The Council of Florence is the seventeenth of the Church’s twenty-one ecumenical councils and achieved a short-lived union with most of the Orthodox Churches. It was convoked in 1431 by Pope Martin V and opened in Basel. However, Pope Eugene IV could not approve either the decrees of the Council of Basel or the refusal of many of its members to accept its transferral to a see acceptable to the Orthodox delegation. When he decreed the transferral of the council to Ferrara in 1438, some members of the assembly at Basel rejected his decision, declared him a heretic, elected an antipope, and continued to hold a conciliabulum in Basel. Emperor John VIII Palaiologus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and other Orthodox bishops arrived in Ferrara. However, at Ferrara there was the threat of plague and finances were running low. So, in 1439 the council was transferred once again, this time to Florence. There, the council issued the decree of union (Laetentur coeli), which defined the doctrines of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father and the Son, purgatory, papal primacy, and the validity of both Latin and Easter eucharistic liturgies.
In this interview, Fr. Thomas Crean OP discusses the Council of Florence and recommends some of the best books on it.
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Why was the Council of Florence convoked? The Council of Florence was convoked for several reasons. Most profoundly, of course, there was the longstanding division between Latin-speaking Christians of the West and Greek-speaking Christians of the East whose centre was Constantinople. There had long been a desire to heal this rift and eve several attempts to do.
The immediate motivation for the Council was the need of the Greek-speaking Christians to muster assistance and protection from the West against the Turkish threat to Constantinople. The emperors in Constantinople understood spiritual union between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox was a useful precondition for this to happen. Nevertheless, there was a lot of enthusiasm for reunion for much more profound reasons.
Was the Council of Florence held to comply with Gregory XII’s institution of regular councils in Frequens and Quanto Romanus Pontifex? The situation was complicated. There was a schism at the time. In Basel, there was a conciliarist council. A group of bishops denied that Pope had supreme authority in the Church but asserted that the council had it. Essentially, they were making the ecumenical council separate from the Pope and into the highest authority in the Church.
Both the Pope and the Council in Basel, which by this point had become a schismatic council were hoping that the Emperor in Constantinople would send his representatives to them and thereby vindicate their authority. In the end, he sent them to the Pope and to the bishops meeting with him in in Ferrara. Then, they moved to Florence.
This situation had arisen from the earlier councils that you mentioned and the decrees that ecumenical councils be held regularly. The popes then decided that they did not really like this measure but the schismatic council meeting in Basel had gone ahead to carry them out anyway. The Council of Florence did not exactly result from those earlier decrees. Rather, those decrees were relevant because they meant, when the Council of Florence began, a rival council was being held.
That explains why the two-volume Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils refers to the council held between 1431-1449 as the Basel-Ferrara-Florence-Rome Council. Why do we call it the Council of Ferrara-Florence, or simply Florence? It was transferred from Basel to Ferrara but not all agreed to this. Those who did not agree to be transferred became, what their opponents would call, a conciliabilum, namely, their own little council. Although there were quite a lot of bishops there, from the moment at which the Pope transferred that council from Basel to Ferrara, it was no longer recognised by the Catholic Church as an ecumenical council.
"Interestingly, Greek writers of the time who accepted the council do speak of it as an ecumenical council. They speak of it as the eighth ecumenical council, the first to follow Nicaea II."
In a 1974 letter to the President of the Secretariat for the Unity of Christians, Paul VI referred to Lyons II and the seven preceding medieval councils held in the West as general rather than ecumenical councils. Is Florence an ecumenical council or a general council of the Catholic Church? It is necessary to define terms, but I do not believe that Paul VI meant to say that earlier councils, such as Lyons II or Lateran IV, were not ecumenical councils. That would have been a reversal of the Catholic Church’s understanding them and their authority. Rather, he used the more modest phrase and called them “general councils of the West” because, at that point, only the West was in communion with Rome. He also used that more modest phrase to not annoy Eastern Orthodox, who do not recognise them as ecumenical councils because there was no Greek participation at them. So, Paul VI was not denying that those councils were ecumenical.
Florence, however, ticks all the boxes of an ecumenical council.
It had participation from West and East: from Latins and Greeks, and later on indeed from other separated Eastern churches. It had the consent of the pope but also the approval of the emperor in Constantinople and the four Eastern Patriarchs, who were either present or represented by their proxies. So, Florence fulfils the definition, both past and present, of an ecumenical council.
Interestingly, Greek writers of the time who accepted the council do speak of it as an ecumenical council. They speak of it as the eighth ecumenical council, the first to follow Nicaea II. For us Catholics, the other medieval ones count as ecumenical councils too.
"In the Greek speaking world, especially since the ninth century, the idea had emerged that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone."
What were the main doctrinal and disciplinary decrees of the Council of Florence? The question of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, or the Filioque, took up the vast majority of the time.
The question iswhether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as we Catholics profess in the Creed.
In the Greek speaking world, especially since the ninth century, the idea had emerged that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone. That is obviously incompatible with saying that he proceeds from the Father and the Son. This question needed to be thrashed out and was debated at great length, with much discussion of patristic texts.
Another topic discussed was the nature of purgatory. The Greeks were not happy with the idea of purgatorial fire. Interestingly, this was not because they thought the doctrine too severe but because it reminded them of Origen’s idea that there would a final reconciliation of the demons once they had passed through a purifying fire.
Anyway, this was not very difficult matter to resolve. The Latins explained that it was not obligatory to believe that there is a literal fire. Hence, the Greeks and the Latins came to an agreement about purgatory quite easily.
The other important issue that they discussed was that of liturgical rites. The main issue was the use of leavened rather than unleavened bread to confect the Eucharist. Historically, this had at times been a matter of great dispute. However, it did not cause too much trouble at Florence. It was agreed without much difficulty that Latins could rightfully use unleavened bread, and the Greeks leavened bread.
There was also the question of how the consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord is confected. Some of the Greeks claimed that it is confected by the invocation of the Holy Spirit: the so-called epiclesis. However, there was no epiclesis in the Roman Canon. Catholic theologians, therefore, claimed that it was confected, and the epiclesis accomplished, by the speaking the words of our Lord, “This is my body”: the words by which Christ instituted the sacrament. The Greek delegates agreed on this. Their real concerned was that they would not be forced to change their own liturgy. They were not and were given perfect freedom to carry on as they were.
What agreement did the Council of Florence reach on the Filioque? They agreed that the Father and the Son are one principle of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit. They agreed that the Son has it from the Father, because he has all that he is from the Father, be the with the Father the one principle of the eternal procession.
They also agreed that this truth could be expressed suitably by saying either that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or that he proceeds from the Father through the Son. These two formulations are complementary. Each brings out a slightly different aspect of the same truth.
By saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, we bring out that the Father and the Son are a single principle of his procession. It is not as if the Father contributes part of the Holy Spirit, and the Son contributes another. That would obviously be nonsense.
By saying the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, we bring out a different aspect: that the Son, who proceeds from the Father, has it from the Father to be the single principle, with the Father, of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Son has this from the Father, but the Father does not have it from the Son. We profess that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, but not from the Son through the Father.
The council fathers agreed that both these formulations were correct. They argreed on the dogma behind these formulations and that this dogma was the teaching of the Fathers of the Church.
This was all expressed with great clarity in the final decree.
Today, there people who claim that the council fathers did not understand each other and may have meant different things. Such a view is untenable. The discussions and the final decree, a marvellous crystalline piece of writing, do not bear it out.
Yes, it is a remarkable text and could be republished today for any ecumenical discussion. It is so precise and succinct. Yes, it is a model of theological writing. Unfortunately, today there are agreed statements that seem to proceed by calculated ambiguity and do not do any favours to anyone. The Council of Florence did the opposite.
"The Council of Florence achieved lasting good, though not exactly the good it was aiming at."
The Council of Florence restored communion between Constantinople and Rome. Why did that communion break down so swiftly afterwards? That is a very interesting question, but one for historians. I am a theologian rather than a historian.
There are two possible views. One is that it was that the Council of Florence did not stand a chance because its decrees were not popular enough among the person inthe street at Constantinople. Moreover, the emperor's heart was not in it.
Another view is that while there was a lot of hostility to the idea of reconciling with the Latins in Constantinople, there were also plenty of peoplewho did not mind or even liked the idea. So, it could have worked if it had not been for the fall of the city to the Turks in 1453. The Turks then put their own man as Patriarch of Constantinople: a Greek Christian who was hostile to union with the Latins, so that there would no danger of help coming from the West to fight off the Turks.
I do not know which of those two hypotheses is correct. Perhaps there is no definitive answer to the question.
Was the Council of Florence a failure or did it make an enduring contribution to the growth of the Church? In a way, both.
It was a failure in that it did not bring about what it expressly desired: lasting union with separated Eastern Christians, especially those whom we call the Greek Orthodox.
Nevertheless, it was a success in two important ways.
First, it defined a portion of revealed truth in a very clear way. Every definition of an ecumenical council stands forever. It is a gift for the whole Church. So, from that supernatural point of view, the council was certainly a success.
It was a success in another regard. Later, it was the benchmark for future reunions that did last. The decree of union that was drawn up was used as the decree for union with Ukrainian dioceses in the late sixteenth century and then with Romanian dioceses.
So, the Council of Florence achieved lasting good, though not exactly the good it was aiming at.
"I had been studying the Council of Florence and was struck by the prevailing myths that float around in the ecclesial consciousness."
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