general recognition of the important right of confirming the election of all the bishops. One of the leading feat- ures of the Roman Catholic system — the absolute su- premacy of the pope as vicar of Jesus Christ and head of the Church in all ecclesiastical aftairs — is largely due to the influences proceeding from Gregory VII and his successors. The fundamental idea of Gregory VH, how- ever, was never fully carried out. He had clearlj- con- ceived the plan of converting the Roman Catholic Church into a universal theocracy, with the pope at its head as sole sovereign in temporal affairs as well as spiritual. According to this view, all states of the Christian name were to be bound together in the unity of the papal theocracy as members of one body. The princes receive their consecration and divine sanction through the ecclesiastical power; they are appointed "by the grace of God;" but the Church mediates be- tween them and God. Royalty sustains to the papacy the same relation as the moon to the sun, receiving from it its light and its heat. The divine authority with which secidar powers are clothed by the Church can therefore be again withdrawn by the Church when the secidar powers misuse it. With the withdrawal of this authority ceases also the liability of the subjects to obe- dience. The gigantic efforts made by the mediajval popes, from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, to enforce these views fill some of the most int^'resting pages of the history of the Middle Ages. By the semi-military organization of the religious t)rders, the popes had a well- disciplined anti trustworthy corps of officers at their dis- posal, who frequently fought their battles even when bishops ceased to side with them. The Crusades, though in the first place aiming at the deliverance of the holy sepulchre, repeatedly supplied the popes with a willing army for coercing hostile princes. None of the suc- cessors of Gregory attained so great a power and came so near realizing the establishment of the papal theocra- cy as Innocent HI. In the struggle against his succes- sors, the noble house of Hohenstaufen perished; but soon the kings of France checked the theocratic aspirations of the popes, and the imprisonment of Boniface VHI by the French made a breach in the theocratic edifice reared bj' Gregory VII and his successors which has never been repaired. The right to depose princes and release their subjects from the oath of allegiance was not ex- pressly disowned by the popes, but it ceased to involve any practical danger, and was clearly repudiated hy the Church. The transfer of the papal residence, which made the popes disgracefully dependent upon the French kings, and, still more, the papal schism, during which two, or at times three, popes hurled against each other the most terrible anathemas, undermined to a large ex- tent the respect which Catholic countries had thus far had for the ))apal authority, an<l rajiidly diffused the belief that the Church was pervaded by corruption, and that it needed a thorough reformation in its head and members. Such a reformation was sincerely attempted by the great councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, which not only endeavored to eradicate many flagrant aljuses in the practical life of the Church, but to reduce the constitution of the Church from a ]iapal absolutism to an episcopal constitutionalism by expressly declaring the superiority of a general council over the pope. The success of this scheine would have shaped the subse- quent development of the Roman Catholic Church verv (lifferent from what it has been; but the astuteness of the jiopes knew how to thwart the manifest reformatory desires of the majority of the bishops, to stifle the cries for a Church reformation, and to reimpose upon a reluc- tant Church the papal authorit}-, at least in matters of an ecclesiastical nature.
While Western Europe became politically reorgan- ized un<ier Teutonic leadership, and ecclesiastically cen- tralized as the Roman Catholic Church under the lead- ersliip of the bishops of Rome, the Eastern churches re- tained substantially the constitution of the Old Catholic Church of the early centuries. The Council of Nice rec-
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 73 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
Ofi;iiised the higher authority of the metropolitan bish- ops of Rome, Aiitioch, and Alexandria. Tliis higher authority was subsequently expressed in tlie title "pa- triarch." Later, the bishops of Constantinople and Je- rusalem were added to the number of patriarchs, and the growing importance of the city of Constantinople gradually made the bishop of the city the first among the Eastern patriarchs, a distinction which was express- ly sanctioned by the Concilium Qiiinisexttim of G92. Tlie Church of those times was greatl}"^ agitated by contro- versies relating to the Person and Work of Christ. East and West united in the wish to preserve the doc- trinal unit}' of the Church on those important subjects; and oecumenical councils, in which both sections were represented, defined the creed of the Church and ex- pelled the dissenters from her communion. Whether at these councils any prerogative, honorary or other- wise, was conceded to the patriarchs of Rome contimies to be a subject of theological controversy; but even Ro- man Catholic writers do not claim that the bishops of Rome can be proved to have asserted any superior juris- diction in any of the other patriarchal dioceses. Grad- ually some different views sprang up between the East and West relating to questions of constitution, doctrine, and worship. The most important of these controver- sies was that relating to the procession of the Holy Ghost. See Filioque. In the course of the 9th cen- tury the controversy grew into a serious dissension, and in the course of the 11th it led to a formal and perma- nent schism. Many attempts at reconciliation and re- union have since been made, but they were either un- successful, or. if successful for a time, without duration. See Grkek Cicurcii.