John of Parma

John of Parma (* around 1208 in Parma ; † March 19, 1289 in Camerino ) was the eighth general minister of the Franciscan order .

Life

At the age of 25, John of Parma joined the order under the generalate of Brother Elias of Cortona . He taught theology and philosophy in the convents of Bologna and Naples . As a theological advisor, he took part in the First Council of Lyon in 1245 . In the same year he was called to Paris to succeed the recently deceased great Franciscan theologian Alexander von Hales .

In 1247 the general chapter of the order in Lyon elected him general minister. In 1248 he led a provincial chapter of the English Franciscans in Oxford . In England he met with Henry III. together. At the provincial chapter of Sens he met the French king, Louis IX.

In 1249, at a general chapter in Metz, John tried to mediate the poverty dispute between the brothers, who, referring to Francis of Assisi, adhered to the commandment of absolute poverty, and the majority of the conventuals , who defended the developments of the order that had taken place since the death of the founder. In the same year the Pope Innocent IV sent him as a legate to Greece to Emperor John III. Dukas Vatatzes. In 1254 Johannes mediated together with Humbert de Romans, the general master of the Dominicans , at the University of Paris in the dispute over the chairs of the mendicant orders .

John was a follower of Abbot Joachim von Fiore . Within the order he sought the original ideal of St. Francis to reassert itself. He also considered the papal explanations of the rules of the order to be superfluous and only allowed the will of Francis to be a commentary on the rule. This put him in opposition to the papal curia . In 1257 Alexander IV forced him to resign at the General Chapter in Rome and to renounce re-election, which was desired by the majority of the delegates. John himself recommended Bonaventure of Bagnoregio as his successor. Subsequently, two of Johannes von Parma's closest followers, Gerhard and Leonhard, were sentenced to life in prison.

Then John was tried himself. In Città della Pieve he was questioned by a commission chaired by Cardinal Giovanni Gaetani Orsini, later Pope Nicholas III. , and with the involvement of Bonaventura. The entry of Cardinal Otto Bonus Fieschi, the nephew of the former Pope Innocent IV, who later became Pope for a short time as Hadrian V , saved him from conviction . John was allowed to retire to the small Greccio convent near Rieti , where he led a contemplative life for 30 years.

At the age of 80 he wanted to go on a missionary trip to Asia. But he only got as far as Camerino, where he died on March 19, 1289.

beatification

In 1777 John was beatified of Parma.

literature

in order of appearance

• Gratien de Paris: Histoire de la fondation et de l'évolution de l'Ordre des Frères mineurs au XIIIe siècle . Istituto storico dei Cappuccini, Rome 1982.
• Helmut Feld:  JOHANNES (BURALLI) from Parma. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 508-512.
• Rosalind B. Brooke: Early Franciscan Government: Ellias to Bonaventure . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004.
• Alvaro Cacciotti, Maria Melli (ed.): Giovanni da Parma e la grande speranza. Atti del III Convegno storico di Greccio (Greccio, 3-4 December 2004) (= Biblioteca di Frate Francesco, vol. 5). Edizioni Biblioteca Francescana, Milan 2008, ISBN 978-88-7962-135-9 .
• Agostino Paravicini Bagliani: The Roman Church of Innocent III. to Gregor X. In: Odilo Engels et alii (ed.): The history of Christianity , vol. 5: Powerfulness of the papacy , edited by André Vauchez . Herder, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-451-30400-2 , pp. 555-614, here p. 595.