William Walker Rockwell

“ Moreover, in the last decade of the 19th century a growing desire for a rapprochement between the Free Churches in the United Kingdom as a whole led to the annual assembly of the Free Church Council for the consideration of all matters affecting the dissenting bodies. This body has no executive or doctrinal authority and is rather a conference than a council. In general it may be said that synods are becoming more and more powerful in Protestant lands, and that they are destined to still greater prominence because of the growing sentiment for Christian unity. ”

“ A well-nigh ubiquitous system of espionage, perhaps most fruitful when directed against official corruption, sapped the foundations of public confidence. Leo, temperamentally stern, hard-working in spite of bodily infirmity, died at Rome on the 10th of February 1829. ”

“ A month after the coming of the Greeks, the Union Synod was solemnly inaugurated on the 9th of April 1438. After six months of negotiation, the first formal session was held on the 8th of October, and on the 14th the real issues were reached. The time-honoured question of the filioque was still in the foreground when it seemed for several reasons advisable to transfer the council to Florence: Ferrara was threatened by condottieri, the pest was raging; Florence promised a welcome subvention, and a situation further inland would make it more difficult for uneasy Greek bishops to flee the synod. ”

“ From the very day of Clement’s coronation the king had charged the Templars with heresy, immorality and abuses, and the scruples of the weak pope were at length overcome by apprehension lest the State should not wait for the Church, but should proceed independently against the alleged heretics, as well as by the royal threats of pressing the accusation of heresy against the late Boniface VIII. In pursuance of the king’s wishes Clement summoned the council of Vienne (see Vienne, Council of) , which was unable to conclude that the Templars were guilty of heresy. ”

“ On the basis of the above-mentioned agreements, as well as of minor discussions as to purgatory and the Eucharist, the decree of union was drawn up in Latin and in Greek, and signed on the 5th of July by the pope and the Greek emperor, and all the members of the synod save Eugenikos and one Greek bishop who had fled; and on the following day it was solemnly published in the cathedral of Florence. The decree explains the filioque in a manner acceptable to the Greeks, but does not require them to insert the term in their symbol ”

“ In the conclave of 1823, in spite of the active opposition of France, he was elected pope by the zelanti on the 28th of September. His election had been facilitated because he was thought to be on the edge of the grave; but he unexpectedly rallied. His foreign policy, entrusted at first to Della Somaglia and then to the more able Bernetti, moved in general along lines laid down by Consalvi; and he negotiated certain concordats very advantageous to the papacy. Personally most frugal, Leo reduced taxes, made justice less costly, and was able to find money for certain public improvements ”

“ At St Paul's the legatine constitutions of Otto were published in a synod of 1237, those of Ottobon in 1268: these were the most important national councils held after the independence of York had been established. A synod at Lambeth in 1281 put forth canons none too welcome to Edward I.; they included a detailed scheme for the religious instruction of the faithful. During the next two centuries the councils devoted much attention to heresy: eight propositions concerning the body of Christ after his death were rejected at St Mary-le-Bow in 1286 ”

“ Waiving the consideration of vital critical questions and accepting Acts xv. at its face value, the assembly at Jerusalem would scarcely seem to have been a council in the technical sense of the word; it was in essence a meeting of the Jerusalem church at which delegates from Antioch were heard but apparently had no vote, the decision resting solely with the mother church. R. Sohm argues that synods grew from the custom of certain local churches which, when confronted with a serious problem of their own, augmented their numbers by receiving delegates from the churches of the neighbourhood. ”

“ At Perugia on the 5th of June 1305 he was chosen to succeed Benedict XI; the cardinals by a vote of ten to five electing one neither an Italian nor a cardinal, in order to end a conclave which had lasted eleven months. The chronicler Villani relates that Bertrand owed his election to a secret agreement with Philip IV., made at St Jean d’Angély in Saintonge; this may be dismissed as gossip, but it is probable that the future pope had to accept certain conditions laid down by the cardinals. At Bordeaux Bertrand was formally notified of his election and urged to come to Italy ”

“ Curiously enough, the synod refused to believe that the heretical confession it refuted was actually by a former patriarch of Constantinople; yet the proofs of its genuineness seem to most scholars overwhelming. In negotiations between Anglican and Russian churchmen the confession of Dositheus [1] usually comes to the front. ”

“ Of the complicated history of the “United” churches of the East it suffices to say that Rome succeeded in securing but fragments, though important fragments, of the greater organizations. As for the Greeks, the union met with much opposition, particularly from the monks, and was rejected by three Oriental patriarchs at a synod of Jerusalem in 1443 ”

“ The revolution of 1830 had just inflicted a severe blow on the ecclesiastical party in France, and almost the first act of the new government there was to seize Ancona, thus throwing all Italy, and particularly the Papal States, into an excited condition which seemed to demand strongly repressive measures. ”

“ The first really notable council at St Paul's was that of 1075 under the presidency of Lanfranc; it renewed ancient regulations, forbade simony and permitted three bishops to remove from country places to Salisbury, Chichester and Chester respectively. In 1102 a national synod at Westminster under Anselm adopted canons against simony, clerical marriages and slavery. The councils of 1126, 1127 and 1138 were legatine, that of 1175 provincial ”

“ Clement IV. (Gui Foulques) , pope from 1265 to 1268, son of a successful lawyer and judge, was born at St Gilles-sur-Rhône. He studied law, and became a valued adviser of Louis IX. of France. He married, and was the father of two daughters, but after the death of his wife took orders. ”

“ It was but a clumsy and temporary expedient, designed to offset the preponderance of Italian bishops dependent on the pope when the council of Constance subdivided itself into several groups or “nations,” each of which had a single vote. In voting, the simple majority decides; yet such is the importance attached to a unanimous verdict that an irreconcilable minority may absent itself from the final vote, as was the case at the Vatican Council.
The numbering of oecumenical synods is not fixed ”

“ He settled a controversy with William of Scotland concerning the choice of the archbishop of St Andrews, and on the 13th of March 1188 removed the Scottish church from under the legatine jurisdiction of the archbishop of York, thus making it independent of all save Rome. ”

“ As Turkish interests demanded the isolation of the Oriental Christians from their western brethren, and as the orthodox Greek nationalists feared Latinization more than Mahommedan rule, a patriarch hostile to the union was chosen, and a synod of Constantinople in 1472 formally rejected the decisions of Florence. ”

“ Roman Catholic scholars to-day tend to recede from the high ground very generally taken several centuries ago, and Funk even admits that the right to convoke oecumenical synods was vested in the emperor regardless of the wishes of the pope, and that it cannot be proved that the Roman see ever actually had a share in calling the oecumenical councils of antiquity. ”

“ The Reform Synods of the 15th century gave a decisive vote to doctors and licentiates of theology and of laws, some of them sitting as individuals, some as representatives of universities. Roman Catholic canonists now confine the right to vote at oecumenical councils to bishops, cardinal deacons, generals or vicars general of monastic orders and the praelati nullius (exempt abbots, &c.) ; all other persons, lay or clerical, who are admitted or invited, have merely the votum consultativum—they are chiefly procurators of absent bishops, or very learned priests. ”

“ He condemned the Bible societies, and under Jesuit influence reorganized the educational system. Severe ghetto laws led many of the Jews to emigrate. He hunted down the Carbonari and the Freemasons; he took the strongest measures against political agitation in theatres. ”

“ Among his first acts was the creation of nine French cardinals. Early in 1306 he modified or explained away those features of the bulls Clericis Laicos and Unam sanctam which were particularly offensive to the king. Most of the year 1306 he spent at Bordeaux because of ill-health; subsequently he resided at Poitiers and elsewhere, and in March 1309 the entire papal court settled at Avignon, an imperial fief held by the king of Sicily. ”

“ St Paul's in 1396; and the doom of Sir John Oldcastle was sealed at the latter place in 1413. The 14th-century synods at St Paul's concerned themselves largely with the financial and moral status of the clergy, and made many quaint regulations regarding their dress and behaviour (1328, 1342, 1343; cf. 1463) . From the time of Edward VI. on, many of the most vital changes in ecclesiastical discipline were adopted in convocations at St Paul's and in the Abbey. ”

“ They have been held most frequently, however, in times of stress and of reform, for instance in the 11th, 16th and 19th centuries; at other periods they have lapsed into disuse: it is significant that to-day the prelate who neglects to convene them suffers no penalty. At present the main function of both provincial and oecumenical synods seems to be to facilitate obedience to the wishes of the central government of the Church.
The right to vote (votum definitivum) has been distinguished from early times from the right to be heard (votum consultativum) . ”

“ The subsequent oecumenical synods of the undivided Church were patterned on that of Nicaea. Most Protestant scholars maintain that the secular authorities decided whether or not they should be convened, and issued the summons; that imperial commissioners were always present, even if they did not always preside; that on occasion emperors have confirmed or refused to confirm synodal decrees ”

“ As the powers granted to the German synods are very limited, many of their advocates have been disillusioned; but the Lutheran churches of America, being independent of the state, have developed synods both numerous and potent. ”

“ Gregory XVI. (Bartolommeo Alberto Cappellari) , pope from 1831 to 1846, was born at Belluno on the 18th of September 1765, and at an early age entered the order of the Camaldoli, among whom he rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic acquirements. His first appearance before a wider public was in 1799, when he published against the Italian Jansenists a controversial work entitled Il Trionfo della Santa Sede, which, besides passing through several editions in Italy, has been translated into several European languages. ”

“ Of the four councils held at Nîmes those of 886 and 1284 are relatively unimportant. The synod of 394 adopted seven canons on discipline, which were first printed in 1743 and have not as yet made their way into the great collections. ”

“ In 1800 he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded by Pius VII., to which he contributed a number of memoirs on theological and philosophical questions and in 1805 was made abbot of San Gregorio on the Caelian Hill. ”

“ J. Hardouin (Harduinus) , Conciliorum collectio regia maxima (Paris, 1715) , 11 tomi in 12 vols. (to 1714; more exact; indexed; serious omissions) ; enlarged edition by N. Coletus (Venice, 1728–1732) , supplemented by J. D. Mansi, Sanctorum conciliorum et decretorum nova collectio (Lucca, 1748, 6 tomi) . Convenient but fallible is Mansi’s Sacrorum conciliorum et decretorum nova et amplissima collectio (Florence, 1759–1767; completed Venice, 1769–1798, 31 vols.) ; facsimile reproduction by Welter (Paris, 1901 ff.) ”