Council of Pisa

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Council of Pisa was an assembly of churches held in Pisa , Tuscany, in 1409 to repeal the occidental schism ; this goal could not be achieved.

The “Council” of Pisa is not counted as a council , but only as a synod.

The schism between the popes residing in Rome and those in Avignon had existed since the double election of 1378 . Several attempts to solve the papal question failed on the one hand because of the unyielding attitude of the respective popes, on the other hand because there was initially no secular authority that could have clarified this. Each party had its supporters among the European monarchs, and the German king hardly took the initiative in church issues because he was tied up in internal German disputes.

preparation

The situation remained unsatisfactory for several decades and seriously damaged the reputation of the papacy, so that the schism gave a boost to “heretical” currents that complained about the moral decline of the church ( Wyclif in England, Hus in Bohemia).

The cardinals of the Catholic Church therefore increasingly spoke out in favor of clarifying the question of leadership through a general council. Already at the beginning of the schism, the French King Charles V had spoken out in favor of such a council and the cardinals (opponents of the Roman Pope Urban VI. ) Who had gathered in Anagni and Fondi had promised his support for such a project. This was not only followed by a number of synods, but also by the cities of Ghent and Florence , the renowned universities of Oxford and Paris , and the most famous scholars of the time, including Heinrich von Langenstein , Konrad von Gelnhausen , Jean Gerson and above all Pierre d'Ailly , the bishop of Cambrai , whose work Apologia Concilii Pisani is one of the most authoritative statements on the Council question.

Encouraged by this support, four representatives of the Holy College of Avignon traveled to Livorno to meet representatives of the Roman Curia. In fact, representatives of both parties in Livorno were able to come to an agreement on the council project in the summer of 1408, and in early July they sent letters inviting the Catholic cardinals and bishops to Pisa for the planned council on March 25, 1409.

The popes opposed this unification efforts and each called their own church assemblies: the Roman Pope Gregory XII. after Aquileia , the Avignon Pope Benedict XIII. to Perpignan .

However, given the popularity of the council's idea among the clergy, these meetings remained poorly attended. Not only the cardinals and the universities of Oxford and Paris, but also the University of Cologne, the majority of the bishops and many princes placed great hopes in the council. The two Popes themselves were hardly trusted to clarify the question.

Course of the council

At the Annunciation in 1409 finally gathered four patriarchs , 22 cardinals and 80 bishops in the Cathedral of Pisa ; The assembly was headed by Cardinal de Malesset, Bishop of Palestrina . 100 absent bishops sent representations, numerous abbots, generals and 300 theologians represented the rest of the clergy, and several European princes sent ambassadors to Pisa.

At the beginning of the session, two cardinal deacons called the names of the Popes to appear, but neither of the two opponents was present. The cardinal deacons then asked if someone was present to represent the Popes, but again no one answered. Thereupon the clergy present pleaded that both popes should be found guilty of the contumatia , that is, of failing to attend a court appointment . At first, the described ceremony was repeated on three days without result and testimonies against the accused popes were heard throughout May before the formal contumatia resolution of the council against Gregory and Benedict was announced in the fourth session. Finally, Johannes, the Archbishop of Riga, stood up for the defense of Gregory, who, sent by the German King Ruprecht and accompanied by several other German representatives, raised some objections to the legality of the council and in favor of his Pope; However, he met with such fierce opposition that he and his companions had to leave Pisa as refugees. After that Carlo Malatesta , Prince of Rimini, defended Gregory's cause with some skill. In the meantime, Benedict sent representatives to Pisa, who arrived there on June 14, but, like John of Riga before, met with fierce verbal resistance. The Chancellor of the King of Aragon, a supporter of the Avignon side, fell on deaf ears, while the Archbishop of Tarragona only heated up the mood with a militant plea for Benedict. So the representatives of Avignon, intimidated by the hostile atmosphere, secretly left the city.

The assembly of around 500 churchmen, on the other hand, showed remarkable unity, especially in the 15th session on June 5th, so that a judgment on the popes could be passed relatively quickly. It was read by the Patriarch of Alexandria, Simon de Cramaud , the Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII. as "convicted schismatics", notorious heretics , guilty of perjury and broken promises that have become a scandal for the Catholic Church. They are thus unworthy of continuing to exercise the office of Pope, and all of their orders and decrees are null and void. The Holy See was declared vacant and all believers were absolved of fidelity and obedience to the one and the other Pope. This guilty verdict was greeted unanimously with applause and the Te Deum was sung .

A solemn procession was arranged for the following day, Corpus Christi . All participants signed the council decree and hoped that this would settle the papal question for the time being. On June 15, the council members met in the city's archiepiscopal palace to appoint a new, legitimate Pope.

The conclave reached a decision after eleven days , mainly through the intervention of Cardinal Cossa . So that was on June 26, habemus papam announced: New Pope of the Franciscans, Cardinal Pietro Philargi which the Pope name was Alexander V. accepted. This election was unanimously welcomed in Pisa and Alexander announced his election to the European rulers in letters, initially meeting with approval, especially in England and France.

effect

The Council Fathers defended their approach as serving the benefit of the indivisible unity of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, doubts arose early on, for although the legitimacy of the two irreconcilable popes might have been called into question by their behavior, this was hardly less true of the unprecedented behavior of the Council Fathers - never before in the history of the Church had clergymen dared to try theirs to depose supreme shepherds to whom they had sworn allegiance and obedience, so that it was a downright revolutionary step within the hierarchically organized church. But if the legitimacy of the council was in question, this naturally also applied to the new Pope appointed by it.

The council also created a precedent, dangerous in the eyes of some, from which one could infer the general sovereignty of a council over the pope - so-called conciliarism , which found many followers in the following decades and threatened to further erode the already weakened authority of the papacy .

The two popes in office so far did not even think of relinquishing their claims to power and submitting to a council, so that now, unique in the entire history of the Pope, there were three popes at the same time and the schism that the council hoped to clear up continued was deepened.

An indirect recognition of Alexander V's legitimacy took place in 1492 when the then newly elected Pope named Alexander VI. and thus avoided a renewed occupation of the name Alexander V. In Catholic church historiography, Alexander V is still mostly counted as an (illegitimate) antipope (as did his successor John XXIII (antipope) ), but at least he had large parts of the clergy behind him. His following, even among the princes, grew rapidly, but the two previous popes also retained a certain degree of domestic power: the Spanish kingdoms and Scotland remained on Benedict's side, while Naples, Poland and Bavaria continued to support Gregory. Theologians of both popes condemned the council, as Bonifatius Ferrer, a follower of Benedict, spoke of the "conventicle of demons". Later clergymen such as Thomas Cajetan also denied the Council of Pisa any authority, while in the Gallican Church  - the impetus for the council came essentially from the French side - the legality of the assembly was advocated or at least saw the extraordinary circumstances of the schism as an emergency that justified such an extraordinary measure.

The schism could not really be settled until the Council of Constance , which was convened in 1414, five years later, and which was attended by the new Emperor Sigismund , who, through his authority, played an essential part in the deposition of the three popes and through the election of one The long-awaited unity in the leadership of the Catholic Church could be restored to the new Pope.

For centuries it was controversial within the church whether Alexander V and John XXIII. are to be regarded as valid popes - Alexander VI. apparently assumed the validity of the numbering, while John XXIII. 1958 with the reassignment of the number showed that the "namesake" of the obedience of Pisa was an antipope and formed the current view.

literature

  • Bernhard Bess: Johannes Gerson and the church political parties in France before the Council of Pisa . Dissertation, Marburg 1890.
  • Remigius Bäumer (Ed.): The development of conciliarism: Becoming and after-effects of the conciliar idea . Knowledge Buchges., Darmstadt 1976. ISBN 3-534-05655-8
  • Heribert Müller / Johannes Helmrath (eds.): The Councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1414–1418) and Basel (1431–1449). Institution and people (= lectures and research . Volume 67). Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-7995-6867-8 . ( Online ) ( review )
  • Hans Schneider: The conciliarism as a problem of the more recent Catholic theology . De Gruyter, Berlin 1976. ISBN 3-11-005744-1
  • Karl Rudolf Kötzschke: Ruprecht of the Palatinate and the Council of Pisa . Dissertation, Jena 1889.
  • Florian Eßer: Make one out of two. The Pisan attempted solution to the Great Western Schism 1408/1409: Schismatology and the form of a council . In: Harald Müller (ed.): The loss of uniqueness. On the crisis of papal authority in the struggle for the Cathedra Petri (= writings of the historical college. Colloquia . Volume 95). Berlin / Boston 2018, pp. 37–54. ISBN 978-3-11-046154-1 .
  • Florian Eßer: Schism as a conflict of interpretation. The Council of Pisa and the solution of the Great Occidental Schism (1378-1409) (= papacy in medieval Europe . Volume 8). Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2019.
  • Florian Eßer: Pisanum / Pisa: General Council; 1409 , in: Lexicon of the Councils [online version], July 2020. ( Online )