Guinea Bissau [14]
- 1448 - First Christians reported in Mauritania
- 1450 - Franscian missionaries accompany Portuguese expedition to the Cape Verde Islands [17]
- 1453 - Muslim Ottoman Turks who make it their capital. An Islamic service of thanksgiving is held in the church of Saint Sophia [18]
- 1453 Fall of Constantinople, overrun by Ottoman Empire
- 1455 - With the bull Romanus Pontifex the patronage of missions in new countries behind Cape Bojador is given to the Portuguese.
- 1455 Johann Gutenberg
- 1462 - Johannes Gutenberg begins printing the Bible with his movable-type printing process; Pope Pius II assigns the evangelization of the Portuguese Guinea Coast of Africa to the Franciscans led by Alfonso de Bolano [1]
- 1473–1481 Sistine Chapel built
- 1478 Spanish Inquisition established by Pope Sixtus IV
- 1484 December 5, Summis desiderantes against Witchcraft issued by Pope Innocent VIII
- 1485 - After having come into contact with the Portuguese, the King of Benin requests that a church be planted in his kingdom [2]
- 1486 - Senegambia.
- 1489 - Baptism of Wolof king Behemoi in Senegal[19]
- 1491 - The Congo sees its first group of missionaries arrive.[20] Under the ministry of these Franciscan and Dominican priests, the king would soon be baptized and a church built at the royal capital.
- 1492 - Birth of the church in Angola
- 1493 - Pope Alexander VI commands Spain to colonize the New World with Catholic missions; Christopher Columbus takes Christian priests with him on his second journey to the New World
- 1494 - First missionaries arrive in Dominican Republic
- 1495 - The head of a convent in Seville, Spain, Mercedarian Jorge, makes a trip to the West Indies.
- 1496 - First Christian baptisms in the New World take place when Guaticaba along with other members of his household are baptized on the island of Hispaniola[21]
- 1497 - Forced conversion of Jews in Portugal [22]
- 1498 - First Christians are reported in Kenya
- 1498 Bonfire of the Vanities
- 1499 - Portuguese mission will end in 1698 due to the Oman-Arab conquest.
- 1500 - Franciscans enter Brazil with Cabral[15]
See also
- History of Christianity
- History of the Roman Catholic Church
- History of the Eastern Orthodox Church
- History of Christian theology#Late Scholasticism and its contemporaries
- History of Oriental Orthodoxy
- Timeline of Christianity#Middle Ages
- Timeline of Christian missions#Middle Ages
- Timeline of the Roman Catholic Church#800–1453
- Chronological list of saints and blesseds in the 15th century
References
- ^ The Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies Archived 2007-06-07 at the Wayback Machine The New York Times.
- ^ http://www.helleniccomserve.com/pdf/BlkBkPontusPrinceton.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ISBN 9781405142915.
- ^ Lützow, František (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 7–9. . In
- ISBN 0-06-063315-8.
- ISBN 0-06-064952-6.
- ^ Koschorke, A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (2007), pp. 13, 283
- ^ Dussel, Enrique, A History of the Church in Latin America, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1981, pp. 39, 59
- ^ Woods, How the Church Built Western Civilization (2005), p. 135
- ^ Johansen, Bruce, The Native Peoples of North America, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2006, pp.109–110
- ^ Koschorke, A History of Christianity in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (2007), p. 287
- ^ Dussel, Enrique, A History of the Church in Latin America, Wm B Eerdmans Publishing, 1981, pp. 45, 52, 53
- ^ Latourette, 1953, p. 652-653
- ^ a b Barrett, p. 25
- ^ a b c Kane, p. 57
- ^ Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision, Yale University Press, 1999, p. 56
- ^ Kane, 57
- ^ Latourette, 1953, p. 613-614
- ^ De Graft-Johnson. African Glory: The Story of Vanished Negro Civilizations, Praeger, 1954, p. 132
- ^ Kane, 69
- ^ Pané, Ramón, An Account of the Antiquities of the Indians: Chronicles of the New World, edited by Jose Arrom and translated by Susan C. Griswold. Duke University Press, 1999 p. 32
- ^ Barrett, p. 26
Further reading
- Esler, Philip F. The Early Christian World. Routledge (2004). ISBN 0-415-33312-1.
- White, L. Michael. From Jesus to Christianity. HarperCollins (2004). ISBN 0-06-052655-6.
- Freedman, David Noel (Ed). Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (2000). ISBN 0-8028-2400-5.
- Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan. The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). University of Chicago Press (1975). ISBN 0-226-65371-4.