Izvorni znanstveni članak
Ecclesiastical Unions during the Reigns of Leopold I and Joseph I (1657-1711): Ideas, Plans, and Achievements
Zlatko Kudelić
Sažetak
The aim of this study is to analyze the discussions around the possible reunion of the Protestant churches with the Roman Catholic Church in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and in Hungary, initiated by the Franciscan Cristóbal Rojas y Spinoli as a representative of the court in Vienna, as well as the achievements of the ecclesiastical union between Orthodox Christians and the Roman Catholic Church in the territory of Upper Hungary, Transylvania, and the Croatian-Slavonian Military March during the reigns of Leopold I and Joseph I. It is emphasized that the Protestant churches considered the major obstacles to their reunion with the Roman Catholic Church to be the papal primacy and their excommunication at the Council of Trent, as well as the accusations of heresy. Thereby the ideas of Irenicist theologians had a considerable impact during the second part of the 17th century. They sought to overcome the schism by underlining the common Christian foundations,leaving the debates on dogmatic issues for some future times. Attempts at achieving a reunion between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church were also supported by the Catholic converts around Johann von Schönborn, prince elector and the archbishop of Mainz. The Franciscan Spinola and his collocutor on the Evangelical side, theologian Gerard Wolter Molanus, were of the opinion that the Catholic-Protestant union should be achieved through an ecumenical council, but while Spinola planned to reach an agreement with the Protestants and bring them back under the wing of the Roman Catholic Church before the general church council, in which they could then partake as full church members, Molanus argued that the reunion must be discussed at the very council, where both sides would participate as equal parties. Both acted as the representatives of secular rulers and saw the reunion talks as an issue of cabinet policy and secret diplomacy. They considered it acceptable that their political leaders should choose the theologians who would take part in the negotiations, and they saw their churches as institutions of the early modern absolutist state governed by secular rulers. Spinola’s negotiations with the Hungarian Protestants failed because the Protestant estates managed to secure their legal position and ensure free confession of their faith, which is why they abandoned the idea of negotiating about the reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. The negotiations also failed because of the crucial differences in the understanding of the sacraments, the Mass, and the priestly office, as well as owing to the lack of support by the parties involved: for example, the Roman curia did not support any reunion talks that it had not initiated itself, while the Hungarian Catholic hierarchy blocked or ignored them.
Achievements around the union between the Orthodox Christians and the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary and Croatia were likewise far from satisfactory, and they resulted from the political decisions of the courtly circles in Vienna and the papacy. The Holy See sought to regain its influence over those areas which it had lost long before, especially the territories that were freshly liberated from the Ottoman rule. The Uniate clergy expected from the union the possibility to climb up the social ladder, e.g. in Transylvania, and equality with regard to the Roman Catholic clergy, which the Roman Catholic bishops opposed. Negotiations about the union resulted either from a cooperation between ecclesiastical and secular powers, as was the case in the early 17th century in the Croatian-Slavonian Military March, or from
an initiative of the Orthodox and Catholic clergies belonging to the bishoprics where Orthodox Christians lived, as was the case with the Subcarpathian region in western Ukraine, or in Transylvania during the War of the Holy League. It was difficult to enforce the Uniate church hierarchy in the Subcarpathian region, owing to the
attempts of landowners to choose their own candidates for the bishopric on the basis of patronage right, even at the cost of entering a conflict with the court in Vienna. This circumstance resulted in a prolonged unstable period in which bishops alternated
rapidly, and it was only in the early 1690s that a Uniate bishop was installed in the Subcarpathian region who could organize the ecclesiastical structures and the religious life of the population; however, this initial success was annihilated by the
political unrests of the early 18th century. In Transylvania, the initial success from the 1690s was weakened owing to the Catholic circles from the court of Vienna, who insisted on the re-ordination of the Uniate bishop and the acceptance of the Tridentine filioque teaching, the purgatory, and other theological positions typical of the Western
Church, as well as on the subordination of the Uniate bishop to a representative of the Roman Catholic Church, which meant a complete rejection of the ecclesiastical tradition of the Orthodox population in Transylvania and caused the rejection of the union by most Orthodox Christians in the region. In Croatia, the insistence of the
court in Vienna on the patronage right during the appointment of Uniate bishops led to a conflict with the Roman curia as to the adequacy of individual bishops, which resulted in the circumstance that no Uniate bishop could be chosen for a prolonged
period of time who would answer to the criteria of the Roman Catholic bishops and bring the population of the March to a union with Rome. Even after the appointment of a Uniate bishop for the March in 1671, who seemed suitable both to the court in
Vienna and to the Roman curia, the military authorities were not willing to cause unrests among the Orthodox population and the clergy in the March, and did not insist on enforcing the union. Therefore they questioned the ecclesiastical rights of the Uniate bishops in March and denied them support in their conflicts with the monks and the clergy who were
unwilling to accept them as legitimate bishops appointed by the court in Vienna, rather than chosen independently by the clergy and the people of the March. The position of the Uniate bishops in the March was additionally weakened by the fact that the court in Vienna had relied on the Orthodox Church hierarchy led by Patriarch
Arsenius III. Crnojević during the War of the Holy League, who was thus granted considerable privileges. The Uniate bishops of the March lost their influence among the population in most of their former area of jurisdiction, surviving only in the territory of the Varaždin Generalate and with a small number of believers, and eventually they were also forced to abandon their base at the monastery of Marča. The directive on the subjection of the Uniate bishops to the Roman Catholic ones in those dioceses where they performed the function of vicars for Christians of the Greek rite, which also contributed to the rejection of the union by the Orthodox Christians, was changed only during the rule of Maria Theresa, but could at that point no longer help recover the lost influence of the Uniate/Greek Catholic hierarchy in the Monarchy.
Ključne riječi
ecclesiastical union; Protestantism; Orthodox Christianity; Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation; Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom; Croatian-Slavonian Military March; the Habsburgs; Bishopric of Marča; Bishopric of Zagreb; Patriarchate of Peć
Hrčak ID:
126549
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.7.2014.
Posjeta: 2.602 *