Vatican

8.1. Vatican

The papal States is the center of the catholic world. In the context of the offered conception, we deal with a specific object. The history of Vatican cannot be examined at the national level, as the territory of the state is only 4.4 km², and the population is about 1 thousand people, mainly Catholic chaplains and the Swiss Guards. However, the state of Vatican as the embodiment of spiritual authority of the Catholic Church that has a global spreading, exerted the influence on the course of history. That is why, in our opinion, it is rightful to show the hypothetical scheme of development of the epochal cycles of Vatican.

The first epochal cycle began on the boundary of Anno Domini since the revolutionary period, whose content was the birth of Christianity as a world religion and a gradual creation of Church structures. The specific event, symbolizing this phase of development, may be the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine (68-69 AD). The involutionary stage of the first epochal cycle (70-313 AD) has, as its content, the struggle between the nascent Christian Church with the state machinery of the Roman Empire. That was the period of mass terror against Christians. In 313 AD, the Milanese edict on the latitude in religion, which turned Christianity into the state religion, was published, and the co-evolutionary stage of the cycle began. Chronologically, this phase continued till 395 when the Roman Empire split into the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. For the analysis, it is important that this event legalized the differences between the Western and Eastern Christianity.

The evolutionary stage is connected with the history of decline and downfall of the Western Roman Empire (395-476 AD). During this period, the temporal power of Roman Popes is strengthening. They tried to organize a rebuff to Barbarian attacks. But to realize such intentions without necessary material and military resources turned out to be impossible. The subsequent events of VI-VII centuries turned the papal throne into the small change of Barbarian kings, who occupied an ambivalent position. On the one side, in interests of the reinforcement of their political influence, they gradually Christianized, on the other side, they shamelessly robbed Christians.

The situation was overcome by the formal creation of the papal States (756), followed by the victory of the king of franks Pippinus Brevis over Langobards and consolidation of the territory under Pope Stefan III[60]. These events symbolize the revolutionary phase of the second epochal cycle. The content of the new involutionary period (760-800) was a gradual strengthening of Pope’s position in spiritual and civilian affairs of Europe, reaching its culmination with the coronation of Carolus Magnus (800). The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle may be the turn to the policy of intense Christianization of Barbarian nations of the Old continent (800-846). The evolutionary period lasts from 846 through 960 when the growing authority of Rome favored the organization of an attempt of giving a rebuff to the Arabian attacks at the Southern Italy (846) and stimulated the creation of the Holy Roman Empire in 960. In fact, it meant combining the dominative possibilities of Germanic emperors with the spiritual influence of the Holy See and represented «marriage of convenience».

At the same time, growing contradictions between the Eastern and the Western Christianity led to the disruption of the Church to the Catholic and Orthodox ones in 1054. These revolutionary events opened a new epochal cycle of development of Vatican. The Lateran Synod of 1059 concluded that the only electorate of the Pope is the College of Cardinals but not civil feudalists. The content of the involutionary stage of the cycle is the exacerbation of struggle for the supremacy in the feudalist hierarchy between spiritual and civil powers. The most important event became the «travel» of Germanic emperor Heinrich IV to Canossa (1077), that led to a natural weakening of both the spiritual and civil powers and to the spread of heretical sects on the territory of Western Europe. The activity of Pope Innocentius (1198-1216), the symbol of the milestone in the history of Vatican and creation of the Dominican Society in 1215, which prepared the personnel for the Inquisition, was the co-evolutionary phase of development. The history of this period is marked by the activity of such prominent theologians as St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Albertus Magnus (1206-1280), and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In the following evolutionary period of the cycle (1216-1309), the fall of authority of the Catholic Church and its structures took place. It was favored by low moral qualities of Popes, the acquisitiveness of the church, and the growth of prices of indults.

The political subordination of the papacy to French kings became an obligate consequence of the events described above. It was the so-called Avignon capture of popes that became the symbol of social revolution and marked the beginning of the fourth epochal cycle. The further events reflected the tendency to a strengthening of national hierarchies of the Catholic Church. The remarkable event of the involutionary period of the cycle became the plague epidemic in Western Europe (1348-1349), which not only cut the number of parishioners but undermined the faith. The spirit of tendencies was reflected in the activity of John Wyclif, the professor of theology at Oxford (1320-1384), who demanded abolishment of the pope system and secularizing the property of the Church. His ideas did non gain a wide social support then. The co-evolutionary (reformist) phase of the cycle is connected with the activity of Jan Hus (1369-1415). He was the very person who created the necessary spiritual atmosphere for the future Reformation. The fight of the Catholic hierarchy, well-equipped by the civil authority against the Czech taborits defeated ultimately in 1434, became the repetition of religious wars in Europe.

The evolutionary phase of the cycle lasts from the Florentian Union (1439) – a formal union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, aimed to save Constantinople from the Turks – to the commencement of the Reformation (1517). In this period, the Inquisition becomes more active, as was guided by the instructions given in «Massacre of Witches» (1487). But a decrease of authority of the traditional Catholic Church structures was not stopped by any means.

The revolutionary stage of the fifth epochal cycle is identified with the beginning of the Reformation (1517) – the declaration of Martin Luther’s 95 theses including the demand for abolishment of indults, justification of faith regardless of Catholic structures, cheap church, and the possibility of worship in national languages. As a result of the partial victory of the Reformation, the influence of the Catholic Church decreased. That is the content of the involution phase of the cycle. Vatican’s attempts to restore its positions by means of the Counter-Reformation resulted in the mass terror of the Inquisition, prohibition of freethinking (during 1559-1966, «Indices of Prohibited Books» were regularly published). The involutionary phase lasted to 1648, till the end of the war between coalitions of Catholic and Protestant states.

The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (1648-1656) was connected, firstly, with the renewal of Vatican’s control over national catholic hierarchies of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy and, secondly, with the creation of the Protestant church hierarchy. The evolutionary phase of the cycle (1665-1789) is connected with the fight of the papacy for preserving its influence upon national states. The process became particularly critical because of the struggle for integration of Italy. The Great French Revolution (1789-1792) delivered a blow at the Holy See. The Italian campaign of Napoleon livened up the activity of Italian patriots, directed against the papal States. The Pope became the prisoner of the revolutionary situation which opened the sixth epochal cycle.

In the following involutionary stage (1801-1870), the forces of the united Italy, notwithstanding the proclaimed principle of Pope’s infallibility, liquidated the papal States. The co-evolutionary phase of the cycle (1871-1880) included a further desecularization of life in most European countries. The bright example was the Kulturkampf of Bismarck in the German Empire and the Pope’s declaration of being a king’s prisoner. In the evolutionary period of the cycle (1880-1928), the Catholic structures tuned themselves to the new tendencies of development. «The separation of the Church and the State», the forced refusal from attempts of dictating moral and law norms to parishioners, the acknowledgement of the principle «render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's» opened the way for reconciliation between Vatican and the Italian state.

The revolutionary phase of the seventh epochal cycle began with the Lateran agreements between Benito Mussolini and the Pope on creation of the State of the town of Vatican with the rights of a political subject (1929-1933). In the following involutionary period, the Concordat with Hitler is realized, and a struggle with the godless Soviet regime grows. Vatican is trying to preserve the Church’s institutions under the conditions of the Second World War and takes the function of the spiritual shield of the Christian civilization. The co-evolutionary phase may be hypothetically linked to the Second Vatican Synod (1962-1966), which became a successful attempt of modernization of the Catholic Church. During this period, the worship in national languages was allowed, national Episcopal conferences were established, the representatives of which formed the Pope Synod, and «The Index of Prohibited Books» was abolished. The evolutionary stage of development (since 1966) includes such important events as the election of Karol Voityla (John Paul II) to the Holy See against the 400-year monopoly of Italians, the display of new tendencies of the informational society – the creation of Vatican’s web page in the Internet (1997), public discussions on virtual confession, women’s right to be priests, permissibility of aborts, etc.

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