Council of Florence
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Council of Basel–Ferrara–Florence | |
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East-West Schism, Western Schism | |
Documents and statements | Several Papal bulls, short-lived compromise of reunion with the Eastern Orthodox Church, reunion with delegation from the Armenians |
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The Council of Florence is the seventeenth
The Council entered a second phase after
After becoming the Council of Florence (having moved to avoid
Background
The initial location in the
Under pressure for ecclesiastical reform,
Council of Basel
The Council was seated on 14 December 1431, at a period when the
The council was held in the Cathedral of Basel, where benches were placed for the 400 and more members, and general congregations were held either in the cathedral or in its chapter house.[2] The clerks of ceremonies were Enea Silvio Piccolomini and Michel Brunout.[2]
Replacement by the Council of Florence
In 1438, Pope Eugene convened a new council at Ferrara, which however was transferred to Florence in 1439 because of the danger of plague at Ferrara and because Florence had agreed, against future payment, to finance the Council.[3]
Rump Council of Basel
Most of the original Council moved from Basel to Ferrara in 1438. Some remained at Basel, still claiming to be the Council. They elected Amadeus VIII, Duke of Savoy, as Pope Felix V. He is considered an antipope, and was the only claimant to the papal throne who ever took the Basel oath. Driven out of Basel in 1448, they moved to Lausanne. In 1449, Felix V resigned and the rump Council formally closed.[3]
Meeting in Florence
The Council had meanwhile successfully negotiated
On 6 July 1439 the union was proclaimed (in both Latin and Greek) in the document
Despite the religious union, Western military assistance to Byzantium was ultimately insufficient, and the fall of Constantinople occurred in May 1453. The Council declared the Basel group heretics and excommunicated them, and affirmed the superiority of the Pope over the Councils in the bull Etsi non dubitemus of 20 April 1441.[3]
Composition
The
Nicholas of Cusa was a member of the delegation sent to Constantinople with the pope's approval to bring back the Byzantine emperor and his representatives to the Council of Florence of 1439. At the time of the council's conclusion in 1439, Cusa was thirty-eight years old and thus, compared to the other clergy at the council, a fairly young man though one of the more accomplished in terms of the body of his complete works.
Attempted dissolution
From Italy, France and Germany, the fathers came late to Basel. Cesarini devoted all his energies to the war against the
That order led to an outcry among the fathers and incurred the deep disapproval of the legate Cesarini. They argued that the Hussites would think the Church afraid to face them and that the laity would accuse the clergy of shirking reform, both with disastrous effects. The pope explained his reasons and yielded certain points, but the fathers were intransigent. Considerable powers had been decreed to Church councils by the Council of Constance, which amid the troubles of the Western Schism had proclaimed the superiority, in certain cases, of the council over the pope, and the fathers at Basel insisted upon their right of remaining assembled. They held sessions, promulgated decrees, interfered in the government of the papal countship of Venaissin, treated with the Hussites, and, as representatives of the universal Church, presumed to impose laws upon the sovereign pontiff himself.[1]
Eugene IV resolved to resist the Council's claim of supremacy, but he did not dare openly to repudiate the conciliar
Abandoned by a number of his
The fathers, filled with suspicion, would allow only the legates of the pope to preside over them on condition of their recognizing the superiority of the council. The legates submitted the humiliating formality but in their own names, it was asserted only after the fact, thus reserving the final judgment of the Holy See. Furthermore, the difficulties of all kinds against which Eugene had to contend, such as the insurrection at Rome, which forced him to escape by means of the Tiber, lying in the bottom of a boat, left him at first little chance of resisting the enterprises of the council.[1]
Issues of reform
Emboldened by their success, the fathers approached the subject of reform, their principal object being to further curtail the power and resources of the papacy. They took decisions on the disciplinary measures that regulated the
Papal primacy
The Council clarified the Latin dogma of papal primacy:
"We likewise define that the holy Apostolic See, and the Roman Pontiff, hold the primacy throughout the entire world; and that the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of blessed Peter, the chief of the Apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and that he is the head of the entire Church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that full power was given to him in blessed Peter by our Lord Jesus Christ, to feed, rule, and govern the universal Church."[7]
Eugene IV's eastern strategy
Eugene IV, however much he may have wished to keep on good terms with the fathers of Basel, found himself neither able nor willing to accept or observe all their decrees. The question of the union with the Byzantine church, especially, gave rise to a misunderstanding between them which soon led to a rupture. The
Council transferred to Ferrara and attempted reunion with Eastern Orthodox Churches
As a result of negotiations with the East, Emperor John VIII Palaiologos accepted Pope Eugene IV's offer. By a bull dated 18 September 1437, Pope Eugene again pronounced the dissolution of the Council of Basel and summoned the fathers to Ferrara in the Po Valley.
The first public session at Ferrara began on 10 January 1438. Its first act declared the Council of Basel transferred to Ferrara and nullified all further proceedings at Basel. In the second public session (15 February 1438), Pope Eugene IV excommunicated all who continued to assemble at Basel.
In early April 1438, the Byzantine contingent, over 700 strong, arrived at Ferrara. On 9 April 1438, the first solemn session at Ferrara began, with the Eastern Roman Emperor, the Patriarch of Constantinople and representatives of the
Initially, the seating arrangements were meant to feature the pope in the middle with the Latins on one side and Greeks on the other, but the Greeks protested. It was decided to have the altar with the open Bible in the center of the one end of the chamber, and the two high ranking delegations facing each other on the sides of the altar, while the rest of the delegations were below further in chamber. The Byzantine Emperor's throne was opposite that of the Holy Roman Emperor (who never attended), while the Patriarch of Constantinople faced opposite a cardinal, and the other high-ranking cardinals and bishops faced the Greek metropolitans. The throne of the pope was set slightly apart and higher.[2]
Council transferred to Florence and the near East-West union
With finances running thin and on the pretext that the plague was spreading in the area, both the Latins and the Byzantines agreed to transfer the council to Florence.[9] Continuing at Florence in January 1439, the Council made steady progress on a compromise formula, "ex filio".
In the following months, agreement was reached on the Western doctrine of Purgatory and a return to the pre-schism prerogatives of the papacy. On 6 July 1439 an agreement (Laetentur Caeli) was signed by all the Eastern bishops but one, Mark of Ephesus, delegate for the Patriarch of Alexandria, who, contrary to the views of all others, held that Rome continued in both heresy and schism.
To complicate matters,
Upon their return, the Eastern bishops found their attempts toward agreement with the West broadly rejected by the monks, the populace, and by civil authorities (with the notable exception of the Emperors of the East who remained committed to union until the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Turkish Ottoman Empire two decades later). Facing the imminent threat, the Union was officially proclaimed by Isidore of Kiev in Hagia Sophia on 12 December 1452.[10]
The Emperor, bishops, and people of Constantinople accepted this act as a temporary provision until the removal of the Ottoman threat. Yet, it was too late: on 29 May 1453 Constantinople fell. The union signed at Florence, down to the present, has not been implemented by the Orthodox Churches.
Copts and Ethiopians
The Council soon became even more international. The signature of this agreement for the union of the Latins and the Byzantines encouraged Pope Eugenius to announce the good news to the
Deposition of Eugene IV and schism at Basel
During this time the council of Basel, though nullified at Ferrara and abandoned by Cesarini and most of its members, persisted nonetheless, under the presidency of
Effects of the schism
This schism lasted fully ten years, although the antipope found few adherents outside of his own hereditary states, those of Alfonso V of Aragon, of the Swiss confederation and of certain universities. Germany remained neutral; Charles VII of France confined himself to securing to his kingdom (by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, which became law on 13 July 1438) the benefit of a great number of the reforms decreed at Basel; England and Italy remained faithful to Eugene IV. Finally, in 1447, Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, after negotiations with Eugene, commanded the burgomaster of Basel not to allow the presence of the council any longer in the imperial city.[4]
Schism reconciled at Lausanne
In June 1448 the rump of the council migrated to Lausanne. The antipope, at the insistence of France, ended by abdicating (7 April 1449). Eugene IV died on 23 February 1447, and the council at Lausanne, to save appearances, gave their support to his successor, Pope Nicholas V, who had already been governing the Church for two years. Trustworthy evidence, they said, proved to them that this pontiff accepted the dogma of the superiority of the council as defined at Constance and at Basel.[4]
Aftermath
The struggle for East-West union at Ferrara and Florence, while promising, never bore fruit. While progress toward union in the East continued to be made in the following decades, all hopes for a proximate reconciliation were dashed with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Following their conquest, the Ottomans encouraged hardline anti-unionist Orthodox clerics in order to divide European Christians.[15]
Perhaps the council's most important historical legacy was the lectures on Greek classical literature given in Florence by many of the delegates from Constantinople, including the renowned Neoplatonist
See also
- Compacts of Basel
- Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church
- Theological differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church
- Valori (family)
References
- ^ a b c d e f Valois 1911, p. 463.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-351-89173-8.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.
- ^ a b c d e f Valois 1911, p. 464.
- ^ Valois 1911, pp. 463–464.
- LCCN 90003209.
[The Holy Roman Church] firmly... asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the [Jewish] sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.
- ISBN 0879735554.
- ^
"John Argyropoulos". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2009-10-02.
Argyropoulos divided his time between Italy and Constantinople; he was in Italy (1439) for the Council of Florence and spent some time teaching and studying in Padua, earning a degree in 1443.
- ^ Stuart M. McManus, 'Byzantines in the Florentine polis: Ideology, Statecraft and ritual during the Council of Florence', The Journal of the Oxford University History Society, 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009), pp. 4–6
- ^ Dezhnyuk, Sergey. "COUNCIL OF FLORENCE: THE UNREALIZED UNION". Retrieved Dec 27, 2022 – via www.academia.edu.
- ISBN 0691011265. Retrieved Dec 27, 2022 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 9780853232292. Retrieved Dec 27, 2022 – via Google Books.
- ISBN 0691011265. Retrieved Dec 27, 2022 – via Google Books.
- ^ Trexler The journey of the Magi p. 129
- ^ "Lessons for Theresa May and the EU from 15th-century Florence". The Economist. 24 September 2017.
- ISBN 9780299118846. Retrieved Dec 27, 2022 – via Google Books.
Sources
Primary sources
- Gian Domenico Mansi(ed.), Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio editio nova vol. xxix–xxxi.
- Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II, De rebus Basileae gestis (Fermo, 1803)
- Monumenta Conciliorum generalium seculi xv., Scriptorum, vol. i., ii. and iii. (Vienna, 1857–1895)
- Sylvester Syropoulos, Mémoires, ed. and trans. V. Laurent, Concilium Florentinum: Documenta et Scriptores 9 (Rome, 1971)
Secondary literature
- Geanakoplos, Deno J. (1980). "The Council of Florence (1438–9) and the Problem of Union between the Byzantine and Latin Churches," in Church History 24 (1955), 324–346; reprinted in D.J. Geanakoplos, Constantinople and the West (Madison, Wisconsin, 1989), pp. 224–254.
- Decaluwe, Michiel; Thomas M. Izbicki; Gerald Christianson (editors) (2016). A Companion to the Council of Basel. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2016.
- Sergey F. Dezhnyuk, "Council of Florence: The Unrealized Union", CreateSpace, 2017.
- Gieseler, J. C. L., Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. pp. 312ff (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853).
- Gill, Joseph (1959). The Council of Florence Cambridge, 1959.
- Gill, Joseph (1964). Personalities of the Council, of Florence and other Essays, Oxford, 1964.
- Haller, Johannes ed., Concilium Basiliense, vol. i–v, Basel, 1896–1904.
- Hefele, K.J., Conciliengeschichte, vol. vii., Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1874.
- Harris, Jonathan (2010). The End of Byzantium, New Haven and London, 2010. ISBN 978-0-300-11786-8
- Harris, Jonathan (1995). Greek Emigres in the West c. 1400–1520, Camberley, 1995, pp. 72–84.
- Johannes Helmrath , Das Basler Konzil; 1431–1449; Forschungsstand und Probleme, (Cologne, 1987).
- Kolditz, Sebastian. Johannes VIII. Palaiologos und das Konzil von Ferrara-Florenz (1438/39). 2 Vol., Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann Verlag 2013–2014, ISBN 978-3-7772-1319-4.
- Stuart M. McManus, 'Byzantines in the Florentine polis: Ideology, Statecraft and Ritual during the Council of Florence', Journal of the Oxford University History Society, 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009) "issue6(michaelmashilary2009) (jouhsinfo)". Jouhsinfo.googlepages.com. 2009-03-14. Archived from the original on 2009-04-20. Retrieved 2010-01-18.
- Stavros Lazaris, "L'empereur Jean VIII Paléologue vu par Pisanello lors du concile de Ferrare – Florence", Byzantinische Forschungen, 29, 2007, pp. 293–324 "L'empereur Jean VIII Paléologue vu par Pisanello lors du concile de Ferrare-Florence"
- Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 1993, 2nd ed., pp. 306–317, 339–368.
- Gabriel Pérouse , Le Cardinal Louis Aleman, président du concile de Bâle, Paris, 1904.
- O. Richter , Die Organisation and Geschäftsordnung des Basler Konziis, Leipzig, 1877.
- Stefan Sudmann, Das Basler Konzil: Synodale Praxis zwischen Routine und Revolution, Frankfurt-am-Main 2005. ISBN 3-631-54266-6 "Peter Lang Verlagsgruppe". Peterlang.com. 2010-01-14. Archived from the originalon 2009-01-08. Retrieved 2010-01-18.
- Georgiou Frantzi, " Constantinople has Fallen.Chronicle of the Fall of Constantinoples ", transl.: Ioannis A. Melisseidis & Poulcheria Zavolea Melisseidou (1998/2004) – Ioannis A. Melisseidis ( Ioannes A. Melisseides ), " Brief History of Events in Constantinople during the period 1440–1453 ", pp. 105–119, edit.5th, Athens 2004, Vergina Asimakopouli Bros, Greek National Bibliography 1999/2004, ISBN 9607171918
- Andrić, Stanko (2016). "Saint John Capistran and Despot George Branković: An Impossible Compromise". Byzantinoslavica. 74 (1–2): 202–227.
Attribution
- public domain: Valois, Joseph Marie Noel (1911). "Basel, Council of". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 463–464. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Fatto dei Greci: Pictorial Allusions to the Nearly-Forgotten Council of Florence
- Council of Florence: The Unrealized Union
- Armstrong, Jesse L. (2013). "From The Council of Ferrara-Florence to The Preparations for Siege; Christendom never Unities". Academia.edu.
External links
- Byzantines in the Florentine polis: Ideology, Statecraft and ritual during the Council of Florence Archived 2009-04-24 at the Wayback Machine
- Detailed chronology of the Consilium
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Council of Basle
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Ferrara
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Council of Florence
- Documents of Council of Florence