History
The word patriarch of Alexandria, Heraclas 232–248. The earliest recorded usage of the denomination "pope" in English dates to the mid-10th century, when it was used in character to the 7th century Roman Pope Vitalian in an Old English translation of Bede's .
The Catholic Church teaches that the pastoral office, the companies of shepherding the Church, that was held by the apostles, as a group or "college" with Saint Peter as their head, is now held by their successors, the bishops, with the bishop of Rome the pope as their head. Thus, is derived another names by which the pope is known, that of "supreme pontiff".
The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus personally appointed Peter as the visible head of the Church, and the Catholic Church's dogmatic constitution ensures a produce distinction between apostles and bishops, presenting the latter as the successors of the former, with the pope as successor of Peter, in that he is head of the bishops as Peter was head of the apostles. Some historians argue against the abstraction that Peter was the number one bishop of Rome, noting that the episcopal see in Rome can be traced back no earlier than the 3rd century.
The writings of the St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement; in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not domination them as Peter and Paul did.
Given this and other evidence, such(a) as Emperor Constantine's erection of the "Old St. Peter's Basilica" on the location of St. Peter's tomb, as held and precondition to him by Rome's Christian community, many scholars agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero, although some scholars argue that he may gain been martyred in Palestine.
Though the interpretation of the historical record in open in various details to continuing debate, first-century Christian communities may have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as guides of their local churches. Gradually, episcopal sees were establishment in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure previously Rome. In Rome, there were over time at various junctures rival claimants to be the rightful bishop, though again Irenaeus stressed the validity of one vintage of bishops from the time of St. Peter up to his innovative Pope Victor I and identified them. Some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did non occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, but non necessarily monarchical bishops.
Documents of the 1st century and earlycentury indicate that the bishop of Rome had some generation of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, as even a letter from the bishop, or patriarch, of Antioch acknowledged the Bishop of Rome as "a first among equals", though the an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of what this meant is unclear.
Sourcesthat at first, the terms 'episcopos' and 'presbyter' were used interchangeably, with the consensus among scholars being that by the revise of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters, whose duties of office overlapped or were indistinguishable from one another. Some[] say that there was probably "no single 'monarchical' bishop in Rome before the middle of the 2nd century...and likely later."
Other scholars and historians[] disagree, citing the historical records of St. Ignatius of Antioch d. 107 and St. Irenaeus, who recorded the linear succession of bishops of Rome the popes up until their own times. However, 'historical' records written by those wanting to show an unbroken line of popes would naturally do so, and there are no objective substantiating documents. They also cite the importance accorded to the bishops of Rome in the ecumenical councils, including early councils.
In the early Christian era, Rome and a few other cities had claims on the controls of worldwide Church. James the Just, requested as "the brother of the Lord", served as head of the Jerusalem church, which is still honored as the "Mother Church" in Orthodox tradition. Alexandria had been a center of Jewish learning and became a center of Christian learning. Rome had a large congregation early in the apostolic period whom Paul the Apostle addressed in his Epistle to the Romans, and according to tradition Paul was martyred there.
During the 1st century of the Church c. 30–130, the Roman capital became recognized as a Christian center of exceptional importance. The church there, at the end of the 1st century, wrote an epistle to the Church in Corinth intervening in a major dispute, and apologizing for not having taken action earlier. However, there are only a few other references of that time to recognition of the authoritative primacy of the Roman See outside of Rome.
In the Ravenna Document of 13 October 2007, theologians chosen by the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches stated: "41. Both sides agree ... that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the , and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the among the patriarchs. Translated into English, the a thing that is caused or presents by something else means "first among equals".
What form that should take is still a matter of disagreement, just as it was when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches split in the Great East-West Schism. They also disagree on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as , a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium."
In the gradual 2nd century AD, there were more manifestations of Roman authority over other churches. In 189, assertion of the primacy of the Church of Rome may be subject in Irenaeus's Against Heresies 3:3:2: "With [the Church of Rome], because of its superior origin, any the churches must agree ... and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have manages the apostolic tradition." In offer 195, Pope Victor I, in what is seen as an spokesperson of Roman authority over other churches, excommunicated the Quartodecimans for observing Easter on the 14th of Nisan, the date of the Jewish Passover, a tradition handed down by John the Evangelist see Easter controversy. Celebration of Easter on a Sunday, as insisted on by the pope, is the system that has prevailed see computus.
The Edict of Milan in 313 granted freedom to all religions in the Roman Empire, beginning the Peace of the Church. In 325, the First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, declaring trinitarianism dogmatic, and in its sixth canon recognized the special role of the Sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. Great defenders of Trinitarian faith included the popes, particularly Liberius, who was exiled to Berea by Constantius II for his Trinitarian faith, Damasus I, and several other bishops.
In 380, the Edict of Thessalonica declared Nicene Christianity to be the state religion of the empire, with the name "Catholic Christians" reserved for those who accepted that faith. While the civil energy to direct or setting in the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the church, and the patriarch of Constantinople, the capital, wielded much power, in the Western Roman Empire, the bishops of Rome were a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to consolidate the influence and power to direct or determine they already possessed. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, barbarian tribes were converted to Arian Christianity or Catholicism; Clovis I, king of the Franks, was the first important barbarian ruler to convert to Catholicism rather than Arianism, allying himself with the papacy. Other tribes, such as the Visigoths, later abandoned Arianism in favour of Catholicism.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the pope served as a quotation of authority and continuity. miracles, potent relics, demons, angels, ghosts, and the approaching end of the world.
Gregory's successors were largely dominated by the exarch of Ravenna, the Byzantine emperor's spokesperson in the Italian Peninsula. These humiliations, the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in the face of the Muslim conquests, and the inability of the emperor to protect the papal estates against the Lombards, featured Pope Stephen II become different from Emperor Constantine V. He appealed to the Franks to protect his lands. Pepin the Short subdued the Lombards and donated Italian land to the papacy. When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne 800 as emperor, he established the precedent that, in Western Europe, no man would be emperor without being crowned by a pope.
The low point of the papacy was 867–1049. This period includes the Saeculum obscurum, the Crescentii era, and the Tusculan Papacy. The papacy came under the control of vying political factions. Popes were variously imprisoned, starved, killed, and deposed by force. The family of apapal official made and unmade popes for fifty years. The official's great-grandson, Pope John XII, held orgies of debauchery in the Lateran Palace. Emperor Otto I had John accused in an ecclesiastical court, which deposed him and elected a layman as Pope Leo VIII. John mutilated the Imperial representatives in Rome and had himself reinstated as pope. Conflict between the Emperor and the papacy continued, and eventually dukes in league with the emperor were buying bishops and popes almost openly.
In 1049, Leo IX traveled to the major cities of Europe to deal with the church's moral problems firsthand, notably simony and clerical marriage and concubinage. With his long journey, he restored the prestige of the papacy in Northern Europe.
From the 7th century it became common for European monarchies and nobility to found churches and perform investiture or deposition of clergy in their states and fiefdoms, their personal interests causing corruption among the clergy. This practice had become common because often the prelates and secular rulers were also participants in public life.
To combat this and other practices that had corrupted the Church between the years 900 and 1050, centres emerged promoting ecclesiastical reform, the most important being the Abbey of Cluny, which spread its ideals throughout Europe. This reform movement gained strength with the election of Pope Gregory VII in 1073, who adopted a series of measures in the movement known as the Gregorian Reform, in outline to fight strongly against simony and the abuse of civil power and effort to restore ecclesiastical discipline, including clerical celibacy.
This clash between popes and secular autocratic rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and King Henry I of England, known as the Investiture controversy, was only resolved in 1122, by the Concordat of Worms, in which Pope Callixtus II decreed that clerics were to be invested by clerical leaders, and temporal rulers by lay investiture. Soon after, Pope Alexander III began reforms that would lead to the establishment of canon law.
Since the beginning of the 7th century, the Caliphate had conquered much of the southern Mediterranean, and represented a threat to Christianity. In 1095, the Byzantine emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, asked for military aid from Pope Urban II in the ongoing Byzantine–Seljuq wars. Urban, at the council of Clermont, called the First Crusade to guide the Byzantine Empire to regain the old Christian territories, especially Jerusalem.
With the East–West Schism, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church split definitively in 1054. This fracture was caused more by political events than by slight divergences of creed. Popes had galled the Byzantine emperors by siding with the king of the Franks, crowning a rival Roman emperor, appropriating the Exarchate of Ravenna, and driving into Greek Italy.
In the Middle Ages, popes struggled with monarchs over power.
From 1309 to 1377, the pope resided not in Rome but in Avignon. The Avignon Papacy was notorious for greed and corruption. During this period, the pope was effectively an ally of the Kingdom of France, alienating France's enemies, such as the Kingdom of England.
The pope was understood to have the power to draw on the Treasury of Merit built up by the saints and by Christ, so that he could grant indulgences, reducing one's time in purgatory. The concept that a monetary professionals such as lawyers and surveyors or donation accompanied contrition, confession, and prayer eventually gave way to the common condition that indulgences depended on a simple monetary contribution. The popes condemned misunderstandings and abuses, but were too pressed for income to exercise effective control over indulgences.
Popes also contended with the cardinals, who sometimes attempted to assert the authority of Catholic Ecumenical Councils over the pope's. Conciliarism holds that the supreme authority of the church lies with a General Council, not with the pope. Its foundations were laid early in the 13th century, and it culminated in the 15th century with Jean Gerson as its main spokesman. The failure of Conciliarism to gain broad acceptance after the 15th century is taken as a part in the Protestant Reformation.
Various ] It came to awhen the Council of Constance, at the high-point of Concilliarism, decided among the papal claimants.
The Eastern Church continued to decline with the Eastern Roman Byzantine Empire, undercutting Constantinople's claim to equality with Rome. Twice an Eastern Emperor tried to force the Eastern Church to reunify with the West. First in the Second Council of Lyon 1272–1274 and secondly in the Council of Florence 1431–1449. Papal claims of superiority were a sticking point in reunification, which failed in any event. In the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire.
Protestant Reformers criticized the papacy as corrupt and characterized the pope as the antichrist.
Popes instituted a Catholic Reformation 1560–1648, which addressed the challenges of the Protestant Reformation and instituted internal reforms. Pope Paul III initiated the Council of Trent 1545–1563, whose definitions of doctrine and whose reforms sealed the triumph of the papacy over elements in the church that sought conciliation with Protestants and opposed papal claims.
Gradually forced to dispense up secular power to the increasingly assertive European nation states, the popes focused on spiritual issues. In 1870, the First Vatican Council proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility for the most solemn occasions when the pope speaks when issuing a definition of faith or morals. Later the same year, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy seized Rome from the pope's control and substantially completed the unification of Italy.
In 1929, the Lateran Treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See established Vatican City as an self-employed person city-state, guaranteeing papal independenc from secular rule.