No other ruler in history has had such power over human souls that the Roman Catholic Fathers, the popes, had. For evil or good did they use it? And are the pontiffs who have been sitting on the throne of St. Peter for the second millennium so sinless?
Divide and rule
Surprisingly, many Christian clergymen were originally called popes. So called ("pappas" - in translation from the Greek "father") until the VI century, all bishops, and even earlier - any priests who had the right to bless. But already a century later, at the beginning of the 7th century, only the Roman bishop was titled pope.
Until that time, Christians did not need to elect a chief "priest", since in fact they were outside the law in the Roman Empire. All the bishops were essentially only administrators of church property, but each of them still strove to gain superiority over the others. As a result, by the 4th century, five dioceses acquired the greatest influence: the Roman (where the first bishop, according to legend, was the Apostle Peter himself), Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. And when, by the beginning of the 5th century, Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire, these dioceses were made patriarchal, and all the rest obeyed them. In addition to the patriarchate, the Pope was given the rank of great pontiff, high priest of the city of Rome.
However, along with great power, the Pope also acquired many problems to be solved. The great empire, by that time already divided into Western and Eastern, was continuously besieged by one or another savage tribes. The pontiffs now and then fell to the diplomatic mission of appeasing the pagans. At the same time, their position required efforts to convert the attacking savages to the light of the Catholic faith. Sometimes the efforts bore fruit, for example, by the middle of the 7th century, the Franks and Anglo-Saxons converted to Catholicism.
Another difficulty was that the territory of the Western Roman Empire eventually turned out to be divided into duchies, actively fighting among themselves for Rome. The popes in this situation had to maneuver between different political forces in search of temporary or permanent allies. The defender of the papal throne was found in the lands of the Franks. The first of the Carolingians, Pepin III the Short, in exchange for anointing himself and his sons as emperors of the West, conquered his own territory for the pope (the Papal States existed intermittently from 752 to 1870), which greatly increased the political weight of the Holy See.
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Church and political power
In general, the papacy of the Middle Ages was not only a religious office. Popes constantly intervened in world politics, as a rule, pursuing not the maintenance of Christian values, but completely secular, often even personal interests.
During the era of the Crusades, the power of the Catholic popes spread to new countries in Asia and the Balkans. From the countries conquered by the crusaders, incredible wealth flowed like a river into the treasury of the Holy See. The popes received all new means of influencing the European princes. One of them was indulgence - absolution for a year or a whole life for godly deeds (for example, participation in a crusade). Those who were not submissive to the will of the church were deprived of its grace: at first private individuals were excommunicated, but then the time came for interdicts - the excommunication of regions or entire states. In such territories, it was forbidden to conduct all church ordinances: no one was baptized, no wedding ceremony, no funeral service, no confession and no absolution. In the future, the inhabitants of such places were expected to suffer the torments of hell, so they feared the interdict no less than the hellish fire.
Under fear of excommunication from the church, European rulers even took a vassal oath to the popes, as happened, for example, with John Lackland after England was excommunicated from the church in 1208.
However, not all rulers treated the Holy See with proper awe. Otherwise, the event known in history as the Avignon captivity of the popes would never have happened. From 1309 to 1378, the seat of the Holy See moved from Rome to the city of Avignon, under the arm of powerful French kings. The popes during this period, of course, were entirely French. And their captivity was rather relative. The governors of Saint Peter did not deny themselves either the luxury of a court or other joys of life. It was not in vain that the poet Petrarch, who visited Avignon at that time, disgustedly called the papal court "the Babylonian captivity."
Terrible age, terrible hearts
The Holy See constantly attracted the attention of people striving for power and simply unique, sometimes semi-legendary characters, whose bizarre biographies history has brought to us.
It would seem impossible, but among them there is even one woman. True, starting from the 16th century, the Roman Catholic Church began to express doubts about whether the pope really was, and today this story is presented as a legend. But in the middle of the 13th century, papal chaplain Martin Pole compiled the Chronicle of Popes and Emperors, which also included a story about a woman who, under the name of John VIII, occupied the papal throne for several years in the middle of the 9th century. The chronicle says that a woman, disguised as a man, studied theology and philosophy in Greece, then came to Rome, where she began to teach, and was known for her learning and piety. After the death of Pope Leo IV, she, under the name John of Mainz, was elected pope and held this position for about two and a half years. Perhaps she would have remained on the papal throne even longer,but got pregnant from one of the close ones and gave birth to a child right during the solemn procession to the Lateran Palace from St. Peter's Cathedral. The birth cost her her life. Since that time, when conducting processions with the participation of popes, a route has always been chosen that bypasses the place of Joanna's death.
If Pope John is simply declared non-existent, then some unworthy persons who have been on the papal throne are officially called antipopes. One of the most famous antipopes is John XXIII, the hereditary pirate Balthazar Cossa in the world. He was born on the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples and from the age of 13 he pirated under the leadership of his father and older brother. Once his ship was caught in a violent storm, and the pirate vowed to become a priest in case of salvation. Luck brought him to the service of the papal throne. Urban VI and his successors valued the cruel and unprincipled assistant, and in 1402 he was promoted to cardinal. Under the high patronage of Balthazar, he continued to do whatever he wanted: to engage in debauchery, extortion and other black deeds. After the death of another pope, Cardinal Cossa achieved the election of himself to the papal throne under the name of John XXIII and for four years he successfully ruled the Catholic world. In the end, he was overthrown and imprisoned, but soon the money opened the doors of the prison for him, and the rest of his days the former pope lived in Florence as a respectable city dweller.
The Catholic Church condemned the antipope. But in the history of the Holy See there are characters who have escaped public censure, despite all the works of their own hands. The most famous of these is the "apothecary of Satan" Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI. Rodrigo's occupation, apparently, chose at the moment when his own uncle took the Holy See under the name of Calixtus III. Not without family support, the young man received the post of cardinal, and then vice-chancellor of the Roman Church. He proved himself to be a good administrator and, being the master of vast estates, quickly achieved influence and wealth. And in 1492, when Pope Innocent VIII died, Borgia bribed the conclave and was elected pope under the name of Alexander VI. He remained in history as a far-sighted politician who considerably expanded the borders of the Papal States and made the Holy See even more powerful. But at the same time, this pope became famous for numerous illegitimate offspring, active trade in cardinal positions and a tendency to poisoning those who dared to stand in his way. According to legend, the pontiff himself died from poisoning - his corpse decomposed too quickly after his death. The Catholic Church did not advertise the evidence of the Borgia's activities, and they were lost among other secrets of the Holy See.
The eternal secrets of the Vatican
The Holy See traditionally jealously guards its secrets. It is not for nothing that crossed keys are depicted on the coat of arms of the Vatican: with one key, the heirs of St. Peter seem to open access to everything that interests them, and with the other they lock everything that the believers should not know.
No matter how many centuries have passed, the Vatican is in no hurry to reveal its secrets. Only in 2012 was the Lux in Arcana exhibition held in Rome, which barely opened the door to its archives. About 100 documents from the history of Europe and the whole world were presented to the attention of the curious. However, forming the exposition, the Vatican was a little deceitful: it included really interesting, but completely not mysterious documents - for example, the testimony of the Templars on 60 meters of parchment, the interrogation records of Galileo, the suicide note of Marie Antoinette, a letter from the Chinese princess to Pope Innocent X, written in silk.
100 documents are like an extensive fragment of a secret archive. However, the entire archive has 85 kilometers of shelving, and it probably hides a truly innumerable number of secrets that will never be revealed. Formally, access to the archive is open to scientists, but in fact, few people manage to get into the repository of the secrets of the Holy See: only 1,500 historians from all over the world manage to work there a year.
Ekaterina KRAVTSOVA