Apostle Brothers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Apostolics , also called Apostle Brothers or members of the Apostle Order , denotes the followers of various sects who, in contrast to the secularization of the Church , demanded a return to apostolic simplicity.

The apostolics (also called apotactics ), who appeared in Asia Minor in the 3rd and 4th centuries , considered property and marriage to be incompatible with salvation , but their movement was soon suppressed. In the 12th century, some of the Cathars on the Lower Rhine called themselves apostolic.

First and foremost, the name refers to the supporters of an anti-church party that emerged in northern Italy in the 13th century and was later persecuted there by the Inquisition . Its founder was Gerardo Segarelli , a merchant from Parma , who renounced his goods and, from 1260, dressed like the apostles, begging and preaching penance through the country.

The 2nd Council of Lyon in 1274 forbade the institutionalization of new mendicant orders without papal approval and Pope Gregory X. had sharply condemned the movement of the Apostles in 1274, which was confirmed by Nicholas IV in 1290. Segarelli was therefore imprisoned by the Bishop of Parma around 1280 and banished from the diocese in 1286. In 1294 Segarelli was caught again and, after renouncing his teachings, sentenced to life imprisonment. After being charged and convicted of relapse into heresy , he was burned on July 18, 1300 in Parma.

Fra Dolcino declared himself to be Segarelli's successor as leader of the apostolics, who began to conjure up the fall of the papacy and the appearance of an eschatological emperor in prophetic letters. After Dolcino and his followers had evaded persecution by the Inquisition, initially as traveling preachers in the underground, they went over to open military resistance from 1304. They holed up on a mountain called "Parete Calva" and began a guerrilla war against the military deployed against them in the surrounding dioceses of Novara and Vercelli , making their living through raids and pillage in the area.

Finally, the Bishop of Vercelli succeeded in locking up the Dolcinelles on their mountain, starving them and taking them prisoner. Dolcino was burned at the stake on June 1, 1307, along with his companion and “spiritual sister” Margareta and 150 of his followers brief flare-up came.

See also

Web links