Christianity has been relocated from the
Middle East to Europe under Constantine the Great who legalized it in the Roman
Empire. Until AD 1000 there were no major distinctions within Christianity. It
was largely for political reasons that the split happened between the Western
and Eastern churches. Before that, the churches were organized as Bishoprics,
governed by the bishop and constituted in certain locations. In addition there
was no hierarchy among them until gradually the Bishop of Rome (West) and
Bishop of Constantinople (East) emerged as superiors. Different interpretation
of the trinity is the main cause of this division. Although they were separate
they have not fought and the disputed points did not escalate. Ottomans
pressured them to unite but they remained separate inside Catholicism. However,
the Catholic sect did not remain unchallenged.
One of the first challenges came from Luther
who was a churchman and university professor in Wittenberg, Germany. In 1517 he
posted the famous ’95 Theses’ on his church door and news spread rapidly. He
was critical of the selling of indulgences and many other wrongdoings of the
Catholic Church. For three years nobody acted against him and the Protestant
Reformation has started. The northern humanists who were also critical of the
papacy influenced him. They were on dangerous ground since they were sometimes
labeled as heretics.
When Charles V was elected as the emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire, papacy and the empire joined forces to against Martin
Luther. In 1521 after his interrogation, Luther fled as he was put under
enormous pressure. However, he did not take his words back and said that his
conscious as a Christian can only be persuaded by the word of God. The next
years he hides in castles under the protection of Frederick and translated the
old and new testaments. Although the Pope excommunicated him, his supports grew
in the next years. This led to the Spiers Diet in 1526, when an Imperial diet
meeting took place. The Lutherans achieved a majority momentarily and passed an
agreement for relative religious freedom. In the second Spiers diet meeting in
1529 Catholics achieved a majority and this relative religious freedom was
abolished and reversed. Lutherans left the meeting and adopted a declaration
among them, starting with the words ‘we declare that…’ which gave them the name
‘protestants’ later. After this declaration the Schmalkaldic league was formed
in 1531. An open warfare with Catholic started and went on for the next 25
years inside the Germanic Empire.
The religious peace of Augsburg of 1555
ended this conflict, when they allowed their subjects to choose their own
sects. This has also spread into the Holy Roman Empire, France (Catholics
versus Huguenots), the Netherlands, and Catholic Spain. When the Dutch became
Protestants, they revolt against Catholic Spaniards and carried out a war of
independence against them. In France, many influential intellectuals, officials
became Protestants, named as Huguenots. This arose a tense situation in Paris
around the king and within aristocracy, while both sides were hostile to each
other. The Catholics were looking for an opportunity to attack them. Massacres
happened in the St. Barthlomew’s night, on which the a royal wedding of king’s
sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre was taking place. The
Huguenot leadership was curbed and they fled to Mediterranean. Although the
Protestants were wounded they continued to survive and the Nantes Edict of
Tolerance of 1598 was a critical moment for them. A dynastic crisis due to the rival
candidates for French thrown occurred. Although Henry had the support but he was
a Huguenot and as long as he remained so, it was likely for him to not be
accepted. He thought that taking Paris is worth converting to Catholicism. Hence,
he converted to Catholicism and was accepted as the king of France. He also
announced a public decree stating that Protestants and Catholics are equal
subjects in France, so they have to respect each other. Religious violence
ended inside France as a result.
Apart from religious wars between
Catholicism and Protestantism, more splits started to occur inside the Catholic
Church. And the Church of England is a vivid example of this disintegration. Church
in the medieval times was like a transnational cooperation cutting across all
kingdoms and claiming superiority above all of them. Since the lands of the
church were the accepted as the property of God, they were immune to taxation.
When states faced liquidity starve, they started eying the territories in a greedy
fashion. Henry VIII took two crucial steps: confiscating of all the monastery
properties and proclaiming that he has taken the church of England away from
the papacy. Hence their church was nationalized and took orders directly from
the king. Although in theory the Anglican Church was still Catholic it was no
longer subservient of Rome. The Pope excommunicates Henry the VIII while he
continues to suppress the ones who are in favor of the Roman Catholic Church
(called the papist). This Anglicanism versus Catholicism, piracy and conspiracy
to get rid of Elizabeth (who was the only Anglican candidate after the death of
Henry the VIII) led to the journey of Spanish Armada in 1588.
Philipp II decides to conquest England and
gathers a big army called as Armada. It turns out to be a military disaster as
he neglected a fundamental principle of military operation: if you are planning to invade a country you
must make sure to eliminate the other enemies that might stand on your way. Overlooking
this fact, the Spanish armada sailed to the English channel, the English navy
attacked them not from side to side but by long distance fire. As a result the Spanish
navy was destroyed in 1588. Europe became more divided between the Protestant
north and Catholic South, leading to Thirty Years’ War between 1618 and 1648. In
the meanwhile, the English Civil War (or the English Revolution) burst out
between the Puritan supporters of the parliament and the Charles I of the
Catholic Stuart dynasty. Forces of Protestants led by Oliver Cromwell, defeated
the royal forces and Charles I was captured and beheaded.
These wars and conflicts came to an end with
the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Mutual tolerance was accepted, though it
arrived in a bloody and tortious way. Both Protestants and Catholics were
equally good as citizens. Loyalty was not based on the sect but the nation.
This soon led to nationalism as the rulers had to find a base for tutelage.
Another principle of loyalty had to be implemented, that was not just limited
to Catholics and Protestant. After the wars of religion, Christianity
reconciled on the basis of explicit formulation of tolerance. It extends to 19th
c. and the colonialized people. Christianity as once an abstract thing was
formulated, acquired a life of itself. In addition an ideological framework was
created which can get different shapes in time with regard to Jews, blacks,
colonial people.
After summarizing the conflicts between the
churches, some information regarding the Medieval Church will be given. The
Church in the Middle Ages if basically an organized faith and religious
organization, keeps preaching Christianity, propagating and making sure that community
of believers conforms to certain Christian principals and practices. It has
been the force of solidarity and social bounding. As a physical building, it
became the house of the living and abode of the dead. Because territory is
holy, the dead was buried in the yard and all marriages were also be registered
here. All sacraments – baptism, the mass (right of the Eucharist), marriage x
celibacy, regular confession of sins, extreme unction- were administrated by
the church. There was also the he doctrine of Papal Infallibility, starting
with St. Peter as the 1st successor of Jesus who inherited his
infallibility which is passed on to the other Popes. It was politically and
economically very powerful, as it collects all kinds of taxes from the
faithful. Moreover the church was the biggest landowner, in each country
possesses huge lands – monasteries. Rich people donate for the salvation of
souls. There were Church estates in the name of bishops, while peasants and
serves were working and turning over the surplus to the church. It was also the
source of knowledge, ultimately everything based on revelation, traceable and
answerable by the holy scripts. From AD 1000 onwards this situation changed as
it entered into conflict with other newly emerging authorities based on three
questions.
Investiture, meaning the question of
whenever a certain bishopric is empty who has the authority to appoint a new
one. Previously it was obvious that the pope had the ultimate right, but the
Kings challenged it from the high middle ages onwards. In 1077, German emperor
Heinrich wants to appoint the bishop in his country, Gregory V rejects and
excommunicates him. But his princes turn against him to decrease the emperor’s
power. As a result Gregory V asks for pardon to restore his authority in
Germany, and enters into northern Italy. Pope barricades himself in the castle
of Canossa and makes him wait outside. The second challenge arises due to the
confusion of which law to apply when someone is tried in the court. As the
state formation proceeds the royal courts develop more and refused to use the
Canon law of the church. Lastly, as mentioned before the Church is the bigger
landowner and its lands are immune to taxes. As state develops it needs more
taxes. Especially in 15th and 16th centuries more money
in cash needed due to fiscal starvation. And rulers looked around for
additional sources of income and gave themselves the royal right to tax even
the lands of the Church. But it keeps branding the kings as heresies and
suppressing them violently and wins most of the wars. However, its prestige
kept eroding between 1300 and 1510s due to several events.
In the beginning of 1300s, France is a very
wealth country and it faces a Strong challenge from pope, publishes a
declaration beginning with ‘Unam sanctam…’ (over we claim authority). A new
Pope gets elected and moves to Avignon and soon moves back to Rome. But soon
after 1378 – 1417, schism occurred, as there were three popes in Rome and
Avignon at the same time. Cardinals cannot meet in full. Each was claiming of
being the true and one pope, the others as anti-Christ. But actually all of
them were virtual puppets of the kings. Popes are supposed to be morally good
and infallible, and there should only be one pope in a given time. Huge
councils were brought together to put an end to this situation. The Church was
once again united, with a more collective decision-making process while
maintaining also the royal despotism.
The Italian wars once again ruined the
reputation. The papacy was also a small state in Italy that has created armies
to attack and expand its own territory. The common perception was that the
Papacy should not be doing this. As it will make the Church no better than
others in spiritual terms. There was secular supremacy of politics over the
religious. Moreover starting in the 15th century the great movement
of brilliance of architecture, culture and painting called ‘Renaissance’ has
also changed the minds of people. Especially northern Italy has grown wealthy
and urbanized. This wealth was based on maritime trade, spice and silk root,
textiles and banking activities. Growing rich led families to compete against
each other for the supremacy in the same city. Paintings, statues, and
architectural designs were the means of competition, since the objects of
consumption became the signs of prestige. Papacy became just another rich family
involved in this competition that alienated people further. Printing press has
facilitated the spread of ideas against the church in a rapid pace.
Further reasons can be categorized as
political factors. The Catholic counter-reformation is the alliance between the
papacy and emperor to act against Luther. It was also the attempt of the church
to re-order and re-align, undertake reforms to tighten up itself and create new
mechanisms of control. The society of Jesus was also formed as the
ultra-militant branch of the Catholic church that supported also the
counter-reformation movement. The Holy Office was created in Spain for the
Reconquista movement against Muslims and Jews. Censorship was used to put under
control the rapid circulation of information. Anybody in the Christian lands
who want to be published cannot just take their writings to the printers. They
first have to be officially approved otherwise the punishment was inquisition.
If it was in line with the standards, the book was stamped as ‘nihil obstat
imprimatur’. This unstoppable repressive apparatus was rooted deep down in the
lowest level of society, which has its reflection in the political police of
today.