32. Происхождение реформации и отделение разных христианских обществ от Римско-Католической Церкви

From the middle of the 11th century, when the union of the Western Church with the Orthodox East was broken, papal power became more and more elevated. The famous Pope Gregory VII, who occupied the papal throne from 1073 to 1086, especially contributed to her rise. The reign of this pope includes that unheard of case of humiliation of royal power, when the German Emperor Henry IV stood hungry for three cold winter days (in January), in the clothes of a penitent, barefoot in front of the palace where the pope lived, asking him for forgiveness. At the end of the 11th century, the Crusades began. They were undertaken with the goal of liberating holy places and Eastern Christians from the power of infidels, but power-hungry popes also directed them to increase their power. Gradually rising, papal power reached its zenith under Pope Innocent III, who ruled the Roman Church from 1198 to 1216; not only did the entire West recognize her and be submissive to her, but all the patriarchal thrones in the East were occupied by persons subject to the pope. But from that time on, the power of the popes, albeit gradually, began to decline. Jealousy for the Crusades, so ardent at first, subsequently began to cool, and with it the strongest support for the popes began to fall. With the development of enlightenment in the West, the illegality of papal claims and those deviations from Orthodoxy that the popes allowed in the Western Church became clearer and clearer. To pacify their opponents, the popes resorted to cruel measures (the Inquisition), which further irritated the dissatisfied. Finally, bold and determined opponents of papal power began to appear, who in the fight against it saw their calling and the purpose of life and who were not afraid of any executions. Of these opponents of the papacy, the most notable are the Briton Wyclef in the 14th century and the Bohemian John Hus in the 15th century. In the middle of the 15th century, a strong movement began in the West towards the study of the classical languages ​​and literature of ancient peoples, known as humanism. This movement especially intensified with the migration of Greeks to the West after the fall of the Greek Empire in 1453 and clearly took on a character opposed to the papacy. But Western Christians, for whom the popes deliberately blocked the path to spiritual enlightenment (for example, by forbidding the laity to read the Bible), did not know how to distinguish the innovations of the papacy from the eternal truths of the Christian faith preserved by the Church (a misconception that exists in our time), and transferred irritation against the popes to the entire Church. Disbelief began to spread in literature and society. At that time, attempts were made to transform the Western Church: the 16th century represents a number of such attempts, almost simultaneous, in different places. These reformers (Luther in Germany, Zwinglius and Calvin in Switzerland) acted under the influence of irritation against the popes and were carried away by passions, but at the same time they were animated by good intentions - to save faith in the midst of spreading unbelief. They had remarkable talents, good personal qualities and unyielding willpower. For all this, history classifies them among the great figures. But they, firstly, took upon themselves a task that was beyond the strength not only for private people, but even for local councils (as was proven by the councils that preceded them for the same purpose in Pisa, Constance, Basel), and secondly, with their remarkable learning in the field of theology, Western reformers had very vague concepts about the Orthodox Eastern Church, in which they could see a model of the Apostolic Church. As a result, the attempts of the reformers suffered from contradictions with each other and themselves and obvious inconsistency. At first free-thinking, in the end they resorted to cruel measures of despotism and could not keep the people within the boundaries that they expected. Therefore, they managed to tear away a significant part of the Western Church (about 90 million) from the Popes of Rome, but not only did they not return it to Orthodoxy, but alienated it even more. – Pope Gregory VII, while still an archdeacon, under the name of Hildebrant, led four popes. He outlined the ideal of papal power, which he and his successors strove to fulfill. Gregory likens it to the light of the sun, and compares the power of emperors and kings to the shine of the moon. Just as the moon borrows its brilliance from the sun, so the secular power of emperors and kings, in his opinion, takes its strength and significance from the power of the pope. If they act against the will of the pope, then they can and should be deprived of their power, and their place is taken by other persons who are more obedient to the pope. One of the weapons that the pope used against sovereigns who disobeyed him was the interdict, when the entire people were subjected to church prohibition for the sins of the rulers: churches were closed, sacred rites and the fulfillment of duties were stopped; the people, suddenly deprived of the consolations of religion, began to worry, and the disobedient sovereigns humbled themselves. You might be interested in: