The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent, now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation at the time, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.
An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are convoked from the whole world (oikoumene) and which secures the approbation of the whole Church.
The Fourth Council of Constantinople was held in 879–880. It confirmed the reinstatement of Photius I as patriarch of Constantinople.
Pope Boniface VIII was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 24 December 1294 until his death in 1303. The Caetani family was of baronial origin, with connections to the papacy. He succeeded Pope Celestine V, who had abdicated from the papal throne. Boniface spent his early career abroad in diplomatic roles.
Pope Clement V, born Raymond Bertrand de Got, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 5 June 1305 to his death, in April 1314. He is remembered for suppressing the order of the Knights Templar and allowing the execution of many of its members. A Frenchman by birth, Clement moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, ushering in the period known as the Avignon Papacy.
Pope Callixtus II or Callistus II, born Guy of Burgundy, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1 February 1119 to his death in 1124. His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms in 1122.
Pope John XXII, born Jacques Duèze, was head of the Catholic Church from 7 August 1316 to his death, in December 1334. He was the second and longest-reigning Avignon Pope, elected by the Conclave of Cardinals, which was assembled in Lyon. Like his predecessor, Clement V, Pope John centralized power and income in the Papacy and lived a princely life in Avignon.
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon rather than in Rome. The situation arose from the conflict between the papacy and the French crown, culminating in the death of Pope Boniface VIII after his arrest and maltreatment by Philip IV of France. Following the subsequent death of Pope Benedict XI, Philip forced a deadlocked conclave to elect the French Clement V as pope in 1305. Clement refused to move to Rome, and in 1309 he moved his court to the papal enclave at Avignon, where it remained for the next 67 years. This absence from Rome is sometimes referred to as the "Babylonian captivity" of the Papacy.
Year 1312 (MCCCXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.
The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom, confirmed the original Nicene Creed, and condemned the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who held that the Virgin Mary may be called the Christotokos, "Christ-bearer" but not the Theotokos, "God-bearer". It met from 22 June to 31 July 431 at the Church of Mary in Ephesus in Anatolia.
Jacques de Molay, also spelled "Molai", was the 23rd and last grand master of the Knights Templar, leading the order sometime before 20 April 1292 until it was dissolved by order of Pope Clement V in 1312. Though little is known of his actual life and deeds except for his last years as Grand Master, he is one of the best known Templars.
The Council of Vienne was the fifteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and met between 1311 and 1312 in Vienne, France. One of its principal acts was to withdraw papal support for the Knights Templar at the instigation of Philip IV of France. The Council, unable to decide on a course of action, tabled the discussion. In March 1312 Philip arrived and pressured the Council and Clement to act. Clement passed papal bulls dissolving the Templar Order, confiscating their lands, and labeling them heretics.
The history of the Catholic Church is integral to the history of Christianity as a whole. It is also, according to church historian Mark A. Noll, the "world's oldest continuously functioning international institution." This article covers a period of just under two thousand years.
The Chinon Parchment is a historical document discovered in September 2001 by Barbara Frale, an Italian paleographer at the Vatican Apostolic Archive. On the basis of this document she has claimed that, in 1308, Pope Clement V absolved the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and the rest of the leadership of the Knights Templar from charges brought against them by the Medieval Inquisition.
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Jerusalem, or Templars, was a military order founded in c. 1120.
According to the Catholic Church, a Church Council is ecumenical ("world-wide") if it is "a solemn congregation of the Catholic bishops of the world at the invitation of the Pope to decide on matters of the Church with him". The wider term "ecumenical council" relates to Church councils recognised by both Eastern and Western Christianity.
In 1307, members of the Knights Templar in the Kingdom of France were suddenly charged with heresy and arrested after their leader, Master Jacques de Molay, had recently come to France for meetings with Pope Clement V. Many, including their leader, were burned at the stake while others were sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. The events in France led to a series of trials in other locations, not all of which had the same outcome.
The Lateran Council of 649 was a synod held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran to condemn Monothelitism, a Christology espoused by many Eastern Christians, and Pope Honorius. The Council did not achieve ecumenical status in either East or West, but represented the first attempt of a pope to convene an ecumenical council independent of the Roman emperor.
The history of the Knights Templar in England began when the French nobleman Hugues de Payens, founder and Grand Master of the Order, visited the country in 1128 to raise men and money for the Crusades.
The Council of Troyes was convened by Bernard of Clairvaux on 13 January 1129 in the city of Troyes. The council, largely attended by French clerics, was assembled to hear a petition by Hugues de Payens, head of the Knights Templar. Pope Honorius II did not attend the council, sending the papal legate, Matthew, cardinal-bishop of Albano. The council addressed issues concerning the Templar Order and a dispute between the bishop of Paris and king of France.
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