CHURCH AND STATE
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ceeded in eaRying out these theories folly in practice. The emperors and lungs, aided in general by the laity and a large number of the clergy, opposed the papal claims, in spite of all the excommunications which were hurled against them. Even men like Bernard of ClairvBux expressed their dissent fh)m these ultra- papal dieories. The last pope who endeavored to en- foroe these daims was Bonifitce Y III, who, in his no- torious boll, Unam Sanetam, maintained it to be neces- sary for salvation to believe that the Roman popes had power over ever3rtliing on earth. Boniface had to pay for this extraordinary assumption of power with im- prisonment and ill-treatment wliich caused his death. The tnnsfer of the papal see to Avignon, and subse- quently the Great Schism, were fotal blows to the practical execution of the medieval theory of Church and State, although the theory itself was never foi^ mally renounced, and the notorious bull, Ufutm Sane- torn, of Bonifkoe YIII, which, as fiir as France was concerned, had been revoked by one of the Avignon popes (Clement Y), was formally restored by Leo X in 1516. But the popes had not sufficient power to prevent the emperors and kings finom passing laws by wliidi the rights of the state governments were en- larged, and many salutary reforms introduced into the diorcbes.
7. From the SefanuUion to thepreteia 7%ns.— The great reformers <^ the 16th century — Luther, Calvin, Zwinglins, Melancthon, and others — ^were all agreed in condemning the conftision by the Churdi of Rome of spiritual and secular power. They all insisted on keeping the two powers apart, and especially in their earlier writings fiivored the self-government of the Church. But these views were not consistently car- ried through. As all the bishops opposed the reform of the Church, the princes and the municipal govern- ments were invited by the reformers to see to the ex- ecution of the Church reform, and to the reconstruction of the Reformed churches. No provision being made for a common bond of union between the Reformed churches in different countries, the power of the state government in each particular country over the Church grew almost without opposition. To thb must be add- ed that most of the reformers adhered to the idea of a Christian state whose authorities were invested with the right to punish those who denied the fhndamental doctrines of Christianity. See Sbrvbti78. Thus State-Churchism was established in all the Lutheran and Reformed countries, and developed the more rap- idly, as the churches had never so powerful a repre- sentative as the Church of Rome had had during the Middle Ages. The constant effbrts of the Roman Catholic states to root out Protestantism by force nat- oranj led to retaliatory measures on the part of Pro- testant princes, and thus the dangerous principle came gradoally to be developed, Cujiu regio tjus rdigio (the religion of a country must conform to that of the prince). The application of Uiis principle led, on the one himd, to many and bloody wars, but, on the other, it indnced tiie Roman Catholic princes to claim, like the Protestant princes, a greater influence over relig- ions affairs than the popes had ever conceded during the Middle Ages. The success of the Reformation had shown the weakness of the popes, and their oppo- sition to the radical changes in the relation of tlie Charch of Rome to the states was more nominal than efficient. The last coronation of an emperor of the West by the pope was that of Charles V in 1530. The popes protested in 1648 against the peace of Westpha- lo, in 1701 against the creation of a kingdom of I^s- Bia, and in 1815 against the treaty of Yienna, but all these and similar acts had no influence whatever.
The growth of rationalism and infidelity in the 17th uid 18th centuries accustomed princes and statesmen to regard the churches as part of the state organism, and jnst as absolutely subject to the government of «very territory as the civil administration. This is the
STB of the territorial system, the period of the great- est debasement of the Christian churches. Nearly all the Church assemblies, viz. the convocations in Eng- land ; the national S3mods and general assemblies of the Protestant churches in France, Germany, and other countries ; the national, provincial, and diocesan syn- ods of the Church of Rome, wer»forbidden, or foil into general disuse. In the Church of Rome, during this period, the claims of the pope were not only denied by the state governments, but strenuous efforts were made in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries to re- duce the papal |»erogatives in matters purely ecclesi- astical, and to increase tliat of the bishops and of the national churches. These efforts, however, were less successful than those of the state governments.
The French Revolution of 1789 shook the structure of society of Europe, political as well as ecclesiastica], to its very foundations. The principles of the Revolu^ tion 'did not prevaQ, but the governments of Europe ' saw the necessity of reconstructing the administration of the states. Several important changes date i^m the Congress of Yienna in 1815. The long alliances of Protestant and Roman Catholic governments in the war against France, and the territorial changes intro- duced by the Congress of Yienna, led to an interchange of toleration, as far as the Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic churches were concerned. Some states recognised all three as state churches, entitled to sup- port by the state governments; and in most of the others there was at least a gradual approach to giving to tiie members of the three churches equality of politi- I cal rights. The relation of the Itoman Catholic Church, I in both Roman Catholic and Protestant countries, to , the pope was regulated by concordats and conventions [see CoirooBDATs], which stipulated what rights the state governments should allow the pope to exercise upon tiie Church of a particular countiy, and what in- fluence the state governments (even the Protestant) should have upon the election of bishops, the appoint- ment of other ecclesiastical dignitaries, the dbrection , of Roman Catholic schools, the management of Church [ property, and other denominational afikirs. In the I Protestant churches, a consciousness awoke of the un- worthy servitude into which the Church had been forced j in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the demand grew stronger and stronger for the restoration of at least a part of the self-government of the churches, by means of convocations, synods, assemblies, and councils. A new impulse was given to these demands by the rev- olutionary movements of the year 1848, and by the agitation for political reforms which has since been I going on in nearly all the European states. The reg- ular convocation of elective Church assemblies, and the transfer to them of a greater or lesser part of the gov- ernment of the Church, has, since 1848, been the gen- eral tendency in all the Protestant churches of Europe. As regards the Church of Rome, public opinion more and more declared itself against the conclusion of con- cordats, and in fkvor of a regulation of the Roman Catholic affairs of every particular country by special laws, due regard being had to the recognition by the Roman Catholics of the pope as the head of the Church. While the Lutheran and Reformed churches assumed almost ftom their very beginning the character of state churches, a number of minor sects sprang up in the 16th and the following centuries, which, meeting, on the hand of the state governments, with nothing but persecution, were led to demand tiom the state not only toleration for themselves, but freedom of re- ligious belief in generaL Especially was this the case in England, where the Nonconformists gained greater strength and influence thab any dissenters on the Continent of Europe, and became true pioneers of the principle of a complete separation between Church and state. Persecution drove many of the dissenters to the New World, and here their principles found a genial soiL In some of the colonies Church and State