O. The pre-Christian age
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| 312 BC | The Seleucid period of domination in the Holy Land begins | |
| 175-164 BC | The reign of the nefarious Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164), when Onias III was high-priest in Jerusalem, and his brother Jason is leader of the Hellenist party (174-171), and Menelaus (another Hellenist) usurps the high-priesthood; Antiochus marches against Jerusalem (170-169), beginning the martyrdom of the Jews and the desecration of the Temple (168); the priest Mattathias and his sons begin the Maccabean revolts (167-166), and Lysias the chancellor of the empire retaliates, leading to the victory of Yehuda Maccabi and the reconsecration of the Temple (165) | |
| 161 BC | In the time of the high-priest Alcimus (163-159), and with Demetrius I Soter reigning at Antioch (162-150), the death of Yehuda Maccabi at Beth-Zacharyah (161) at the hands of Bacchides, a general of the Syro-Greek army; Yonathan the brother of Yehuda (161-143) takes up the leadership of the rebellion, and is later made high-priest (153) | |
| 142-135 BC | Following the death of Yonathan by treachery (143), Sh’mon his brother (142-135) leads the rebellion and establishes a lasting settlement with the Greeks of Antioch in what becomes the Ha-Shmonian dynasty of Jewish priest-kings; in his days, the Roman senate, undermining the Greek empires, recognises the Jewish state (139) | |
| 135 BC | The assassination of Sh’mon the high-priest (135) brings to an end the record of the Hebrew scriptures, as his son Yochanan Hyrcanus I (135-105) takes up the government and, despite the conquest of Jerusalem by Antiochus VII Sidetes (135-134), maintains the independence of the Jewish state | |
| 104-78 BC | Aristobulus I, the son of Yochanan Hyrcanus I, is briefly high-priest and king (105-104), but soon replaced by his brother Alexander Jannaeus (104-78), in whose time is Gaza taken (96) | |
| 78-69 BC | Regency of Salome Alexandra, the widow of Alexander Jannaeus (78-69), in the minority of her son | |
| 69-63 BC | Aristobulus II son of Alexander Jannaeus (69-63) is king, and his brother Hyrcanus II is high priest, with civil war between the two | |
| 63 BC | Pompey enters Jerusalem (63), and Antipater the Idumaean, father of Herod the Great, advances in the affections of the Romans; Hyrcanus II the high-priest becomes ethnarch and vassal of the Romans (63-40) | |
| 56 BC | Aristobulus II and his son Antigonus revolt against the Romans (56), and Aristobulus is shortly assassinated (49) | |
| 48 BC | After the death of Pompey (48), Hyrcanus II the high-priest and Antipater attempt to be the friends of Caesar; Antipater becomes procurator of Yehud and his son Herod is governor of the Galilee (47); a rebel chief called Hizkiyah is executed (47) | |
| 44 BC | Caesar is assassinated in Rome (44), and Antipater is poisoned by Malichus (43); when Brutus and Cassius are shortly defeated at Philippi by Marcus Anthonius and Octavianus (42), Herod swiftly turns his attentions to Anthonius | |
| 40 BC | Syria and Yehud are invaded by the Parthians from the East and Hyrcanus II is taken prisoner (40), while Herod escapes to Rome and manages to be declared ‘king of Yehud,’ returning after the Parthians are expelled (39-38), and Antigonus the son of Aristobulus II (40-37) is removed as priest-king at Jerusalem, Herod taking up his ‘kingship’ | |
| 37 BC | Herod the Idumean, afterwards called the Great, is ‘king of the Jews’ (37), while Augustus Caesar takes up as emperor in Rome (30 BC – AD 14) after the battle of Actium (31) |
I. The Apostolic age (until roughly AD 100)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| 6 BC | Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ at Bethlehem in Yehud, now part of the Roman province of Syria, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His Mother; Anno Domini (AD, the era of the Church) begins | In Rome, emperor Augustus Caesar (30 BC – AD 14), in Syria Herod the Great is King of Yehud (37 BC – AD 4), this ‘kingship’ dying with him, his wretched son Archelaus made ethnarch of Yehud, Samaria and Idumea (4 BC – AD 6), while his brother Herod Antipas is tetrarch of the Galilee and Perea (4 BC – AD 39), the third surviving brother Philip is tetrarch of Batanea, Trachonitis and Auranitis (4 BC – AD 34) |
| AD 6-41 | Yehud, Samaria and Idumea as a Roman province are governed by procurators, residing in Herod the Great’s new tribute-city of Caesarea on the Mediterranean Sea (6-41), the first procurator being Coponius | |
| AD 29 | Death of the holy Nazarite S. John the Baptist (30), who called himself a ‘voice crying in the desert,’ preparing a way for Christ; Death of OLJC outside Jerusalem; the Apostles S. Peter and S. John discover the Holy Shroud (soudarion) in the Empty Tomb; the Church is born; the Apostles begin to build in Jerusalem and Yehud | In Rome, emperor Tiberius Caesar (14-37); Pontius Pilate is the procurator (26-36) resident at Caesarea on the coast |
| AD 32 | Martyrdom of the deacon S. Stephen; the Christian Faith is taken beyond Yehud to Samaria and beyond; the Apostle S. Paul is converted by a miraculous vision of Christ on the road to Damascus | Herod Antipas (d.39) is still tetrarch of the Galilee |
| AD 42 | The Apostle S. Peter leaves Jerusalem for Antioch after being freed miraculously from prison; the Apostles S. Paul and S. Barnabas assist at Antioch | Caligula is emperor in Rome (37-41); Herod Agrippa I becomes king over the ethnarchy of Philip (37-44), and over the ethnarchy of Herod the Great (41-44); Philo heads an embassy of the Alexandrian Jews to Caligula (40) |
| AD 45-48 | The first missionary journey of the Apostle S. Paul, accompanied by S. Barnabas and S. John Mark | Tiberius Alexander, a nephew of Philo, is procurator in Yehud (-44) |
| AD 49 | The Apostolic Council of Jerusalem, as given by the Acts of the Apostles; the Apostle S. James presiding as the bishop of Jerusalem | Agrippa II son of Herod Agrippa I is king of Chalcis, and later of the former territory of Philip and Lysanias (50) |
| AD 50-52 | The second missionary journey of the Apostle S. Paul, accompanied by S. Silas, S. Luke and S. Timothy; the first mention of S. Dionysius the Areopagite, later constituted by S. Paul as the first bishop of Athens, and who found martyrdom by being burned alive | Felix becomes procurator at Caesarea (52-60), and the zealots and the sicarii arise and, following the violence that surrounds a ‘prophet’ from Egypt, the scene is set for the arrest and transportation of the Apostle S. Paul |
| AD 53-58 | The third missionary journey of the Apostle S. Paul, his first major arrest and transport to Rome for trial; death/dormition of the Blessed Virgin; the Apostle S. John leaves Jerusalem for Ephesus | Nero is emperor in Rome (54), and Festus, Albinus and Gessius Florus are procurators at Caesarea (60-66) |
| AD 62 | The martyrdom of the Apostle S. James the Lesser (also called the Just, 60), first bishop of Jerusalem; death of the martyr S. Vitalis of Ravenna (62), a citizen of Milan, father of S. Gervasius and S. Protasius; the Apostle S. Jude, brother of S. James the Just, returns from the Mission to participate in the election of his other brother S. Simeon as second bishop of Jerusalem (62), leaving the letter preserved in the New Testament | |
| AD 66-73 | The martyrdom of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul (67) follows the burning of Rome in 64 by the emperor, who has blamed it on the Christians; the Holy Father S. Linus (66-78) takes up the government of the universal Church; death by martyrdom of the Jewish associate of the Apostles S. John Mark (68), disciple and interpreter of the Apostle S. Peter, who wrote his gospel at Rome (49) and was later sent to establish the hierarchy in Alexandria; death of the holy martyrs S. Nazarius and S. Celsus (68) | Persecution of the Church [I] by the emperor Nero (54-68); the Jewish revolution against Rome begins (66), and the rebels defeat the legate of Syria Cestius Gallus near Beth-horon in the same year, the organisation of the revolt including Yoseph ben-Gorion, and the high-priest Ananus in Jerusalem, with Yeshua ben-Sapphias and Eleazar ben Ananias in Idumea and Flavius Yosephus ben-Matthias in the Galilee; Vespasianus arrives to subdue the rebellion (67), ending the fortress at Jotapata and receiving the surrender of Yosephus, restoring the north of the Holy Land to Rome, while the zealot Yochanan of Gischala flees to Jerusalem |
| AD 70 | As strife increases, S. Shimon, bishop of Jerusalem, has carried the Christians to safety across the Jordan (67-68); the Jewish Sanhedrin is relocated shortly to Yavneh and Judaism is reformed by the rabbis; the Holy Father S. Anacletus (aka. Cletus, 76-91) governs the universal Church; the first bishop of Ravenna in the north of Italy is S. Apollinaris, a priest of the Apostle S. Peter, martyred during the time of the emperor Vespasianus (69-79) | While Yochanan of Gischala and Ananus the high-priest conduct a civil war in Jerusalem(67-68), the Christians escape across the Jordan and Vespasianus subdues much of Yehud and Idumaea, and with the death of Nero (68) and the assassination of Galba is declared emperor (69-79); the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by Titus (who has arrived 70 to subdue the three fortresses and Jerusalem herself), and the scattering of the unbelieving Jews and Christians, as chronicled by Flavius Yosephus (37-100); Vespasianus and Titus celebrate the fall of Jerusalem in Rome (71), the leaders of the revolt are punished, Simon bar-Giora executed and John of Gischala imprisoned, and Lucilius Bassus begins to eliminate the rebellion in the remaining fortresses of Herodium, Machaerus and Masada; Masada is the last of the fortresses to fall, defended by Eleazar ben-Yair, conquered by Flavius Silva (73); Agrippa II and his wife Berenike arrive at Rome (75) |
| AD 81-96 | The Apostle S. John is banished to the Isle of Patmos, receives the several visions which are recounted in the Book of Apocalypse (aka. Revelation); death of the Phrygian S. Onesimus (95), one time slave of Philemon and later disciple of the Apostle S. Paul; by this time, the S. Mary, S. Martha and S. Lazarus of the Gospels have arrived at Marseilles, establishing the Church there, the first bishop of which is Lazarus himself, Martha and Mary end their lives at Provence | Titus is emperor in Rome (79-81); persecution of the Church [II] by the emperor Domitianus (81-96) |
| AD 90-100 | Reign of the Holy Father S. Clement I, associate of the Apostles, who demonstrated a pastoral solicitude for and moral authority over not just his local church at Rome, but the global Church; the Apostle S. John, last of the Twelve and bishop of multiple churches in Asia Minor, is arrested and brought to Rome to be boiled in a cauldron of oil, but proves to be unboilable (95) | Nerva is emperor in Rome (96-98) |
| AD 98-117 | The bishop of Ephesus S. Timothy of Lystra is stoned to death (97), reputedly under the emperor Nerva; death of the holy martyrs S. Nereus, S. Achilleus, and their mistress S. Domitilla, in the reign of Traianus | Persecution of the Church [III] by the emperor Traianus (aka. Trajan, 98-117) |
| roughly AD 100 | Death of the Apostle S. John, last of the Twelve; the end of the Apostolic age and of the revelation given to the Apostles; the deposit of Faith is sealed; about this time, the death of the virgin martyr S. Thecla, a convert of the Apostle S. Paul (45) | Death of Agrippa II (100), whose ‘kingdom’ is subsumed into the province of Syria |
II. The early Fathers of the Church (AD 100 – 312)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 107 | The heresiarch Marcion of Sinope (85-160) attempts to introduce dualism into the Christian religion and carefully dismantles Scripture; meanwhile gnostic religions appear, which attempt to appropriate the history of the Hebrews and the Jews of Scripture for their own ends; Montanism attempts to inject a moral puritanism into Christianity, with Montanus as its prophet | |
| AD 112 | Death of the great martyr S. Ignatius of Antioch (50-117), bishop of that city after the Apostle S. Peter, an early witness to the hierarchical constitution of the Apostolic churches, who demonstrated among other things the authority of the Roman bishop over the several local churches and patriarchates; death of the Holy Father S. Evaristus (112), who had succeeded S. Anacletus at Rome, and is thought to have instituted the role of cardinal priests, because he first divided Rome into the several tituli, aside from also instituting the office of the seven deacons | The Roman governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger, remarks to the Emperor on the liturgical rites of the large Christian community there. |
| AD 117-138 | Death of the holy martyrs S. Rufus and S. Zozimus (116); the last of the popes to be mentioned in the venerable Roman canon, the Holy Father Sixtus I (116-125), governs the universal Church; in Lombardy, martyrdom of the brothers S. Faustinus and S. Iovita (121); martyrdom in very old age of the bishop of Jerusalem S. Simeon (116), a near relative of Christ and the Blessed Virgin, opponent of the heresies of the Nazareans and the Ebionites, who endured the disaster of AD 70 with the Judaean Christians; here perish the martyrs of Lyons, including the elderly bishop S. Pothinus, and Ss. Attalus, Blandina, etc. (117) | Jewish rebellions arise once more in Egypt, Cyrene, Cyprus and Mesopotamia in the last days of Traianus (115-117), and the general Lusius Quietus is made governor of Palestine; persecution of the Church [IV] by the emperor Hadrianus (117-138) |
| AD 120 | Death by martyrdom of S. Symphorosa and her seven sons at Tivoli (120), as Hadrianus continued the persecutions of Traianus | |
| AD 132-135 | In the reign of the emperor Hadrianus, the foolish second Jewish revolt around the messianic hopeful Shimon bar-Kokhva, followed by the utter destruction of Yehud as a Jewish homeland by the general Iulius Severus (132-135); Jerusalem is converted into the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina, and the Romans sardonically rename the land ‘Palestine,’ after the historical enemies of the Hebrews | |
| AD 150 | The martyr philosopher S. Justin (d. 165) defends the Christian religion, providing a detailed description of the liturgical rites of the Christians; the Holy Father Pius I (142-155) contributes very much to the cult of the martyr Saints; in this time, after the death of the Roman senator Pudens, his two saintly daughters S. Pudentiana and S. Praxedes, both of whom give their names to ancient titles (parishes) in Rome | |
| AD 161-180 | The great bishop S. Irenaeus of Lyons (d. 200) refutes the attempts of gnostic religions to usurp Christian terminology to mislead Christians with their foolish ideas; death of S. Apollinaris (175), bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia and a well-known apologist for the Church; death of the bishop of Smyrna, S. Polycarp (166), disciple of the Apostle S. John, in his old age; S. Dionysius is bishop of Corinth about this time | Persecution of the Church [V] by the emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180) |
| AD 179-214 | Death of the Holy Father S. Soter (173-177), an opponent of the Montanist heretics, probably by martyrdom; death of the martyrs Ss. Marcellus and Valerian (179), patron Saints of Tournus, who were refugees from a greater massacre of Christians at Lyons and Vienna (177) | Reign of Abgar IX of Odessa, who drew the Syrians into Christianity, when eventually Edessa and later Nisibis became intellectual centres of the oriental Church |
| AD 182-251 | Greatest among the non-Sainted champions of the early church was Origen (182-251) of the Coptic school in Alexandria, with his Hexapla of Scripture and other works of early systematic theology | |
| AD 193-211 | Tertullianus boasts of the spread of the Church throughout the Empire (200); the emperor tries to direct the assault on Christian converts (202); the Holy Father Callistus I (217-222) contributes very much to the cult of the martyr Saints of the Church; death of the famous bishop S. Irenaeus of Lyons (202), a disciple of S. Polycarp of Smyrna, who may have himself sent Irenaeus to Gaul | Persecution of the Church [VI] by the emperor Septimius Severus (193-211) |
| AD 219 | Death of the Holy Father S. Zephyrinus (219), who carried the Roman Church through the persecution of Severus and held firm against multiple heretics, including Marcion, Praxeas and the Montanists; death of the Holy Father S. Calixtus (222), successor of Zephyrinus, who is known for the cemetery he decorated, known for the great number of its Christian martyrs interred | |
| AD 229 | Death of the holy martyrs Ss. Tiburtius, Valerianus and Maximus, at Rome (229) | |
| AD 249-251 | Death of the holy Egyptian martyrs S. Nemesion et al after horrible tortures; following the Decian persecution, those who had capitulated to the demands of the emperor (the lapsi) had to be pardoned; great among the saintly popes is the Holy Father S. Fabian (236-250), accompanied by martyrs like S. Epimachus, S. Alexander et al; death of the holy martyrs S. Chrysanthus and S. Darias, probably in the persecution of the emperor Valerianus (237); death of the virgin martyr, S. Agatha of Sicily (251), at Catana, who defended her consecrated virginity against the lusts of men and the depravity of a brothel, viciously tortured, visited and healed in prison by the Apostle S. Peter; death of the holy martyrs S. Abdon and S. Sennen (250) | Persecution of the Church [VII] by the emperor Titus Decius (249-251) |
| AD 251-253 | Reign of the Holy Father S. Cornelius, an opponent of the schismatic priest Novatianus, who was determined to exclude the lapsi from communion; his collaborator was the bishop S. Cyprian at Carthage, who opposed Novatianism there; death of the Coptic martyr S. Ischyrion for refusing the state religion (253); death of the martyr S. Hippolytus (252), once associated with Novatianism | |
| AD 254-257 | Reign of the Holy Father S. Stephen (254-257), who strongly rejected the idea of the ‘re-baptism’ of heretics who had converted to Catholicism; they should be received into communion, following admission to the sacrament of penance/reconciliation; at Antioch, the martyrdom of S. Nicephorus, a layman (260); at Rome, the death of the priest S. Valentinus, in the reign of the emperor Claudius II (268-270); death of the holy martyrs S. Protus and S. Hyacinthus (257); death of the holy martyr S. Romanus (258), a soldier who was affected by the death of holy martyr S. Laurence (258), who instructed and baptised him in prison | Persecution of the Church by the emperor Valerianus (253-260) |
| AD 260 | Death of the martyrs S. Priscus, S. Malchus and S. Alexander (260), in the persecution of the emperor Valerianus; death of the martyr S. Mamas (275), under the wicked Scythian Aurelianus, declared emperor by the army (270); death of the martyr bishop of Paris, S. Dionysius, and his companions (272) | |
| AD 286 | First among the victims of the emperor Diocletianus is S. Tiburtius, the son of S. Chromatius and an ordained subdeacon, who was beheaded outside Rome (286); the death of the holy martyrs S. Maurice and his companions (286); death of the holy martyrs S. Crispinus and S. Crispinianus (287), who ministered at Soissons; death of S. Quintinus of Amiens (287), one-time companion and coworker of Crispinus and Crispinianus, and of S. Lucianus of Beauvais | |
| AD 296 | Death of the Holy Father S. Caius (283-296), a Dalmatian and relation of Diocletianus himself, probably by martyrdom; death of the martyrs S. Marcus and S. Marcellianus (286), under Diocletianus; death of the martyr priest S. Eusebius, an early victim of Diocletianus; death of the holy martyr S. Marcellus the Centurion (298) | |
| AD 303 | The death of the martyrs Ss. Cosmas and Damian, Arab physicians (303) under the governor Lysias of Cilicia; the final edict of persecution commanded all Christians to worship the emperor (304); about this time, death of the martyr S. George (303), a Cappadocian who died in the Holy Land; among the great martyrs of this era are the Holy Father S. Marcellinus (296-304), the virgins S. Lucia who died at Syracusa (304), S. Agnes who died in Rome, and S. Barbara, who suffered at Heliopolis in Egypt, in the reign of Galerius (306), S. Dorothea at Alexandria (308); S. Sabinus, the bishop of Assisium, and several of his priests, are tortured by the governor Venustianus of Etruria, who himself converts and is later executed and whose successor Lucius has Sabinus killed (304); death of the martyr S. Sebastian (283), a Gaulish soldier condemned by Diocletianus and surviving being shot through with arrows and once more confronting the emperor, beaten to death; S. Saturninus, S. Dativus and other martyrs of Africa (304), and S. Tyrranius, the bishop of Tyre, S. Zenobius (304), and other martyrs in Phoenicia, and S. Adrian and S. Eubulus of Palestine (309); death of the martyr bishop S. Irenaeus of Sirmium in Pannonia (304); martyrdom of the sisters S. Agape, S. Chionia, S. Irene (304), together with their companions under the persecutions of Diocletianus; at Saragossa, S. Opatatus and the other seventeen martyrs; the virgin martyr S. Encratis/Engratia of Portugal; at Pannonia, the martyrdom of the lector S. Pollio and his companions (304); here perishes also the bishop S. Quirinius of Siscia, in Pannonia (304), and Ss. Vitus, Crescentia and Modestus in Lucania, Sicily; death of S. Nicander and S. Marcian, at Illyricum (303); in Britain, the proton-martyr S. Alban (303), who gave his life for a priest’s; death of the gardener S. Phocas of Pontus (303); the convert physician S. Pantaleon is martyred (303); martyrdom of the holy deacon S. Cyriacus, together with S. Largus, S. Smaragdus, and others (303), death of the holy martyrs S. Timothy, S. Agapius, and S. Thecla (304); death of the holy martyr bishop S. Philip of Heraclea in Thrace and his companions (304); death of the martyrs S. Cyprian the Magician and S. Iustina (304) at Antioch, their fate tied together by her chaste virtue, he becoming priest and even bishop; death of the holy martyrs S. Gorgonius, S. Dorotheus and their companions (304), imperial chamberlains and eunuchs of the palace, after torture and strangulation; death of holy martyrs Ss. Tarachus, Probus and Andronicus at Anazarbus, in Cilicia; death of the holy martyr S. Ianuarius and his companions (305) | Persecution of the Church [VIII] by the emperor Diocletianus (284-305) |
III. The great Christological debates (AD 312 – 500)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 311 | The consecration of the bishop Caecilian of Carthage, whose enemies declared this invalid because the bishop involved had broken faith with the Church; Donatus of Casanigra thus personified the heresy of Donatism, which claims that sinners cannot confer the grace of the Sacraments; death of the martyr priest S. Pamphilus (309) of Berytus (aka. Beirut), a scholastic of Alexandria, who ministered at Caesarea with a great love for Holy Scripture | |
| AD 313 | Death of the Holy Father S. Melchiades (314), first of the popes to experience the freedom of the Church; he calls the council of the Lateran (313) to exonerate Caecilian and condemn Donatus; death of the Armenian bishop of Sebaste S. Blase (316), a physician and healer, viciously tortured and killed for the Faith | The Edict of Milan brings peace to the Church, as the emperor Constantinus (274-337) ends the state intolerance to Christianity |
| AD 320 | S. Pachomius of the Copts (292-346), who founded monasticism in the upper Thebaid, near the Nile delta; the cenobitic lifestyle spreads rapidly across the Eastern empire; S. Basil the Great (329-379) establishes the system of Orthodox monasticism; death of the holy bishop of Antioch, S. Philogonius (322); the forty martyrs of Sebaste go to their reward (320) | |
| AD 325 | The first ecumenical Council of Nicaea [I] convenes to address the heresy of Arianism, to conclude on the divinity of Christ; the heresiarch Arius (250-336) finds as his main opponent the patriarch S. Alexander of Alexandria (313-326); death of the martyrs S. Jonas, S. Barachisius and their companions (327) in the persecution of the king of Persia called Sapor; the True Cross is marvellously discovered at Jerusalem by S. Helena, the mother of the Emperor (326, d.328), who is led by local traditions about the location of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre | |
| AD 330 | Death of the Holy Father S. Sylvester (335), who guided the Church through the early years of the peace of Constantine; death of the confessor patriarch of Antioch S. Eustathius (338) | Byzantium on the Bosphorus becomes the new seat of the Roman empire, and is renamed Constantinople after the emperor; the patriarch of Constantinople begins to clamour for ascendancy over Alexandria, eventually receives it |
| AD 342 | Death of the popular Lycian bishop S. Nicholas of Myra (342), buried at his cathedral, whose relics were later transferred to Bari, in Apulia (1087); death of the Copt S. Paul the hermit, in the Eastern desert | |
| AD 347 | Death of S. Paul of Thebes, first of the anchorites/hermits in Egypt; associated with him and just as famous is S. Anthony of the desert (251-356), whose tale was told by the great patriarch of Alexandria S. Athanasius (328-373); Athanasius carries the idea of the monachism to Europe; death of the martyr bishop S. Paul of Constantinople (350), who was deposed and dispossessed by a council of Arian bishops (340), but supported by the Holy Father S. Iulius; death of the confessor bishop S. James of Nisibis (350), a learned theologian | |
| AD 363 | Death of the holy martyr S. Artemius (362), a governor of the imperial army in Egypt and enemy of the Arians, who fell victim to the perverseness of the emperor Iulianus and his government; vicious torture and death of the soldier martyrs S. Iuventinus and S. Maximinus (363), under the emperor Iulianus; death of the great bishop of Poitiers, S. Hilarius (368), a native of that town and an eloquent speaker, a husband before his conversion, an apostle of prayer and sacrifice, an opponent of Arianism and defender of Nicaea | |
| AD 354-430 | The great bishop S. Augustine (354-430) of Hippo Regius in northern Africa, a philosopher and rhetorist, famous for his body of philosophical and theological work, his autobiographical Confessions, and his parable of the Church and the World, called the City of God; he opposes the heresies of Donatism and Pelagianism; death of the mentor of S. Augustine, the Roman S. Ambrose of Milan (340-397), great among the Western Fathers of the Church; death of the Copt S. Anthony abbot, father of monks (356) | |
| AD 361-363 | Great preachers like S. John Chrysostomos (344-407) are able to preach truth to power, but not without consequence; under Apronianus the governor of Rome, S. Bibiana suffered martyrdom, following the martyrdom of her parents Flavianus and Dafrosa, and after the martyrdom of her sister Demetria; death of the martyrs S. John and S. Paul (362), officers of the Roman army; death of the holy martyr S. Theodoret of Antioch (362), a victim of Iulianus, uncle of the emperor of the same name | The emperor Iulianus, called the Apostate, attempts to revoke the provisions of the Edict of Milan, is unable to prevail |
| AD 366-384 | Reign of the Holy Father Damasus I, in whose reign the Latin church begins its move from the Greek language of its youth to the vulgar Latin of the people; the venerable Roman Rite is translated, and before long the new Latin Vulgate Bible of S. Jerome will appear; death of the scholarly Sardinian S. Eusebius (371), a great opponent of Arianism, banished by the Arian emperor Constantius to suffering in Scythopolis and Cappadocia, later returning as bishop of Vercelli; S. Bademus the abbot near Bethlapeta in Persia is martyred (376) in the reign of King Sapor LXVII | |
| AD 373 | Death of the holy abbot S. Hilarion (371), native of Judea, inspired by S. Anthony abbot to retire into the desert like him, lauded by S. Jerome (392); death of the great patriarch of Alexandria S. Athanasius (296-373), one of the most powerful opponents of Arianism and a Doctor of the Church, magnificently eulogised by the Cappadocian Father S. Gregory of Nazianzus; death of the confessor deacon S. Ephrem of Edessa (378), theologian, poet and Doctor of the Church | |
| AD 379-395 | Death of S. Peter of Sebaste (387), confessor bishop, greatly respected by the Cappadocian Fathers; death of the Copt S. Macarius the elder (390); death of the martyr S. Sabas the Goth (372); death of the great confessor bishop, S. Basil of Caesarea (379), father of monks of the Eastern church and pillar of the universal church | The emperor Theodosius I (379-395) causes Christianity to become the official religion of the Empire, replacing the religion of the Caesars; his death divides the Empire properly into East and West |
| AD 381 | The first ecumenical Council of Constantinople [II] convenes to counter the heresies of Macedonianism and Apollinarism, to conclude on the divinity of the Holy Ghost and the true humanity of Christ; the nicaeno-constantinopolitan creed becomes a feature of the life of the Church; S. Jerome begins his work on the Latin Bible, the vulgate (382)) | |
| AD 385 | The traditional rule of clerical celibacy is made into a universal obligation by the Holy Father Siricius (384-399); local synods in the West continue to impose this obligation from this time; death of the hermit S. Macarius of Alexandria (394); death of the holy widow S. Monica (387), mother of the bishop S. Augustine, at the Roman port of Ostia; death of the Cappadocian Father S. Gregorius of Nazianzus (389), also called S. Gregory the Theologian for his formidable scholarship; death of the abbot S. Pambo (385) of the monastery of Mount Nitria in lower Egypt | |
| AD 394 | Death of the hermit S. John of Egypt (394) | |
| AD 407 | Death of the great preacher, S. John of Antioch (407), called Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople and doctor of the Church | |
| AD 410 | S. John Cassian (d.433) founds the monastery of S. Victor of Marseilles, together with S. Martin at Tours (d.397) sand hortly after S. Honoratus on Lerins (405); the finding of the relics of S. Stephen the protomartyr, S. Gamaliel the sage and S. Nicodemus by the priest Lucian (415) | Alaric, king of the Goths raids Italy and sacks Rome |
| AD 421 | Death of the great priest and Doctor of the Church S. Jerome (420), a native of Stridonium in Dalmatia, a master linguist and assistant of the Holy Father S. Damasus, student of Scripture under S. Gregory Nazianzen, devotee of the BVM, famously the translator of the Latin Vulgate bible; death of the holy Coptic desert mother, S. Mary of Egypt (421) | |
| AD 424 | Death of the Persian martyr S. Benjamin the deacon (424), under the persecution of the king Varanes, son of the more indulgent king Isdegerdes | |
| AD 428 | Nestorius (381-451) becomes patriarch of Constantinople, and as a student of the Antiochian school of theology soon begins an almighty dispute with the Alexandrian school; death of the great bishop of Hippo, S. Augustine (430), a doctor of the universal Church, famous penitent, founder of the Augustinians, homilist extraordinaire, son of the very patient S. Monica of Tagaste | |
| AD 431 | The first ecumenical Council of Ephesus [III] convenes to counter the heresies of Nestorianism and Pelagianism, to conclude on the one person of Christ in two natures and the necessity of grace for salvation; Nestorians flee eastwards and soon establish themselves at Odessa | |
| AD 432 | Arrival in Ireland of S. Patrick (385-461) to follow the mission there of the bishop Palladius, who was sent by the Holy Father Celestinus I (422-432), establishing the episcopal system with locations near the ancient seats of Irish rule; Patrick went up to Rome after the election of the Holy Father Leo I in 441, to be confirmed in his mission; death of the patriarch of Alexandria, S. Cyril (444), foe of Novatians and Nestorians, during whose reign the pagan lady Hypatia had a school of philosophy and was viciously killed by a mob (415) to the bishop’s excessive grief; the Empress Pulcheria erects the basilica of S. Mary of the Blachernae (436) at Constantinople, and installs the Holy Shroud – it remains until 1204; death of the confessor archbishop S. Proclus of Constantinople (447) | |
| AD 450 | Death of the Gaulish confessor hermit S. Vincent of Lerins (450), who composed a Commonitory against Heretics (434) and was a great champion of the catholicity of the Church; death of the bishop S. Palladius (450), called the apostle to the Scots | |
| AD 451-689 | The heresy of Monophysitism is treated first by the Holy Father S. Leo I (d.461) with his Tome of Leo, which is ratified by the Church at the first Council of Chalcedon [IV], which concluded on the two natures of Christ; Jacob Baradeus (543-578), bishop of Edessa, establishes monophysite bishoprics throughout the East and his followers become known as Syrian Jacobites; the confessor S. Simeon Stylites (d.459) stands firm upon his pillar; S. Severianus, the martyr bishop of Scythopolis goes to his reward (453) | Meanwhile, Attila the Hun leads another invasion of Italy and is stalled outside Rome by the Holy Father S. Leo I (440-461) |
| AD 464 | Death of the great apostle of Ireland, S. Patrick (464), who with great signs and miracles established the foundations of what would become the Irish Church; death of the famous confessor S. Prosper of Aquitaine (463), a collaborator of the Holy Father S. Leo in suppressing neo-Pelagianism | |
| AD 471 | Narsai flees Chalcedon to Nisibis, which becomes a centre of Nestorianism, their patriarch (catholikos) being seated at Seleucia-Ctesiphon (486) | |
| AD 476 | Death of the confessor bishop of Troyes, S. Lupus, like the Holy Father Leo a defiant figure before the face of Atilla the Hun, who called himself the ‘scourge of God’ | The Western empire comes to an end with emperor Romulus Augustulus. The Germanic tribes already colonising the territories of the Empire are in the ascendant; sadly they tend to be Arian rather than Catholic |
| AD 493 | The Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great take Italy. They are Arian, but they tolerate the Catholics | |
| AD 496 | The Franks, a Germanic tribe, are converted to Catholicism and their king Chlodovech (466-511, aka. Clovis) and thousands of his men are baptised by S. Remigius |
IV. The end of the dependence on the Empire (AD 500 – 800)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 505 | Death of the confessor bishop S. Eugenius of Carthage (505) | |
| AD 527 | The Eastern emperor Iustinianus (527-565) attempts to recover Italy for Byzantium, establishing an exarchate at Ravenna. | |
| AD 529 | S. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) establishes the monastery of Montecassino (528), softening to an extent the Eastern rules to create a norm for the West; S. Finnian (d.549) and S. Enda (d. 530) establish and inspire monasteries in Ireland that will eventually send forth missionaries to England and norther Europe; S. Brigid of Kildare (450-525) likewise begins establishments for virgins; death of the confessor abbot S. Sabas, a Cappadocian monk in Palestine (532) | |
| AD 533 | Death of S. Fulgentius, native of Carthage, monkish bishop and foe of the Arians (533); death of the confessor bishop of Rheims, S. Remigius (533), a great apostle of France, even her second S. Paul; death of the nun S. Scholastica (543), twin sister of the great S. Benedict of Norcia | |
| AD 538 | Death of the Holy Father S. Silverius (538), who fell a martyr while upholding the Council of Chalcedon against the Eutychians; death of the confessor archbishop of Arles, S. Caesarius (542) | |
| AD 544 | Death of the archbishop S. David, patron of Wales (544), son of Xantus, prince of Ceretica/Cardiganshire, who began as a hermit on the Isle of Wight, founded a chapel at Glastonbury and several monasteries in the Menevia region, with a spirituality of hard physical labour, opponent of the Pelagian heresy (519); death of saintly abbot S. Benedict, founder and patriarch of Western monks (543), death of the martyr abbot S. Placidus and his companions (546) when a barbarian fleet of pirate ships from Africa arrives at his monastery in Sicily | |
| AD 553 | The second Council of Constantinople [V] is convened against Monophysitism, to conclude on the two natures of Christ in one Person; death of the Armenian confessor bishop S. John the Silent (559) | |
| AD 563 | Death of the confessor S. Clodoardus (522-560), son of King Chlodomir of Orleans, the eldest son of S. Clotilda, who raised him in Paris, who took up the Religious life of the monks; S. Columba (Columkille, 520-597) establishes the monastery of Iona, and thereafter a family of monasteries called familia Columbae | |
| AD 568 | Death of the confessor bishop of Paris, S. Germanus (576) | New Germanic invaders arrive in Italy in the form of the Lombards, who under Alboin settled in Italy. In the midst of the turmoil, the Papacy remains established as a champion of the people. |
| AD 586 | Death of the holy martyr, S. Hermenegild, son of the Goth king Leovigild by his wife Theodosia, at the hands of his father, who was an Arian | |
| AD 590 | S. Columbanus (540-615) takes a group of Irish monks to Burgundy, beginning a mission in the north of Europe, establishing houses at Annegray, Luxeuil and Fontaine; The Holy Father Gregory I (590-604, called the Great) lays the foundations in many ways for the papacy of the future, fighting for the freedom of the Roman Church; death of the holy beggar S. Servulus (590), severely disabled and a frequenter of S. Clement’s in Rome, where he is buried; death of the younger S. Simeon the Stylite (512-592), who lived upon a pillar | |
| AD 596 | The Roman monk S. Augustine (d.604) is sent to England by the Holy Father to draw Britain into Catholic union; not long after, S. Paulinus (601, d.644) processes up England to York, bringing Catholicism to middle England in the process; death of S. Leander, bishop of Seville (596), under whose guidance Spain was returned from Arianism to Catholicism; death of the famous monk and abbot S. Columkille (aka. S. Columba, 597) | |
| AD 605 | Death of the abbot S. John Climacus (525-605) at Mount Sinai, a master of the spiritual life, as given by his masterpiece the Ladder of Perfection; death of the bishop of Seville, S. Isidore (606); death of the confessor patriarch of Alexandria S. Eulogius (608), a Syrian, who developed a strong friendship with the Holy Father S. Gregory | |
| AD 616 | Death of the English king S. Ethelbert of Kent (616), fifth descendant of the Saxon invader Hengist, under whose rule prospered the Roman mission of S. Augustine of England (his granddaughter by Eadbald his son S. Eanswide); | |
| AD 622 | The venerable S. Aidan of Iona (d.651) is established at Lindisfarne during the reign of Oswald of Northumbria (634-642), whose kingdom becomes a Christian stronghold; Aidan is succeeded by S. Finan (651-661) and S. Colman, the latter taking his monks back to Ireland after the Romanising decisions of the synod of Whitby; S. Willibrord (658-739) becomes the apostle to the Frisians, founding the monastery of Echternach; S. Boniface of Crediton (aka. Winfrith, 675-754) becomes apostle to Germany; the Persian martyr S. Anastasius goes to his reward (628); death of the Archbishop of Canterbury S. Mellitus (624), who was sent by the Holy Father in 601 to join the Augustinian mission, became the third archbishop after the death of S. Laurence (619) | Possible date for the hijra of Mohammed the Arab (570-632) – his flight from Mecca to Medina – which established the new religion of Islam in the style of movements like Montanism, but with a strong monotheism and rigid moralism, and a determination that he (Mohd) is the last and greatest of prophets; the Eastern empire is greatly depleted almost at once, and the local churches of North Africa mostly lost, together with Persia (651) and much of the Iberian peninsula in due course to Islamic caliphates (632-661); Jerusalem is lost in 638 |
| AD 629 | In the reign of Heraclius, the recovery of the relic of the True Cross from the Persians (629) under Chosroes II, who had plundered Mesopotamia and Syria and Cappadocia and finally Jerusalem (614) with enormous massacre; after multiple attempts to make peace, the emperor Heraclius had taken the offensive (622), and routed the invader (627); death of the confessor archbishop of York, S. Paulinus (644), sent to the Augustinian Mission (601), consecrated by S. Iustus of Canterbury (625), who brought the Faith to Lindsey and baptised the governor of Lincoln Blecca, building there the first stone church, made metropolitan of the north by the Holy Father Honorius | |
| AD 646 | Death of the holy abbot S. Galla (646), disciple of S. Columbanus and his companion on the journey to England, and then France (585), who built his monastery near the lake of Constance, was elected to replace S. Eustace as abbot of Luxeu (625) | |
| AD 664 | Death of S. Cedd, bishop of London and brother of Chad (664), who worked hard for the conversion of the English Saxons; the enterprising Cilician S. Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (669-690), begins to restore the education system in England, leading the way for the rest of Europe; schools at the cathedrals and monasteries produce men like Aldhelm, abbot of Malemesbury (d.709) and the great historian S. Beda the Venerable (673-735), a great compiler of texts, author of the Ecclesiastical History of his people, and later S. Alcuin of York (730-804) | The synod of Whitby, whereby agents of Rome seek to draw the Irish Fathers away from their traditional dating of Easter; king Oswiu of Northumbria (612-679) personally involves himself, since his own family was divided in the two observances |
| AD 673 | Death of the bishop S. Ceada (aka. S. Chad), brother of S. Cedd, ordained bishop of York (666) to replace S. Wilfrid, who was long visiting the Continent, then stepped back when Wilfrid was returned by S. Theodore of Canterbury and soon took up as bishop of Lichfield (671) | |
| AD 680 | The third Council of Constantinople [VI] is convened against Monothelitism, to conclude on the two wills of Christ in one Person; death of the Anglo-Saxon S. Etheldreda (aka. S. Audry, 679), abbess at Ely; death of the English S. Bathildes (680), sold as a slave to Erkenwald, a manager of the palace of the king, Clovis II, who took her for his queen (649); death of the great bishop of Lindisfarne, S. Cuthbert (687), who was caught up in the intrigues surrounding the synod of Whitby | Emperor Iustianianus II (685-705) confronts the Bulgars (687), Emperor Constantinus V (741-745) the Balkan Slavs; the Turkic Bulgars begin to establish their empire to keep the northern Balkans from Byzantium; the forces of mohammedanism advance |
| AD 709 | Death of the martyr bishop of Maestricht, S. Lambert, also patron of Liége (709); death of the confessor bishop S. Wilfrid of York (709), ordained by Agilbert of the West-Saxons (663) at his monastery at Ripon, consecrated at Compiegne (664) but without a seat in England remained a monk at Ripon, given York (669) by S. Theodore of Canterbury | |
| AD 717-741 | Death of the abbot S. Ceolfrid (716), a relative of S. Benedict Biscop, his associate in the building of the monasteries of Wiremouth S. Peter and Jarrow S. Paul, of which he became abbot; S. John of Damascene (675-749) gives vigorous battle in defence of the use of images and icons | The Eastern emperor Leo III (717-741), called the Isaurian, begins the Iconoclastic movement that deeply wounded the Church, causing the East-West rift that would persevere; S. Richard of Wessex dies at Lucca en route to Rome (722) |
| AD 732 | Death of the confessor monk S. Beda (735), called the Venerable, known for his scholarship, and above all for his history of the English church, his ministry confined to the monastic houses founded by S. Benedict Biscop off the river Tyne, particularly Were (674) and Jarrow (680); death of the holy virgin S. Withburge (743), daughter of Annas, king of the East Angles | The northern spread of mohammedanism is halted marvellously at Poitiers by the armies of the Frankish king Charles Martel. |
| AD 754-756 | Here perishes the great archbishop of Mentz, the Anglo-Saxon S. Boniface of Crediton (680-755), called the apostle of Germany, famous for his opposition to idolatry, who was martyred for his efforts with fifty-two companions | Following the inability of the Eastern empire to defend the Western Church, and following the military victories of Charles Martel, the Holy Father Stephanus II (752-757) approaches Charles’ successor Pippin the Short, who is duly named Patrician of the Romans (the ‘donation of Pippin’), following which the Lombards are subdued and the Papal States begun |
| AD 787 | The second council of Nicaea [VII] defends the use of icons (787); death of the martyr bishop S. Rumold (775), patron of Mechlin | |
| AD 800 | On Christmas Day, the Holy Father Leo III (795-816) completes the translatio imperii – the movement of the Latin Church for support from the Byzantine Empire to the new Holy Roman Empire – by crowning Charles the Great (aka. Charlemagne or Carolus Magnus, d.814), the son of Pippin of the Franks, as Emperor. Then begins the Carolingian renaissance. |
V. Establishment of the Holy Roman Empire and the reform of the Church (AD 800-1200)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 800-814 | Bishoprics and parishes are created in the Frankish territories, S. Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766) and his vita canonica begin to regularise the life of the collegiate clergy, using an Augustinian model; education of clergy and laity is encouraged with cathedral schools, monasteries, etc.; death of the patriarch of Constantinople S. Tarasius (806); death of the saintly bishop of Munster, S. Ludger (809), called the Apostle of Saxony; the relics of the evangelist S. John Mark are stolen from Alexandria and carried to Venice (815, or 828) | The Emperor gathers to himself scholars of renown, such as Alcuin of York, the Spanish Theodulf and the Lombard Paul the deacon to form an academy, and develop a European culture; but the threat of interference of the Emperors in the matters of the Church would soon return; schools were built at churches and monasteries (789), and elementary schools in parishes (813); Egbert returns from exile in Charlemagne’s court to become king of Wessex (802), defending against Offa of Mercia and his descendants; Pepin the son of Charlemagne is succeeded as king of the Franks of Italy by his son Bernard (810); Venice appears as a city of canals on the Rialto (811); Louis the Pious becomes co-emperor of the Franks (813), and emperor after the death of Charlemagne (814) |
| AD 814-950 | Rome falls into simultaneous dissolution and corruption because of the Empire, with notable exceptions such as of the Holy Father Nicholas I (858-867); the Holy Father Paschal I (817-824) provides refuge for Easterns fleeing the iconoclasm of the Eastern empire, while battling the local nobility and building churches; death of the abbot S. Benedict of Anian (821), who finding Benedictine not rigorous enough had taken up the practices of S. Pachomius and S. Basil | The dissolution of the Frankish empire by the treaties of Aachen (817), Verdun (843) and Meersen (870) respectively, with the resulting chaos generated by foreign invaders, either Saracen, Slav, Magyar or Norseman; Iñigo Arista rebels against the Franks and establishes the kingdom of Navarre (824); Egbert defeats Beornwulf of Mercia (825) and Wessex takes over Kent, Surrey, Sussex, East Anglia and Essex; Egbert goes on to conquer Mercia and briefly becomes Bretwalda (overlord) of Britain (829) |
| AD 836 | The Holy Father Leo IV is elected (847), and he shortly reinforces the fortifications of the city before the threat of Saracen invasions | The Norsemen defeat Egbert of Wessex (836), but he soon triumphs again (838); the stone of destiny appears at Scone palace in Scotland (838); Feidlimid Mac Cremthanin becomes high king of the Irish (838); death of Egbert of Wessex (840) |
| AD 862 | Death of the martyr priest S. Eulogius of Cordova (859), a scholastic and spiritual director during the subjugation of Spain to the Moorish invaders, who encouraged the Christian martyrs and himself so died; Prince Ratislav of Great Moravia (846-870) calls for missionaries to translate Scripture into Slavic; Ss. Cyril and Methodius devise the Glagolitic alphabet; slavic literacy and liturgy flourish with the use of the new translation and the patronage of Tsar Simeon I (893-927); death of the confessor bishop S. Swithun of Winchester (862), patron of that See | Æthelbald son of Æthelwulf, becomes king of Wessex (856), and is condemned for an incestuous marriage; Æthelbert his brother becomes king (860); viking raids begin to arrive in England |
| AD 866 | Mission of a bishop from Constantinople to Kiev, sent by Photios the patriarch of Constantinople (866); death of the martyr virgin S. Osith, a Mercian princess, (870) at the hands of the barbarian Danes Hinguar and Hubba, her relics being moved eventually to Chich, near Colchester | After the death of Æthelred at the battle of Merton, Alfred his brother becomes king of Wessex (871), self-titled ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’ |
| AD 879 | The fourth council of Constantinople, summoned by Photius of Constantinople, condemns monophysitism and iconoclasm | King Alfred of the English (849-899) is able to contain the viking attacks and reaches an agreement with Guthrum of the Danes, reoccupying London (886); the English renaissance arrives, and Alfred’s children, Edward the Elder (899-924), Æthelstan (924-939), Edmund (939-946) and Eadred (946-955) extend the kingdom across Mercia to Northumbria and eventually the Danelaw, and England begins to appear |
| AD 893 | The end arrives of the Photian schism, that resulted from the jurisdictional dispute between the Holy Father Nicholas I and Photius the patriarch of Constantinople; the diplomatic dispute over the Filioque also begins here | |
| AD 910 | The first reform of the Benedictine Order at Cluny by William the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine; great abbots include Odo (927-942) and Odilo (994-1048); Cluniac monasteries multiply across France and Germany, inspiring the upcoming reforms of the Church | The English monarchy becomes more entrenched in Christian observance, with men such as S. Dunstan (909-988), archbishop of Canterbury, who worked with king Edgar (959-975) to effect reform; simultaneously, S. Oswald (d.992) is a reforming bishop of York; all Danes south of the Humber have submitted to Edward the Elder of Wessex (918), East Anglia is taken from the Danes (920) |
| AD 938 | Death of S. Wenceslaus, the martyr Duke of Bohemia (938), victimised by his pagan mother and his brother Boleslas, who slew him in deception | |
| AD 955 | Olga of Kiev converts to Christianity; her grandson Vladimir Syatoslavich (980-1015) of Kiev establishes the state of Rus, and being greatly impressed by the Byzantine Rite begins the mass conversion of his people (988); thus the Russian Orthodox church | |
| AD 962 | The newfound security allows the Latin church to attempt reform of the clergy, the monasteries and the spirituality of the laity; the Holy Father Eugene III canonises the emperor Henry II, who had spearheaded the reform, as at the synod of Pavia (1022); death of S. Mathildis (aka. S. Maud, 968), queen of duke Henry of Saxony (913), who became king of Germany (919); death of the confessor bishop of Ausburg, S. Ulric (973) | The title of Holy Roman Emperor is reassigned to Otto by the Holy Father John XII; the Eastern Franks become Germany and unite with Otto; Europe had recovered under the Eastern part of the former Frankish empire, with the Saxon king Henry the Fowler (919-936) and his successor Otto I (936-973), securing the eastern frontier; other German emperors include S. Henry II (1002-1024), Henry III (1039-1056) and Henry IV (1056-1106) |
| AD 979 | Martyrdom of the saintly English king S. Edward (979), at the hands of the treacherous queen Elfrida, who wished the succession of her own son Ethelred; death of the Archbishop of Canterbury S. Dunstan (988) | |
| AD 992 | Death of S. Oswald (992), bishop of Worcester (959) and simultaneously archbishop of York (974), educated by his uncle S. Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, founder of Ramsey abbey (972) | |
| AD 1014 | Brian Boru (1002-1014) chases the Norsemen out of Ireland with his victory at Clontarf on Good Friday and becomes the high-king of Ireland | |
| AD 1027 | S. Romuald of Ravenna, founder of the monastic Order of the Camaldoli goes to his reward (1027); death of the holy emperor S. Henry II (1024), called the Pious | |
| AD 1040 | Death of the great confessor king of Hungary, S. Stephen (1038), known for his humility, devotion and charity; death of S. Cunegundes (1040), the saintly wife (1002) of S. Henry, the duke of Bavaria who was appointed Holy Roman Emperor (1014) by the Holy Father Benedict VIII, making his consort empress | |
| AD 1046 | The papacy had been corrupted by the interference of the Roman nobility, after the death of Charlemagne (1046), and now Henry III deposes three claimants to the papacy and appointed the German bishop of Bamberg, Suidger, as the Holy Father Clemens II (1046-1047); death of the martyr bishop of Chonad in Hungary, S. Gerard (1046); he and successors like the Holy Father Leo IX (1049-1054) continued to push for reform, his Easter synod (1049) unsuccessfully attempting to end the simony of church offices and to establish clerical celibacy | |
| AD 1051 | The Russian Church, once dependent on Constantinople, achieves a primacy and eventually claims to be the true successor of Rome and Constantinople; seat of the patriarch is in Kiev, but following attacks of the Pechenegs, the Mongols, etc., this is moved first to Vladimir (1299), then to Moscow (1326) | |
| AD 1054 | The enduring schism with the Eastern churches is initiated, due to disagreements between the patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Caerularius (1043-1058), and the papal legates to the East, especially the flammable Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida; the Eastern bishops disagreed not only over the Filioque but also over the use of unleavened bread for the confection of the Blessed Sacrament, and the reforms in the West with respect to clerical celibacy; death of the Holy Father S. Leo IX (1048-1054), the enemy of simony and moral corruption, who sought the assistance of the Empire against the Normans | |
| AD 1059 | Rome finally achieves independence from lay meddling with the election of the popes, by a decree of the Holy Father Nicholas II | |
| AD 1066 | S. Wulstan (d.1095, can.1203) is made bishop of Worcester (1062), is the last of the Anglo-Saxon bishops of England and permitted to continue under the new Norman system; death of the holy confessor king S. Edward (1066, can.1161), last of the rightful Anglo-Saxon kings, found incorrupt (1102) | William of Normandy takes England by storm |
| AD 1071 | Death of the great reforming cardinal bishop of Ostia, S. Peter Damian of Ravenna (1072) | Almighty defeat at Manzikert of the armies of the Byzantine empire by the Seljuk Turks, who had taken over the government of Syria from the Arabs, and now ruled the Holy Land; a more brutal people, the Turks are a new and greater threat to Byzantium; the East now calls Rome for help as the emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1080-1118) sends an SOS |
| AD 1073-1085 | The reign of the Holy Father S. Gregory VII (aka. Hildebrande, 1020-1085), who recognised that all the trouble the Church was experiencing – such as clerical laxity, simony of clerical appointments (especially to the papacy), and the resulting dissipation of Church property – was due to her being ruled by the nobility and the emperor; in France he has to push similarly against Philip I (1060-1108); his successor the Holy Father Urban II (1088-1099) achieves a compromise in 1098; death of the martyr bishop of Cracow, S. Stanislas (1079, can.1253), at the hands of the tyrant King Boleslas II of Poland; death of the monk and abbot S. John Gualbert (1073), founder of the Order of Vallisumbrosa | Henry IV had taken for granted his right to appoint clergy, especially in Germany; he falls into conflict with Gregory VII, attempts to make amends at Canossa (1077), but ultimately occupies Rome; the Holy Father is betrayed by the Normans he had hoped would help him against the Germans, and dies in exile at Salerno; the West is unable to respond to the call for help from the Byzantine emperor Michael VII |
| AD 1084 | The new Order of the Carthusians, far stricter even than the Cluniac reform of the Benedictine rule, is erected by S. Bruno of Cologne (d.1101) at La Chartreuse, near Grenoble | |
| AD 1087-1100 | Peter Abelard (1079-1142) will soon begin the movement in Western philosophy and theology from the Neo-Platonism that still reigned in the schools and the Aristotelianism that was being discovered because of new congresses with the East | Reign of William II Rufus (1087-1100) in England, when began conflict about the rights of the Church, with S. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) fleeing into exile; Anselm was a monk of Bec in Normandy, who followed in Canterbury the first Norman archbishop Lanfranc (1070-1089) |
| AD 1095 | The Holy Father Urban II responds to the call for help from Byzantium and the emperor Alexius I Comnenus, and at the synod of Clermont (1095) summons the first crusade (1096-1099), the Knights’ crusade, the knights in question being Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin his brother, Raymond of Toulouse, Hugh of Vermandois, Stephen of Blois and Robert of Flanders, together with the Normans Bohemund and Tancred; Jews come under attack in Europe, such as at Cordoba (1100); death of the confessor king S. Ladislas I of Hungary (1095) | |
| AD 1098 | The abbot of Molesme (Langres, 1029-1111) establishes the new Order of the Cistercians at Citeaux, near Dijon, the rule being written by the third abbot, Stephen Harding (1109-1134); this was another attempt at a new austerity worked into the Benedictine rule | |
| AD 1099 | Following the establishment of the Crusader states, a Latin diocesan structure is imposed in the Levant; the new Orders of fighting monks are established for the Hospitallers of S. John (1100) and the Temple (1119); death of the confessor abbot S. Bruno, founder of the Carthusians (1101) | Having engaged the Turks (1097), the crusaders arrive before Jerusalem at last, besiege the City and after breaking in eventually establish the short-lived Crusader States of Jerusalem (with Godfrey as protector of the Holy Sepulchre, and then Baldwin as king), Tripolis, Antioch and Edessa |
| AD 1106 | Ceallach (1080-1129) who had become abbot at Armagh and successor of S. Patrick (1105) prepares to apply the Hildebrandine reforms to Ireland; Gill Easpuig of Limerick compiles de statu Ecclesiae (1106), to restore the episcopal hierarchy in Ireland; death of the Archbishop of Canterbury S. Anselm (1033-1109), born in the Piedmont, once of the monastery of Bec (1060) | S. Anselm of Canterbury returns to England in the reign of Henry I (1100-1135), and achieves an agreement |
| AD 1110 | The synod of Rathbreasail restores the episcopate to Ireland after centuries of dissipation, establishing the two metropolitan sees of Armagh and Cashel; the great figure of S. Malachy (1095-1148) rises to restore the monastery of Bangor, and then take Ceallach’s place as archbishop of Armagh (1129), to retire (1137) and travel to Rome to request the pallia of the Holy Fathers for the sees of Armagh and Cashel; Malachy brought the Cistercian monasticism to Ireland, and himself died at Clairvaux (1148) | |
| AD 1112 | The Cistercian Order is joined by the charismatic S. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) and thirty companions of his; the Order spreads extraordinarily, first at Clairvaux; S. Malachy brings the Order from Clairvaux to Mellifont in Ireland (1142); this remained a powerhouse within the Church for the remainder of the medieval period | |
| AD 1120 | The congregation of regular Augustinian canons called Norbertine or Premonstratensian is founded by S. Norbert of Xanten (d.1134); the houses had previously been regularised with the Augustinian rule | |
| AD 1122 | The Holy Fathers Adrian IV (1154-1159) and Alexander III (1159-1181) resist the attempts of the emperor Barbarossa to restore the former rights of emperors to elect and appoint clergymen; death of the confessor bishop of Grenoble, S. Hugh (1132); death of the venerable confessor S. Stephen Harding (1134) of the monastery of Sherbourne in Dorsetshire, who became abbot of Citeaux; | The concordat between the Holy Father Calixtus II and the emperor Henry V called the Concordat of Worms led to Henry giving up his influence on the selection of bishops, and indeed to invest them himself with ring and crozier; almost at once, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190) tries to undo Worms and restore the old order |
| AD 1144 | The second crusade (1145-1149) is preached very effectively by S. Bernard of Clairvaux; Peter Lombard (1100-1160) writes the highly influential four books of the Sentences; the Holy Father Eugenius III (1145-1153) builds on the foundations laid by the Holy Father Gregory VII to reestablish the authority of the bishop of Rome | The fall of Edessa to the Turks (1144) brings the beginning of the end of the Crusader states in the Holy Land; the alarm arrives in Europe and the Holy Father Eugene III summons the disastrous second Crusade; Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany respond at once; after an attack on Damascus in 1148, the armies return to Europe |
| AD 1152 | The synod of Kells does more than Rathbreasail and establishes the four metropolitan sees of Armagh, Tuam, Cashel and Dublin in Ireland; the synod of Cashel (1172) continues the reform of discipline, liturgy, etc.; S. Laurence O’Toole (1128-1180, c.1225) becomes archbishop of Dublin (1161), is the first to break away from canonical obedience to Canterbury, comes back from the Lateran Council as legate (1179); the Irish church remains fiercely Catholic, even if independent from the Norman church in England; death of the martyr king of Sweden S. Eric (1151); death of the holy abbot S. Bernard of Clairvaux (1153), founder of the Cistercian reform of the Benedictines | Henry II of England (1154-1189) acquires a bull (1155) from the Holy Father Adrian IV (1154-1159), authorising an invasion of Ireland; the Normans arrive in 1167 to help defend Leinster from other kingdoms, but they soon acquired territory; the fruit of this colonial presence of the Normans is an enduring racial dispute between the two peoples, as given by the Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) |
| AD 1156 | The Order of the Carmelite Fathers is established by the crusader Berthed of Calabria (d.1195) on Mount Carmel; they are duly approved by Rome (1226) and take up the manner of the mendicant Orders (1238) | |
| AD 1164 | The Constitutions of Clarendon of Henry II of England lead to a new quarrel over the rights of the Church, and the martyrdom of S. Thomas of Becket (1118-1170); already anti-papal feeling begins to enter England | |
| AD 1179 | The third Lateran council; S. Hugh of Lincoln (1135-1200) a monk of the Grand Chartreuse is drawn by HM Henry II to resurrect the old Augustinian priory near Frome and establishes the Witham charter house (1179), before being consecrated bishop of Lincoln (1186) | |
| AD 1184 | The Waldensians of Peter Valdes (aka. Waldo), who had ended up in criticisms of authority and bitter attacks upon the clergy in their preachings, are finally condemned at the synod of Verona | Disorders enter into European society because of the new heresies that sought to reform the clergy in different ways. Puritan religions, such as of the Catharists and the Waldensians, were brutally suppressed by secular leaders like Robert II of France (988-1031) and Henry II of England (1154-1189); a Church court, the Inquisition arrives at the synod of Verona (1184) and begins to permit the secular power to prosecute crime on religious authority |
| AD 1187 | The Crusader states being in growing peril and Jerusalem falling to the hordes of Sala’addin (1187), a third crusade (1189-1192) is summoned but at most manages diplomacy; a third order of fighting monks called the Teutonic Knights is founded (1190) | Jerusalem is taken from the Europeans by the sultan Sala’addin (1137-1193) after the battle of Hatton (1187) results in the defeat of the European forces and capture of the relic of the True Cross; of his opponents, Frederick Barbarossa (1155-1190) dies in via near Cilicia (1190), and Richard I of England (1189-1199) manages to negotiate safe passage for Christian pilgrims to the Holy Places |
| AD 1198 – 1216 | Reign of the Holy Father Innocentius III (Lothar de Segni), who managed to acquire the absolute and universal supremacy of Rome throughout the Church, with the superiority of the spiritual authority over the temporal; his declaration that the bishop of Rome is lower than God but higher than men alarms the secular powers | The house of Hohenstaufen continues to attempt to reverse the decisions made by the popes, but with the death of the emperor Frederick II (1251) and the defeat of the imperial army (1268), all was lost |
| AD 1200 or thereabouts | A group of private teachers in the fields of theology, law, medicine and the liberal arts at Paris produce an association with a constitution, with great support from the Holy Father Innocent III and the French king – an association called a studium generale, and later a university; soon afterwards, Oxford and Bologna establish universities, and others follow |
VI. The late medieval period (AD 1200-1520)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 1204-1261 | The Latin empire of Constantinople is established after a fourth crusade (1201-1204) is summoned by the Holy Father Innocent III; its disastrous sack and occupation of Constantinople (1204) following the bad faith of the imperial claimant seals the schism of East from West; the Holy Father Innocent is not impressed and punishes the crusaders severely; a fifth Crusade only establishes further diplomacy, securing a ten-year truce, and restoring much of Jerusalem and Bethlehem and Nazareth to the Christians; death of S. William, confessor bishop of Bourges (1209); the Holy Shroud is stolen from the shrine of S. Mary of the Blachernae in Constantinople (1204) and shortly resurfaces at Besançon, to be venerated at the cathedral of S. Étienne | |
| AD 1209 | Approval given by the Holy Father Innocent III for the foundation of the Order of Friars Minor, the founder being S. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), who also establishes the second Order for women with the assistance of S. Clara Sciffi (1193-1253, founded 1212), and a third Order (1221). Great Franciscans included Alexander of Hales (d.1245), Roger Bacon, John Duns Scouts (1265-1308) and S. Bonaventura; the Holy Father calls the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars (1208) | |
| AD 1216 | Approval given by the Holy Father Honorius III for the foundation of the Order of Preachers, the founder being S. Dominic of Guzman (1170-1221), who had risen to counter the Catharism of the Albigensian heretics; beginning as a canonry regular of S. Augustine, they soon take up the mendicant manner of the Franciscans (1220); other Augustinian bodies join together as mendicant Orders under the Holy Fathers Innocent IV (1243) and Alexander IV (1256); S. Francis manages to travel to Egypt (1219), hoping to convert the caliph; death of the founder of the Order of the Trinitarians, S. John of Matha (1218) | The Albigensian war (1209-1229) was waged by the Church against the new religion of Catharism (a dualism reminiscent of the Manichaeism of the past) and its powerful supporters, like the count Raymond of Toulouse, following directly from the assassination of the papal legate Peter of Castlenau (1209) |
| AD 1229-1231 | The Dominicans and the Franciscans acquire a standing at the new universities; notable scholars include the Franciscan Alexander of Hales (d.1245), the naturalist and polyglot S. Albert the Great (1193-1280), called the philosophorum maximus, and doctor universalis, and S. Thomas of Aquino (1227-1274, c.1323 by the Holy Father John XXII), called doctor angelicus and doctor communis; Thomas produces a lasting synthesis of Catholic learning, to complement his life of sanctity; the Franciscan S. Bonaventura (1221-1274) continues to defend the old neo-platonist systems; other great scholars of the era include Robert Grosseteste (1175-1253), Roger Bacon (1214-1294) and John Duns Scotus (1265-1308); death of the famous Franciscan scholastic and holy man S. Anthony of Lisbon (aka. S. Anthony of Padua, 1231, can.1232), also a visionary and thaumaturgist | The Inquisition becomes a tool to maintain religious and political order after the Albigensian war and the mendicant Orders become prosecutors, in particular the Dominicans (1231) |
| AD 1237 | Metropolitan Kirill (1242-1282) attempts to stabilise the Russian church in the wake of the Mongol invasions, but the cathedra moves to Vladimir, then to Moscow; the Church helps hold Russia together as the metropolitans encourage resistance to the Mongols and strengthen the people against Tartar oppression; the Holy Father Innocent IV (1243-1254) sends mendicant Order missionaries into Asia, to ally with the Mongols; this correspondence between Rome and the Mongols continues (1353); the return of Chinese rule (1368) once more closes China up to the West | The Mongols arrive in the West, attacking Rus and destroying its trading cities (1240); the Mongol Kipchaks actually tolerated the Church; Moscow is in the ascendant over Kiev |
| AD 1246 | Death of the holy widow S. Hedwiges (aka. S. Avoice), duchess of Poland (1243); death of the confessor S. Peter Gonsalves (1190-1246, beat.1254), a native of Astorga of the kingdom of Leon | |
| AD 1252 | Death of the Dominican S. Peter Martyr (1252, can.1253), a veteran of the war against the Cathars (Manichaeans of a sort), who was appointed inquisitor general under several popes and for it was killed by Cathars; death of the holy virgin S. Clara (1253), first abbess of the second order of S. Francis | |
| AD 1258 | Death of S. Peter Nolasco (1258), founder of the order of OL for the redemption of captives, known for his great charity; death of the great Polish Dominican S. Hyacinth (1257), known for his devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the BVM | |
| AD 1268 | The poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in his divina commedia becomes the glory of the scholastic worldview; the great Dominican S. Thomas Aquinas writes his summa theologica (1266-1274); death of the incorruptible virgin S. Zita of Lucca (1272, beat.1696), a maidservant; death of the king S. Louis IX of France (1215-1270), educated by his saintly mother Blanche, sometime crusader, collector of holy relics | The house of Hohenstaufen is destroyed, weakening the Holy Roman Empire |
| AD 1285 | Death of the confessor bishop, S. Thomas of Hereford (1282, can. 1310), privileged by the Holy Father Innocent IV to be his chaplain, but who preferred Oxford (where he was chancellor) and later became high-chancellor to HM Henry III, then bishop of Hereford (1275); death of the holy confessor S. Philip Beniti (1285, can.1726), a cooperator of the Servites, almost elected as bishop of Rome at the death of the Holy Father Clement IV and fleeing Rome to prevent it until the election of the Holy Father Gregory X | |
| AD 1296 | The end of the European possessions in the Holy Land, as the last stronghold at Acre falls to the Turks; a disastrous sixth and seventh Crusades had been organised by the French king Louis IX (1226-1270) and had been inconsequential; death of the penitent S. Margaret of Cortona (1297) | |
| AD 1303 | The strength of the Holy Father Boniface VIII (1294-1303) is finally broken by the French king Philip the Fair (1285-1314) in the first glimmerings of nationalist pride meeting the universality of the Catholic world; the Holy Father had attempted to exempt French and English clerics from taxation and to revive Christian opposition to the Turkish presence in the Holy Land; he had issued the bull Unam Sanctam (1302) to restate the rights of the spiritual over the secular/temporal, but this older idea is now unbearable; death of the confessor priest S. Yvo (1253-1303), known for his great learning, his great charity, and his spirit of mortification; death of the confessor S. Nicholas of Tolentino (1245-1306), who became an Augustinian friar at the convent of Tolentino, a master homilist | The cunning French king Philip (1285-1314) achieves his masterstroke when the Holy Father Clement V (1305-1314), a Frenchman, moves from Rome to Avignon, causing the long and disastrous exile of the popes from Rome; through the agency of the French pope, Philip is able to suppress the Order of fighting monks called the Templars (1311); later the Holy Father John XXII (1316-1334) would take the part of the French against Louis IV of Germany; this abuse of the papacy begins the drama of conciliarism – the idea that a council of bishops is superior in its spiritual authority to the popes; Jews are expelled from England, France and Naples (1300) |
| AD 1317 | Death of the holy virgin S. Agnes of Monte-Pulciano in Tuscany (1317), a Dominican Sistr and made abbess by the Holy Father Nicholas IV at Proceno (Orvieto) | |
| AD 1351, 1353 | The cathedral at Besançon is ruined by fire (1349), and the Holy Shroud is stolen, only to resurface as a gift from the king Philip VI to Count Geoffroy of Charny (1357), who installs it in a collegiate church at Lirey, in the diocese of Troyes; the bishops of Troyes attempt to destroy Lirey through jealousy | The English respond to the intolerable takeover of the papacy by the French king with the statutes of Provisors (1351) and Praemunire (1353), to limit papal intervention in domestic affairs in England |
| AD 1373 | Death of S. Andrew Corsini (1302-1373), a Carmelite religious, confessor bishop of Fiesoli, near Florence; death of the holy widow S. Bridget of Sweden (1373), founder of the Bridgettine Sisters | |
| AD 1377 | The Holy Father Gregory XI (1370-1378) is convinced by S. Catherine of Sienna to move from Avignon to Rome, ending the French domination of the Latin church; the sixth of the Avignon popes, the Holy Father Urban V (1362-1370) returned to Rome briefly (1367) but was forced back to Avignon by the French cardinals (1370), despite the warnings of S. Birgitta of Sweden; death of the holy virgin S. Catharine of Sienna (1380, can.1461), a stigmatist and influencer of popes, who caused the Holy Father Gregory XI (d.1378) to return to Rome | The great Western Schism of the Latin church begins with the death of the Holy Father Gregory XI, when fear of a new French pope causes the Romans to quickly elect the Holy Father Urban VI (1378, supported by the emperor Charles IV, Wenceslaus of Bohemia, most of Italy, England, Hungary, northern Germany and Scandinavia), which results in the French cardinals immediately electing their antipope Clement VII for Avignon (supported by France, Naples, Sicily Savoy, Spain, Scotland and the rest of Germany); good Catholics and even great Saints fall on both sides, supporting either figure as pope |
| AD 1384 | Death of the holy virgin S. Catharine of Sweden (1381), the abbess of Vadzstena; death of the cardinal bishop of Metz, S. Peter of Luxemburg (1387) | Death of the heresiarch John Wyclif (1329-1384), one of the fruits of the Great Schism and the degradation of the papacy that followed; Wyclifism is a prototype of the later protestant movements, with its attacks on the hierarchy of the Apostolic Church, general anti-clericalism, and its denial of the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Reconciliation; his followers were called in England the Lollards, whom even Henry IV of England (1399-1413) tried to condemn; his ideas are disseminated in Bohemia by Jan Hus (d.1416) |
| AD 1407-1409 | The Holy Father Gregory XII agrees to meet at Pisa (1409) with the Avignon antipope Benedict XIII to settle the dispute; the Pisan council ended with the election of yet another antipope, Alexander V (1409-1410) | |
| AD 1414-1418 | The Council of Constance finally brings an end to the Western Schism of the Latin church; convened by the emperor Sigmund (1410-1437), the Pisan antipope John XXIII (1410-1415) is deposed and the Holy Father Gregory XII resigns (1415); the Avignon antipope Benedict XIII is forcefully deposed (1417), and a new conclave elects the Holy Father Martin V (1417-1431), an Italian; the heresiarch Jan Hus is also burned as a heretic (1416); death of the great Spanish Dominican thaumaturge S. Vincent Ferrer (1419) | Hus becomes a national hero and a hussite church (Bohemian brethren) is built to focus rebellion against Rome; a similar Brethren of the Common Life appears in the Low Countries to reform both laity and religious Orders |
| AD 1431 | The Council of Basel begins talk of reform of the Church in its head and members; the effect is minimal after the Holy Father Eugene IV (1431-1447) is shaken by the loss of prestige the papacy had suffered and the defiance of the bishops to him | A new antipope arrives in Felix V (1439) to the Holy Father Nicholas V (1447-1455), although he did not come to very much |
| AD 1438-1442 | The Council of Florence brings about a temporary union with the Eastern churches, proclaimed by Laetentur coeli (1439), sadly ended with the loss of Constantinople to the Turks (1453); death of the holy widow S. Francesca of Rome (1440, can1608), foundress of the Collatine Sisters (1433) approved by the Holy Father Eugenius IV (1437); death of the Franciscan S. Bernardine of Sienna (1380-1444), known for his great devotion and as a preacher | |
| AD 1450 | Ownership over the Holy Shroud shifts from the Counts of Charny to the House of Savoy, as Marguerite de Charny gifts the Shroud to Anne de Lusignan (1452), wife of the Duke; the Shroud thus arrives at Chambéry, where a chapel is built to house it | Prince Henry of Portugal establishes a naval academy at Sagres, and Portuguese navigators begin the long work of finding a way to India around southern tip of Africa, and so confounding the Arab monopoly of trade with the far East |
| AD 1453 | The calamitous fall of Byzantium/Constantinople to the mohammedan Turks of the Ottoman empire, who thus gained a foothold in Europe; meanwhile the Russian Church acquires autocephaly and Ionas (1448-1461) becomes metropolitan of Moscow and all Rus; death of the confessor bishop S. Laurence Iustinian, first patriarch of Venice (1455), who espoused himself to Lady Wisdom and sought the Religious life of the monks but was drawn forth again by the Holy Father Eugenius IV (1433) to Venice | Ivan III of Russia marries Zoe, niece of the last emperor of Constantinople (1472) and claims for all future Russian rulers the protectorship of Orthodox Christianity and the succession of Byzantium – Moscow becomes for them ‘third-Rome’ and the ruler the Tsar; Jews begin to be expelled from Italy, Germany and Iberia (1490s); the Sephardim flee eastwards from Spain |
| AD 1487 | Death of the saintly king of Poland S. Casimir (1484) | The Portuguese navigator Bartolomeo Dias find his way around the Cape of Good Hope, opening the long way to India |
| AD 1491 | The conquest of Granada (1491) marks the end of centuries of mohammedan presence of the Moros – the natives of Mauritania – in Iberia; Christovão Columbo finds the patronage of the Catholic kings of Spain to cross the Atlantic (1492) and make landfall on the 12th of October; he returns (1493) with tidings of new lands, new peoples, and extraordinary riches and resources beyond the Atlantic | |
| AD 1494 | The discoveries have begun in serious and Christianity is carried to the Far East and across the Atlantic to the Americas; the natives are seen as inferiors and priests like S. Bartholomew de las Casas (1484-1566) are already protesting the evils wrought upon enslaved peoples | The treaty of Tordesillas divides the New World of European discoveries between Spain and Portugal, with the agreement of the Holy Father |
| The Holy Fathers Nicholas V (1447-1455), Pius II, Sixtus IV, Julius II, Leo X (1513-1521), great patrons of the Renaissance | Bramante (1444-1514), architect and hero of the Renaissance; Leonardo (1452-1519), master of the arts and hero of the Renaissance; Raffaelo (d.1520), artist and hero of the Renaissance; Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564), artist and sculptor, and hero of the Renaissance; Nichola Machiavelli (1469-1527), political theorist; Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) of Rotterdam, philosopher | |
| AD 1508 | Death of the Franciscan confessor S. Francis of Paula (1416-1508), founder of the Order of Minims | |
| AD 1517 | The anomalies of the papacy, the result of its secularisation during the Avignon exile and its neutering during the Great Western schism, when there were two and sometimes three popes or claimants to the papacy, have led to greater lay control of the Church; combined with the disaster of the Black Death, and the consequent difficulties in replacing the many clerics lost with qualified ministers has led to a lack of confidence in the Church and growing anti-clericalism | The Augustinian priest and heresiarch Martin Luther (1483-1546) makes his public challenge to the authority and teaching of the Apostolic Church at Wittenberg; primarily, he affirms human nature as hopelessly corrupted and denies the ability of sanctifying grace to effect real change in the human heart; accordingly the merits of Christ must be externally imputed to a soul that believes Christ died for her for that soul to be redeemed; hence is asceticism futile, as also pilgrimage, and other indulgenced acts |
VII. The protestant and other rebellions and disturbances (AD 1520-1800)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 1520-1521 | Luther having been examined by Cardinal Caetan at Augsburg (1518) and remaining obstinate in his errors, Rome finally replies in condemnation, rejecting the Lutheran ideas of justification; the emperor Charles V (1516) pronounces a ban against Luther across the empire at the Edict of Worms (1521) | Unfortunately, the emperor is unable to end Luther’s protestantism for political reasons; his opponents, such as the elector of Saxony, become protectors of Luther’s party; the diet of Speier (1529) establishes the name ‘protestant’ and the diet of Augsburg (1530) establishes the doctrines of the new religion in the Augustana (Augsburg confession); the protestant princes form the League of Schmalkalden for the defence of protestantism |
| AD 1529 | Holy Father Clement VII is taken prisoner by the Germans during the sack of Rome (1527) | The siege of Vienna by the Ottomans is successfully repulsed; war breaks out in the Swiss cantons, with Zurich and the heresiarch Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) battling the Catholic cantons, who refused to accept Zwinglianism; the battle of Kappel (1531) is a victory for the Catholic side, and the following peace of Kappel (1531) brings toleration of error and liberty of worship; Zwinglianism soon merges with Calvinism, both denying the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, and the reality and efficacy of the Sacraments |
| AD 1531 | The Blessed Virgin appears to the Aztec convert S. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin in the Guadalupe area of Mexico at the site of an old temple of the Aztec religion; thus begins the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe; the chapel at Chambéry catches fire, and the Holy Shroud is badly damaged and is patched by the Poor Clares on site | Convocations of clergy at Canterbury and York consent to King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) being their protector and ‘supreme lord and head in so far as the law of Christ permitted’; meanwhile the king’s relationship with Rome continues to sour; King James V of Scotland (1513-1542) firmly rejects the new religions of Europe – at his death the earl of Arran and other ‘reformers’ led by John Knox begin to introduce Lutheranism |
| AD 1534 | Rome responds to the difficult case of the annulment of King Henry’s marriage to Queen Katharine of Aragon in the negative; Henry, still very much a Catholic, has had the mind to remove the English church from union with Rome; the Holy Father dares not approve the annulment, for the queen is the emperor Charles V’s aunty; meanwhile interested parties have their eyes on the wealth of the English church, and especially her monasteries, which the king can deliver into their hands | King Henry of England responds to Rome’s denial of the annulment of his marriage, and the possible ruin of his relationship with Miss Boleyn, with the Act of Supremacy, which establishes the Anglican Church of England, now under the full authority and jurisdiction of the kings; the Act of Supremacy passes through Parliament in November; Henry’s church remained only schismatic, and so superficially Catholic in rite an ritual for some time, even if his deputies (like Cromwell and Cranmer) were infected with Lutheranism |
| AD 1536 | Publication by the heresiarch Jean Cauvin (aka. Calvin, 1509-1564) of his work Religionis Christianae Institutio, which demonstrate clearly his deviation from the Catholic religion; his guidance of people is thorough and intimate, accompanied by the ban of all amusements and extravagance, etc.; the protestant rebellion becomes a political weapon in the hands of the political enemies of Rome and the empire | |
| AD 1536-1539 | The London Charterhouse stands up to the king and several of the monks, led by the prior S. John Houghton, are executed (1535) as traitors at Tyburn square; S. John Fisher, the bishop of Rochester stands up to the king and is beheaded (1535); S. Thomas More, former chancellor to the Crown and an honourable man even in the eyes of the king, is tried and found guilty, and is beheaded (1535) soon after | The Lincolnshire uprising against the king begins at Louth (1536) and brutally suppressed within two weeks, several of the rebels being executed (1537); a greater uprising in Yorkshire, the so-called Pilgrimage of Grace, is equally unsuccessful; King Henry supervises the destruction of English monasticism, ending more than 800 houses, the proceeds from the ruination of which he uses practically as bribes to the interested among the influential in England, who would then be bound to support the king’s religious revolution; the rigged parliament meets at Dublin (1536) establishes the royal supremacy over Ireland, begins the destruction of the monasteries (1537-1541) and denigrates the authority of Rome |
| AD 1540 | The statutes of the new Order of the Society of Jesus (aka. the Jesuits) are approved by the Holy Father Paul III; the founder S. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) had established the society with S. Pierre Favre, S. Francisco Xavier (1506-1552), James Lainez, Alfonso Salmeron, Nicholas Bobadilla and Simon Rodriguez; the Society helps bolster the Faith in Catholic countries, defend the Faith in the protestant world, and supply missionaries for the new worlds being discovered for Europe | The empire of Japan shortly receives the attentions of the Jesuit Fathers, including S. Francisco Xavier (1549), and a relationship is established with Rome |
| AD 1541 | The campaigns of Lord Leonard Gray make great progress for the king in Ireland with the defeat of the forces of O’Neill and O’Donnell at Bellahoe, preparing the way for Henry VIII, lord of Ireland, to be named king of Ireland (1541) | |
| AD 1547 | The Church begins in earnest to reform herself, and simultaneously solves the problems created by the Avignon exile of the popes and the Western Schism of the papacy, while also answering the protestant rebels; the Council of Trent takes place in three parts, sessions I to X (1545-1547), sessions XI to XVI (1551-1552) and sessions XVII to XXV (1562-1563); great Saints appear to prosecute the ongoing reform of the clergy and the restoration of the clerical government of the Latin church; death of the confessor S. Caetan of Thienna (1547), founder of the Theatines (1524), who were approved by the Holy Father Clement VII | The emperor Charles V is able militarily to defeat the League of Schmalcalden, but is forced into the treaty of Passau (1552) and the peace of Augsburg (1555), which again brought the new ideas of toleration of religious error, and the authority of rulers to establish the religion in their territories (cuius regio eius religio), the protestants are also to refrain from possessing the property of Catholic communities whose leaders had become protestant |
| AD 1548 | Spanish missioners, Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits have been paying much attention to the New World, what later becomes Florida, New Mexico, Texas and California; the protomartyr of Florida, Padre Luis, meets his end (1549); death of the Portuguese holy man S. John of God (1550, beat1630, can1690), founder of the Order of Charity (1540) | King Edward VI of England (1547-1553) in his minority is surrounded by protestant advisors, and the Anglican Church immediately becomes both schismatic and heretical; the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is imposed upon the English by the Act of Uniformity (1551), ignoring the sacrificial character of the Mass and eventually replacing the Mass with a concocted ritual (1549) and doing away with the Catholic priesthood; the primary doctrine of the Anglican Church is published in the form of the forty-two articles; the Mass and the Catholic rites are retained by the autonomous Irish states |
| AD 1554 | The cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury Reginald Pole attends parliament to pronounce absolution of the English Church from schism and heresy; S. Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584), the archbishop of Milan, leads the reform of the Catholic Church by example; a simultaneous foundation is established in Rome by the Catholic humanist priest S. Philip Neri (1515-1585), who adapted the fine arts and music for the purpose of catechetics and the devout life; the ‘reformation’ legislation is repealed in Ireland (1557), but the redistributed monastic land is not returned; death of the confessor archbishop of Valentia S. Thomas of Villanova (1555), a Castilian, also called the Apostle of Spain; S. Peter Canisius (1521-1597), the learned Flemish Jesuit, produces catechisms in Latin and German; death of S. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits (1556) | Queen Mary of England (1553-1558) succeeds to the throne and English protestants go into flight and exile as she prepares to return the kingdom to union with Rome; she attempts to restore the religious Orders, but is unable to secure the return of Church property confiscated and redistributed by the previous kings; protestant bishops and divines like Latimer and Ridley and even Cranmer himself, along with other radicals, are executed by burning |
| AD 1558-1603 | The Holy Father S. Pius V (1566-1572), an ascetic of the Dominican Order, raises the standard of the clergy in Rome, banishing luxury from his curia, and then adjusts the Roman Missal and breviary for use throughout the Latin church; he also provides the Church with the Roman Catechism (1566, aka. the Catechism of the Council of Trent), intended to provide an authoritative defence of the Catholic Faith against the new assaults of the protestants and their protectors; the University of Paris condemns (1560) the heresies of Michael Baius (1513-1589) and his colleague John Hessels (d.1566), which condemnation is repeated by the Holy Father (1567); the Baian heresies would resurface as Jansenism; protestantism is returned to Ireland by parliament in Dublin (1560), with royal supremacy, and the outlawing of the Roman Missal | The long reign of Queen Elisabeth I of England (d.1603) finally ends the hope of the restoration of English Catholicism, the protestant groups are confirmed and every reform of Queen Mary is undone; the Supremacy of the Crown in religion is restored and the BCP is reissued and again defended by an Act of Uniformity; the now Calvinist doctrine of the Anglican Church is enshrined lastingly as the thirty-nine articles, which reject the primacy of Rome, the Catholic Mass, and other Catholic doctrines; John Knox introduces Calvinism into Scotland (1559), just as Mary Queen of Scots returns to Scotland as widow of the French king Francis II (d.1560); she is forced to abdicate in favour of her protestant son James VI; she flees to England and is eventually executed by Elisabeth I of England (1587), because of her better claim to the English throne |
| AD 1559 | The Irish bishops and clergy mostly reject the Irish oath of supremacy (1560); Father David Wolf SJ arrives as a papal legate, with faculties for absolution and dispensation; death of the holy confessor S. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562, beat.1622, can.1669), of the Order of S. Francis and later a commissary of that Order (1556), adviser and confessor of kings, Catholic Reformer and collaborator with S. Teresa of Ávila in the reform of the Carmelite Order (1559) | France finally realises the threat of instability posed by the French Calvinists (aka. the Huguenots) to the unity of the kingdom; earlier kings like Francis I (1515-1547) and Henry II (1547-1559) had been hostile, but tolerant; but a new general synod establishes Calvinism with a presbyterian organisation (1559), and civil wars result between 1562 and 1570, until the peace of Germain-en-Laye offers them toleration |
| AD 1570 | The Holy Father S. Pius V pronounces the sentence of excommunication against the English queen, sharpening the persecution especially of Catholic priests; scores of priests in England, Wales and Ireland are put to death before the end of the queen’s reign; the intercession of the Holy Father brings about a Marian victory over the Turkish fleet at Lepanto (1571), and the cult of OL of the Rosary is shortly established on the 7th of October | The naval power of the Turks is neutralised by a Christian fleet at Lepanto (1571); after the S. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (1572) results in further civil wars, the Huguenots are given liberty by the Edict of Nantes (1598), overseen by king Henry IV (1589-1610), who had himself become a Catholic (1593) |
| AD 1579 | Establishment of the ‘Venerable’ English College in Rome, formerly an English hospice for pilgrims in Rome, as a seminary for the formation of English priests by the Holy Father Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and Cardinal William Allen; the Holy Father Sixtus V (1585-1590), an excellent administrator, thoroughly reorganises the Roman curia; the Holy Shroud completes its travel to Turin (1578), while remaining in the ownership of Savoy, thence being named the Shroud of Turin | The Irish resistance of Shane O’Neill (d.1567) is taken up by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, who assumes the cause of Catholicism in a very Constantinian way, finds backing from the Holy Father in Rome; it fails with the death of Fitzgerald (1579), but delays the triumph of the protestants in Ireland; Hugh O’Neill leads the tail-end of the Irish resistance, with much success, until his capitulation (1603) |
| AD 1580 | The synod of Manila arrives after Spain has established herself in the Filipines (1580); death of the holy virgin S. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), co-foundress of the Discalced Carmelites; the natives are quickly converted to Catholicism to such an extent that the priests were later able to begin political reform (1850s); death of S. Catharine de Ricci (1589, beat.1732, can.1746), Dominican Sister at Prat in Tuscany, much given to prayer, penance, and a spiritual associate of S. Philip Neri | Persecutions of the Church by the Japanese governments begin (1588) when the emperor decides he is a god; martyrdom continues (1592) and priests are crucified (1597); after a respite, the cruelty of the tortures increases (1602, 1614, 1616) and the Church in Japan is almost completely destroyed, Europeans almost completely expelled (1639) |
| AD 1592 | Death of the Spanish confessor S. Paschal Baylon (1592, can.1690), a Franciscan who desired not ordination, but the simple life of the friary, and became an apostle of the Blessed Sacrament; death of the holy Jesuit S. Aloysius Gonzaga (1591), after assisting patients during an epidemic | |
| AD 1607 | Death of the missionary and confessor archbishop of Lima, S. Alphonsus Turibius (1538-1606) | A pioneer community of non-conformist protestants arrives in Jamestown, Virginia with an Anglican chaplain Robert Hunt (1568-1608); the ‘pilgrim fathers’ arrive at Plymouth, New England (1620) on the Mayflower; during the reign of King Charles I (1625-1649) more puritans arrive in a ‘great migration’ to New England, Ireland, the West Indies and the Netherlands, hoping to create an idealist Christian commonwealth indepent from hierarchical systems |
| AD 1608 | Death of the holy man, S. Camillus of Lellis (1550-1614), a helper of the sick, founder of his own Order of hospitallers for that work | The Catholic situation having improved following the reforms of the Council of Trent, and the new religious fervour of the counter-reformation, the protestant cause is increasingly revealed as a political one; the Protestant Union of Frederick IV of the Palatinate is erected (1608) against the Catholic League of Maximilian of Bavaria (1609); thus begins the thirty-years war (1618-1648) in which the protestant leaders such as the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus demonstrate their military strength |
| AD 1617 | Death of the holy virgin S. Rosa of Lima (1586-1617), of Spanish descent, conversant with angels, of the third Order of S. Dominic | |
| AD 1622 | The Holy Father Gregory XV (1621-1623) establishes the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (aka. Propaganda Fidei), which brings the authority of Rome to bear upon the governments of Catholic countries in the foreign territories (called patronages/padroados), and so directly control the missions; Jesuits and other missionary Orders take over catechesis on the ground; a single vicar apostolic governs the Church in England (1623-1688); death of the bishop of Geneva, S. François de Sales (1622), preacher and teacher, gentle convertor of heretics, founder of the Visitation Sisters | |
| AD 1633 | The famous trial of the impertinent scientist Galileo Galilei, who unsuccessfully tries to back up the Copernican system, but makes all the wrong enemies and is tried for heresy; the famous Cardinal Baronius agrees that the Bible ‘teaches the way to heaven, not the way the heavens go’; Galileo is later propped up as a martyr for science by anti-clericalists | |
| AD 1634 | The convert George Calvert Lord Baltimore establishes Maryland as a refuge for persecuted Catholics in the American colonies; his sons Cecil and Leonard found the Catholic colony, naming it after Queen Henrietta Maria of England; Maryland is eventually taken by the protestants and anti-Catholicism installed | Catholics are generally persecuted by the protestant majorities in the American colonies, with the notable exception of the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn (1684) |
| AD 1640 | Publication by Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638) of his Augustinus, a posthumously-published study of the writings of S. Augustine, which establishes Jansenist theories of grace and works, soon to be condemned by the Holy Father Urban VIII (1642); further condemnation arrives from the Holy Father Innocentius X (1653) in Cum occasione; further corrections (1656, 1665) by the Holy Father Alexander VII were made impossible by gallicanism | Jansenism is enthusiastically taken up in France, as restated in the rigorist book de la fréquente communion (1643) of Antoine Arnauld and a bitter attack on the ‘laxity’ of the Jesuits is launched, supported to a degree by even Blaise Pascal in his lettres provinciales (1656-1657) |
| AD 1641 | Irish Catholics attempt an armed insurrection, holding strong almost everywhere, supported by the clergy, who felt it was necessary for the preservation of the Church; the confederation of Kilkenny (1642) is established to take over government; the Holy Father send the Oratorian Father Peter Scarampi as legate, and then Mgr. John Baptist Rinuccini as nuncio; but the confederation was destroyed by infighting and ended by the Cromwellian measures; death of the holy widow S. Jeanne-Frances de Chantal (1641), founder with S. François de Sales and first abbess of the Visitation Sisters | The Cromwellian government is clear in its policy (1657): one of the three ‘beasts’ it purposed to destroy is the Catholic priest; the Catholic rites are outlawed, Catholics are excluded from government, the administration of justice, or running schools; in Ireland, the measure are aimed more at the clergy than the laity |
| AD 1648 | The Holy Father Innocent X (1644-1655) protests against the settlement of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended in compromise, but his objection is ignored by the powers in treaty, their eyes more upon politics than the correction of religious error | The Peace of Westphalia, ending the thirty years war, weakens the Holy Roman Empire considerably because of its final reiteration of the terms of the Peace of Augsburg, but on a larger scale and involving the Calvinist religion and recognising the inevitability of protestantism; the year 1624 was selected as a norm for the division of property between the three religions of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism |
| AD 1660 | Death of the confessor S. Vincent de Paul (1576-1660), founder of the Lazarite Order of hospitallers, coworker with Monsignor de Berulle of the French Oratory | The Catholic countries are increasingly unable to protect their colonies around the world; England siezes Barbados and Trinidad and then Jamaica (1655); France adds Haiti to Martinique, and Saint Christophe (1697) |
| AD 1669 | Christ appears to the French S. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1673-1675) at the convent of the Visitation Sisters at Paray-le-Monial and appoints her the Apostle of His Sacred Heart, thus launching the cult of the Most Sacred Heart of our Lord; providentially, S. Claude de la Colombière SJ appears as superior of the Jesuit house at Paray and is able to direct S. Margaret Mary and further the devotion and cult from Paray, to England and through his writings worldwide; devotion to the Sacred Heart is shortly embraced by the Jesuit Order as their own | The founder of ‘pietism,’ Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) begins religious meetings to inject life into Lutheranism; he publishes Pia desideria (1675); August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) establishes a pietist centre at the University of Halle, his influence going to Sweden and Moscow; Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) founds a colony at Herrnhut in Saxony, the so-called the Moravian Brethren; these were an inspiration for John Wesley in England, and upon the ‘great awakening’ in the United States |
| AD 1682 | The University of Paris is corrupted by the king’s Gallicanism (1663), together with the schools and the seminaries | The Gallican articles attempt to push France as far away as possible from Rome, attempting to establish an almost Anglican estrangement from the Holy See, preventing the administration of the French church by Rome and pushing for a national Catholic church; Gallicanism denies the Holy Father not only temporal supremacy but also spiritual supremacy, subjugating him to canon law and/or the universal church as represented by a ‘general council’ |
| AD 1683 | The Turkish aggression against Europe is ended before the gates of Vienna by the victory of John Sobieski; Prince Eugene’s victory at Zenta (1697) further postpone the Turkification of Europe; a surprise ally of the Turks is the French king Louis XIV (1643-1715), who though nominally Catholic was a constant adversary of Rome, pushing for the supremacy of his Bourbon dynasty over the Habsburgs of Austria | |
| AD 1685 | The edict of Nantes is finally repealed, after the authoritarian king Louis XIV of France becomes convinced that political unity requires religious unity; forced conversions and violence, with the involvement of Cardinal Richelieu, leads to a mass exodus of French Calvinists to protestant countries, and even to the Low Counties and Ireland; Louis XIV’s constant attacks on Rome bring him the Holy Father Alexander VII‘s sentence of excommunication (1687) | |
| AD 1688 | Catholicism becomes practically outlawed in England and Wales by the victorious protestants, with penal codes and unabated hostility, for fear of a return of the Stuart claim; the single vicar general (1623) is assisted by four others as Catholic England is divided into four districts (1688-1840); Irish Catholics had supported the Stuart cause and suffered under the same penal code as the English Catholics, under William of Orange and queen Anne (1702-1714); penal laws aim to destroy the fortunes of the Catholic laity, the forced protestantisation of their children, and the simultaneous destruction of the Catholic clergy | The so-called glorious revolution is caused by English protestants (mostly Whigs) rejecting the Catholic King James II of England (1685-1688) and instead seeking some distant succession that does not result in a Catholic ruler; this turns out to be Mary II of England, whose husband William of Orange (1689-1702) becomes the second and only foreigner to lead an invasion of England since William of Normandy (1066), although by invitation; penal laws attempt to neutralise the threat of a return of James II and his successors |
| AD 1713 | The Holy Father Clement XI establishes the Catholic position against Jansenism in the face of a resurgence under Paschasius Quesnel; although conciliarism made the task of the Holy Father more difficult, the Jansenists were soon reduced to a handful of French exiles in Utrecht; the Holy Father Clement XI unfortunately bans the inculturated rituals (1704, 1715) being used by the Jesuits in China that would have permitted an extraordinary entry of the entire nation into the Church | The growing strength of ‘Enlightenment’ thought creates a growing animosity towards the Catholic Church and her army of Jesuits; the European freemasonry begins to turn against the Holy Fathers and their greatest defenders, the Jesuits; the royal houses of Europe begin to react against the Jesuit Order; the Holy Father Clement XII (1730-1740) condemns freemasonry as incompatible with Catholicism and forbids Catholics from joining the lodges |
| AD 1746 | The Holy Father Benedict XIV reinforces the ban on the Chinese rites proposed by the Jesuits (1742) | Following the rout of the forces of Prince Charles Stuart (aka. the Young Pretender) at Culloden, the Stuart cause is lost in England and Wales |
| AD 1753 | The Holy Father Benedict XIV issues the constitution Apostolicum Ministerium, which causes the English Mission in its four districts (the London, Midland, Western and Northern) to be governed by Propaganda Fidei, and led each district by a bishop given the title of vicar apostolic | |
| AD 1773 | The anti-clericalism of the Enlightenment is turned against the greatest opponent to the new secularisation of Europe: the Jesuits, who for some 200 years had defended the Church from the growing enmity to Rome and the Church; following the devastating earthquake in Lisbon (1755), the new regent of Portugal, the freemason Marquis de Pombal is able to compel the king Joseph I (1750-1777) to expel the Order from Portugal and the Portuguese territories (1759); Mme. de Pompadour and Choiseul are able to convince Louis XIV to expel the Order from France and the French territories (1764); further expulsions from Spain (1767), Naples (1767), Parma (1768) and compulsion from the Bourbon dynasty eventually lead to the suppression of the Order by the Holy Father Clement XIV (1769-1774) not for proven crimes but for political peace in a new Europe | The so-called Enlightenment is a new movement aiming to overturn the order of European society and distance it from its Christian past and traditions, with the grand hope that in this way human suffering (particularly through war) may be reduced, and improved by the new advances in human science and a new global society of peoples, even non-Christian; the theme is emancipation of human life in all respects from bondage to theology and traditional religion/morality and the clergy; Deism as an agnostic system is founded by Lord Bacon (1561-1626) and Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), bolstered by Hobbes (d.1679), Shaftesbury (d.1713), Toland (d.1722), Collins (d.1729), etc.; the Enlightenment takes off in France in reaction to the rule of Louis XIV and the new world-view is put forth by Diderot and D’Alembert, Montesquieu (d.1753), Voltaire (d.1778) and Rousseau (d.1778) |
| AD 1774-1782 | With the great majority of the Jesuits dispersed, Catherine of Russia and Frederick of Prussia choose to retain the Order in their territories, and a series of temporary vicar-generals are appointed | The American War of Independence, loses England its most prestigious colonies |
| AD 1778 | The bishop Nicholas von Hontheim of Trier (aka. Febronius, 1701-1790) who had raised the spectre of a national German Catholic Church, in another attempt to distance German Catholics from Rome, recants his error during the reign of the Holy Father Pius VI (1775-1799); in a book (1763), Febronius claimed that governing authority was given by Christ to the whole Church, who entrusted it to the pope and bishops; German bishops again brought nationalism to bear when the Holy Father established a new nunciature in Munich (1785) with their punctation of Ems (1786), which demanded that the administration of German provinces should belong to the German bishops; the Holy Father is able to defend himself well (1789) | A set of Catholic relief acts in England and Ireland (1771, 1774, 1778) grudgingly undoes much of the anti-Catholicism of the ‘glorious revolution’ (1688), ending the persecution of Catholic clergy and Religious, freeing the opening of Catholic schools, and permitting Catholics to inherit or acquire property; for the first time the threat of life imprisonment that hung over priests, bishops and schoolmasters in England is removed; die-hard protestants like John Wesley are outraged |
| AD 1780 | The Church hierarchy reacts in opposition to the josephism of the empire, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna, Mgr. Migazzi, and Cardinal Bathyanyi of Gran leading; the Holy Father Pius VI arrived at Vienna (1782) in person but was unable to dissuade the emperor; he would live to see the beginning of the French Revolution and the end of the Bourbon dynasty of kings | Further attempts are made to shake off the authority of Rome over the secular/temporal realm; following the death of empress Maria Theresa, her son Joseph II (1765-1790) to further her reforms of the church and state in the empire, even taking it upon himself to regulate the circulation of papal documents and instructions to the Orders, and to issue faculties to bishops for dispensations/absolutions, and interfering in marriage law; the emperor establishes regional seminaries to further Josephism among the clergy and nationalise the study of history, theology and law |
| AD 1787 | The US congress establishes the separation of church and state and freedom of worship, ending the vicious anti-Catholic persecutions, at least in law | |
| AD 1788 | The Catholic Church arrives in Australia with the penal colony at Botany Bay, which receives Irish convicts (i.e. political prisoners), who nevertheless are forced to conform to the Anglican services; new convict-priests Fathers Harold of Dublin, Dixon of Ferns and O’Neill of Cloyne are not permitted to exercise their Orders | |
| AD 1789 | The Holy Father Pius VI obviously finds the novelties of the French church unacceptable, although the French king Louis XVI is forced to ratify the changes (1790); French clergy are divided into conservative and progressive camps, many of them flee to and are received kindly by even protestant countries; the Holy Father’s protest (1791) is followed soon by the eventual removal of Christianity in France and the establishment of a religion of human reason and the desecration of French church buildings; the American Catholics had been administered by the vicar-apostolic of the London district, but the US now receives their first bishop in Mgr. John Carroll (1735-1815) of the diocese of Baltimore; he opens his seminary at once (1791), and entrusts it to the French Sulpicians | The middle classes in France let loose upon the nobility, the royal family and the Church in the French Revolution, with the creation of the National Assembly, designed to establish a new constitution for France (1791); absolute monarchy is replaced in a more violent manner than the English glorious revolution (1688), the Church which had been so attached to the kings of France suffers with them at the hands of the new anti-clericalism that had taken over Europe; the new progressivism envisages the eclipse of the Church; the civil constitution of the clergy (1790) replaces the diocesan system entirely and decides that episcopal appointments should be local and democratic, in a manner similar to the Calivinists; clergy are required to accept the novelties on oath; Robespierre eventually returns Christian worship (1795) |
| AD 1791 | A new Catholic relief act in England (1791) and Ireland (1793) finally permits us to observe religion without penalty, establishing the toleration of Catholics; church buildings can again be built, and the existing chapels legalised; in Ireland the question of Catholics in parliament is raised (to be finally answered in 1829), and Catholics are permitted to acquire academic degrees at Trinity College, Dublin | |
| AD 1799 | The Venerable English College in Rome is vandalised by the French and becomes derelict and empty, its chapel being desecrated and serving as a barn | A coup d’état places Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul of the French Republic; Napoleon remains an enemy of Rome and the Church, but sees the political value of Catholicism and the vitality of the Church and begins to restore the French Church; nevertheless the Holy Father is humiliated when Rome is sacked by French armies, and many ancient institutions plundered |
IX. The turmoils of the late modern period (AD 1800 – 1950)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 1800 | The formal act of Union of England and Ireland; it was hoped that this would result in Catholic emancipation, especially from the corrupt protestants in the Dublin government; nevertheless the central government wished to retain control over the episcopal appointments in Ireland and make provision for the Catholic clergy | |
| AD 1801 | The concordat between Paris and Rome guarantees freedom to the Catholic religion and a restoration of the episcopal system; stolen church property is however not returned and the Catholic bishops become dependent for support upon the government; Rome accepts the ongoing reality of the Revolution and the end of the ancien régime; Napoleon’s ‘organic articles’ afterwards violate the concordat and he ignores the protests of Rome | |
| AD 1803 | The Irish Christian Brothers founded by Edmund Rice at Waterford (1802), together with the Presentation Sisters, the Poor Clares and the Sisters of S. Brigid begin to establish Catholic education | As France moves eastwards, the German states are permitted to take Church property east of the Rhine in compensation, in the greatest ever spoliation of the German Church; mass secularisation begins to take Europe over |
| AD 1804 | Napoleon is crowned emperor in Paris, the Holy Father Pius VII being in attendance | |
| AD 1806 | Emperor Francis II (1792-1835) dissolves the Holy Roman Empire at last; it is replaced with the Austrian empire | |
| AD 1808-1814 | The Papal States are invaded by the French and Rome is occupied (1808); the Holy Father Pius VII is arrested and kept in custody (until 1812); Napoleon’s Russian maneuvres fail and the Holy Father is set at liberty (1814) and returns triumphantly to Rome; Baltimore becomes a metropolitan see (1808), first in the US, with suffragans New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Bardstown, and New Orleans (1793); the Holy Father Pius VII restores the Order of the Jesuits (1814) who make a startling recovery within a few decades, with a stronger presence in Rome and a new ultramontane nature, in time for the upcoming battle with modernism | Napoleon is forced to abdicate (1814), the battle of Waterloo (1815) puts an end to French expansionism and the emperor is exiled to the isle of S. Helena, where he dies (1821) reconciled to Rome; even Catholic Austria begins state surveillance of the Church under Prince Metternich (1809-1848) |
| AD 1815 | French Catholics are generally conservative, representative by such as Chateaubriand’s Génie due Christianisme (1802) and Joseph de Maistre’s du Pape (1819); when the Bourbon monarchy is finally ousted (1830) and the Republic becomes inevitable, and efforts are made by some to ‘baptise the Revolution,’ such as by Lamennais, Lacordaire and the Count de Montalembert; this approach is encouraged by the Holy Father Leo XIII (1878-1903); anti-clericalism gradually secularises the schools and universities | The Congress of Vienna (1815) produces reactionist actions to the dramas of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic expansion, and wishes to turn back the clock to 1789; the Papal States are restored, and the Bourbon kings returned to France and Naples/Sicily, and Ferdinand VII to Spain, but instead of the property of the German church being returned individual states make provision for the Church in their territories; the House of Savoy holds Sardinia at Turin, and the Austrian emperor Francis II holds Lombardy and Venice; the novel ideas of the Revolution, spread by the empire, can no longer be contained and arrive time and time again as liberalism; liberalism seeks to establish universal franchise, democratic government, and the utter emancipation from religion and religious morality; liberalism identifies the Catholic Church as its principal enemy and aims at the complete secularisation in Europe |
| AD 1817 | The Cistercian Father Jeremiah Francis O’Flynn (b.1758) arrives in Australia to serve Catholics; he has arrived without authorisation from London but demonstrates the problem for Australian Catholics | The colonial government approves two Catholic chaplains for the Australian colonies: Father Philip Connolly of Kildare (for Botany Bay) and Father John Joseph Therry of Cork (for Tasmania) |
| AD 1818 | The Venerable English College in Rome is reestablished under the Holy Father Pius VII after the Napoleonic period, with Cardinal Consalvi as its protector; among its first student-scholars is (the future Cardinal) Nicholas Wiseman (1802-1865), arrived from Ushaw | |
| AD 1820 | The Spanish king is forced to adopt a more liberal policy by revolutionaries; the parliament is openly anti-clerical and a French intervention (1823) is called to rescue king and Church; during the Carlist wars (1834-1840), anti-Catholic liberalism suppresses most of the Religious Orders and church property is confiscated by the state; after the fall of the dictator Espartero (1843), a new concordat is signed with Rome to establish Catholicism, a situation that lasts until the end of the rule of Alfonso XIII (1902-1931) | |
| AD 1822 | The Holy Father Pius VII condemns the system of lay-trusteeship in the US in non sine magno, by which the laity were in possession of church property and claimed the right to even elect and dismiss their bishops and priests; the suppression of this system was handled by Mgr. John Hughes of New York (1840-1864), Mgr. Francis Patrick Kenrick of Philadelphia (1830-1863) and Mgr. John England of Charleston (1820-1842) | Anti-Catholic bigotry is rife in the United States of the nineteenth century, especially against those of Irish descent, called ‘foreigners’ and discriminated against; initiatives include the Native American movement (1835), the American Protective Association (1887) and the ku-klux-clan |
| AD 1823 | The ancient basilica of S. Paul outside the walls of Rome goes up in flames, leaving very little behind, and will have to be rebuilt almost entirely; not knowing the disaster, the Holy Father Pius VII goes quietly to his reward the next day. | Daniel O’Connell forms the Catholic Association; a Catholic rent is established to finance a Catholic party to contest the Irish elections; O’Connell is elected to parliament (1828) and great pressure was laid upon the PM, the Duke of Wellington, and the Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel to convince the stubborn king George IV (1820-1830) to concede equal rights to the Catholics, which he thought violated his coronation oath |
| AD 1829 | In Ireland, Catholics rebel in the tithe wars, against having to pay for the upkeep of the clergy and buildings of the established protestant church, beginning at Graiguenamanagh in Kilkenny (1830); the situation is resolved with a tithe act (1838) and finally with the disestablishment of the protestant church of Ireland (1869, 1871) | The great Catholic relief act in England and Wales, owing very much to the Irish agitations under Daniel O’Connell, a one-time student at the English College at Douai; full political rights for Catholics finally arrive for the laity; Catholic marriages remain invalid by law, soldiers and sailors are still locked into Anglican services, and church property is insecure; the chief secretary for Ireland Stanley establishes new non-denominational schools with the Stanley Act (1831) |
| AD 1830 | The Catholic university of Mechlin is founded (1834) and develops into the very successful University of Louvain; the Blessed Virgin appears to the French S. Catherine Labouré, at the house of the Daughters of Charity on the Rue du Bac in Paris, giving her the plan of the Miraculous Medal | The union of the Netherlands and Belgium under William I is ended by revolution; the new constitution (1831) separates church and state but the Church retains her freedoms and is compensated by the state with funding; the Church in Holland is oppressed by William I, but received well by William II (1840-1849); a revised dutch constitution (1849) guarantees freedom |
| AD 1835 | The priest Father McEnroe arrives in Australia, soon becoming involved in the development of the Church in New South Wales; Mgr. Polding (once a Benedictine at Downside) is named bishop and arrives at Sydney, with Mgr. Ullathorne (later of Birmingham) as his vicar general; Mgr. Wiseman makes his first extended visit of the English Mission, establishes friendships with Mgr. Walsh of the Midland District | |
| AD 1839 | Mgr. Wiseman compares the new ‘Anglo-Catholics’ of the Oxford Movement to the Donatist heretics of antiquity in a strong article in the Dublin Review, shaking Newman profoundly; Derby S. Mary, a striking church designed by Pugin on a medieval plan is consecrated | |
| AD 1840 | Propaganda acts, as the English vicars general delay matters, to establish the midway towards the reestablishment of the hierarchy of England and Wales: the four districts of Catholic England and Wales are further divided to produce eight districts as England; so the Midland district gives birth to the Central district, Wales is given to the Benedictines at the expense of the Western district, and the Northern district loses to the new Lancashire district and Yorkshire district, while the London district remains intact; Mgr. Wiseman is consecrated bishop at the English College in Rome, and will serve as assistant to Mgr. Walsh of the Midland district, while being appointed president of S. Mary’s College, Oscott | |
| AD 1841 | Tract 90 of the Oxford Tractarians is penned by Newman, putting forth finally his understanding of the Catholicity residing within the principal articles of the Anglican religion; the quick reaction of the protestant establishment denies this | |
| AD 1842 | Sydney becomes a metropolitan see, with Mgr. Polding as archbishop, and suffragans Adelaide and Hobart | |
| AD 1845 | Reception into full communion with Rome of the great Englishman S. John Henry Newman (1801-1891), one of the founders of the Oxford Movement, which had aimed to reach beyond the Elisabethan and Edwardian settlements to the post-1535 Henrician settlement and claim that the Church of England was Catholic; Newman finds this untenable at last, comparing the position of England to Rome to the position of the Arians to Rome | In Ireland, queen’s colleges are established (1845) at Cork and Galway to help solve the problem of higher education for Catholics, which has been impeded by the protestant establishment; Rome and the bishops find the measure insufficient and dangerous to the faith of Catholics; the bishops establish the Catholic University of Dublin after the model of Louvain, John Henry Newman being appointed rector (1854); unfortunately, the university was without charter and the plan failed |
| AD 1846 | The accession of the liberalising Holy Father Pius IX (1846-1878) creates hope in the new Europe for a development in the papacy; more conservative Catholic powers like Austria grow worried; the English bishops prepare to send delegates to Rome to push once more for the restoration of the hierarchy | |
| AD 1847 | Irish Catholics arrive in the United States in flight from the potato famine; French priests were increasingly replaced with Irish priests; German Catholics also arrived, following the anti-Catholic kulturkampf of Bismarck (1871-1876); American Catholics suffered much discrimination as foreigners, but were well led by men such as John Hughes of New York (1797-1864), John England of Charleston (1786-1842) and Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921), the archbishop of Baltimore; the glory of the American Catholic Church was her schools, hospitals and universities; Mgr. Wiseman is named pro-vicar-apostolic of the London district after the death of Mgr. Griffiths | The Mormons (Church of JC of the Latter-day Saints) are established in Utah by Brigham Young (1847); the JHV’s witnesses group is founded by Charles Taze Russell (1870); Mary Baker Eddy founds the Christian Science group at Boston and brings out her Science and health (1875); pentecostalism arrives in the African-American church of God in Christ (1897), the pentecostal holiness church (1898) and the church of God of Tennessee (1906), with a heavy focus on charismaticism, such as in the babbling in ‘tongues’; pentecostalism ends in the assemblies of God group (1914) |
| AD 1848 | Mgr. Wiseman remains in England to negotiate English support for Rome, as the spirit of revolution overtakes Europe; Mgr. Ullathorne takes his expertise from the establishment of the hierarchy of Australia to complete arrangements for England and Wales; France falls into confusion and the royal family flees in misery to England; the Holy Father Pius IX is forced to flee Rome after his chief minister Count Rossi is assassinated on the chancellory steps | The restorationist Congress of Vienna has caused disaffection in Italy, with agitators pushing for a union of Italian states and the destruction of the Papal States; Mazzini’s young-Italy party wishes to expel the Austrians; the Holy Father Pius IX (1846-1878) is initially sympathetic but cannot bring himself to oppose the Habsburgs of Austria, and revolution breaks out in the Papal States, causing the pope to flee Rome; an assembly abolishes the papal government and declares a new republic; France is summoned to suppress the republic and the Holy Father becomes a conservative |
| AD 1849 | Mgr. Walsh of the Central District goes to his reward, and Mgr. Wiseman takes up his role as Vicar Apostolic of the London district and probable Archbishop of the new London-based metropolitan See of Westminster, soon to be erected | Catholic Austria receives a new constitution, the bishops being favourably received by emperor Francis Joseph I (1848-1916); the new concordat (1855) abandons josephism and grants the bishops freedom; nevertheless matrimonial legislation follows (1868) and the concordat is abandoned (1870) and state supervision of the Church is restored |
| AD 1850 | The Holy Father Pius IX, having now returned to Rome (and well cured of his liberal affections), restores the hierarchy of England and Wales, destroyed during the protestant revolution after the death of Queen Mary Tudor; the papal bull Universalis ecclesiae erects 13 dioceses, with Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman as archbishop of Westminster | The English PM Lord John Russell leads the new bigotry towards the bishops with governmental fines for assumed titles to pretended sees; this measure is eventually ended by Gladstone (1871) |
| AD 1851 | Henry Edward Manning, archdeacon of Chichester, joins the burgeoning crowd of Englishmen coming to peace with Rome, as the situation of the Anglican Church of England deteriorates; he becomes Cardinal Wiseman’s greatest disciple, and eventually succeeds him as Cardinal archbishop of Westminster | Following the uproar stirred up by the Times of London and the Anglican establishment, the English government passes the Ecclesiastical titles act to fine Catholic bishops for taking up the titles given them by Rome (viz. archbishop of Westminster, bishop of Birmingham, etc.), but the act is dead on arrival and never enforced, later removed by Mr. Gladstone |
| AD 1852 | First synod of the new metropolitan province of Westminster at Oscott S. Mary, Cardinal Wiseman presiding, and the great sermon by Newman known as the Second Spring; Newman declares that future generations will thrill at such titles as Nottingham, Hexham and Shrewsbury | |
| AD 1853 | The Holy Father Pius IX restores the hierarchy of the Netherlands, destroyed during the protestant rebellions, with the archbishopric of Utrecht | |
| AD 1855 | The call from the US episcopate for a catechism adapted to the needs of the country results in the Baltimore Catechism, still used today in a modified form | |
| AD 1858 | Catholic intellectuals in Germany also push against the growing anti-clerical liberalism in Europe; Mgr. Zirkel, bishop of Würzburg, Johan Michael Sailer (1751-1832), Joseph Görres (1776-1848) lead groups aiming to protect and further Catholic interests; this assisted in eg. the mixed-marriage controversy in the Rhineland, when Mgr. Clement Augustus von Drosté-Vischering, archbishop of Cologne, was arrested (1837) by Prussian authorities; a ministry of worship is established (1841) in the reign of William IV (1840-1861); the Blessed Virgin appears to the French S. Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto of Massabiele near Lourdes, thus beginning the cult of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the intense dedication to the Holy Rosary | The French emperor Napoleon III begins to support the Italian plans to revolutionise Italy, eliminate the Papal States (1858); these plans later grow violent (1879) |
| AD 1864 | The Holy Father Pius IX, having published numerous condemnations of the new philosophies and theologies that were tearing Europe apart, publishes the new Syllabus (or collection) of Errors, to list and condemn them all at once; the White Fathers begin their African mission (1868) | Modernism has already reared its ugly head, attempting to deal with modern science by explaining away Christian doctrine and endlessly modernising the Church to the standard of the new ideas, to the point that there should no longer be a permanent measure of faith, doctrine and dogma, or indeed an hierarchical priesthood; the enemies of the Church refuse to engage with the Holy Father’s condemnation of error, and raise a great outcry against the irreconcilability of the Church with ‘modern progress’ and liberty |
| AD 1870-1871 | The Religious Orders in Germany are expelled (Jesuits, Vincentians, Redemptorists, Holy Ghosters, Sacred Heart Sisters, 1872); the May laws (1873) begin attacks on seminary formation and the work of bishops; clergy who refused the May laws are threatened with a loss of income, and receive support from lay Catholics and from the Catholics in parliament (Windthorst, con Mallinckrodt, the Reichenspergers); the attacks end in a truce (1880-1887), not without the contribution of the Holy Father Leo XIII; the emperor William II (1888-1918) remains friendly to the Church | Progressivists prepared to destroy the German church in the kulturkampf, with the establishment of the new German empire (the first reich), after a victory over France; under Ludwig II (1864-1886) and his liberal minister von Lutz, attacks were made in Baden, Hessen-Darmstadt, Saxony and Bavaria; the chancellor Bismarck takes a personal interest in the project, for the sake of unity under a protestant state |
| AD 1869 | Following his Syllabus of Errors, the Holy Father calls the first Vatican Council, to address the new errors and the neo-pagan culture that had taken Europe over; the Council is interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war, but not before the infallibility of the Holy Father in faith and morals is established, alongside his universal episcopate and ordinary and immediate power over every last Christian soul; this puts an end to the conciliarism of the past, as well as the Gallicanism, febronianism and josephism by which the secular power attempted to interfere with the sacramental life of the Church | |
| AD 1870 | After French troops leave the Papal States after the Franco-Prussian war (1870), Rome is surrendered and the Holy Father Pius IX becomes the ‘prisoner of the Vatican’ (1871) after refusing the arrangements made for him by the Italian parliament’s Law of Guarantees; he instructs Catholics to boycott the new Italy; the Holy Father Leo XIII feels forced to follow the policy of intransigence of his predecessor, despite having come to terms with the kulturcampf and the French situation | The crafty prime minister of Sardinia Cavour begins to unite Italy under his master of Savoy, Victor Emmanuel II; Naples joins much of northern and central Italy (1860), and Victor Emmanuel II become king of united Italy (1861); the Austro-Prussian war (1866) removes the Austrians and Venetian territories was added to united Italy |
| AD 1891 | The Holy Father Leo XIII issues the encyclical Rerum novarum, which establishes in print Catholic social teaching, addressing the condition of the working classes | |
| AD 1898 | The Holy Father Leo XIII publishes his bull Apostolicae Curae, denying at last the validity of Anglican Orders, declaring them null, in an answer to the hopeful sentiments expressed since the inception of the Oxford Movement; the Holy Shroud is exposed for adoration and the first photographs taken (1898), when the startling negative image is discovered | The United States annexes the Filipines, with the support of its Catholic hierarchy; both the independent filipina church (begun 1899, led by the priest Gregorio Aglipay 1902) and the American protestants appear and begin to divide the filipina church; other odd communities like the iglesia ni Cristo of Felix Manalo (1914) appear; following independence (1946), the Catholic hierarchy has remained a political force |
| AD 1901 | The Holy Father Pius X (1903-1914) begins to ease the stubbornness of the popes towards the new status quo in Rome and Italy and Catholics begin to take up appointments in parliament | Anti-Catholicism in France that had caused a second expulsion of the Jesuit Order and shaken the ground under the other Orders, and increasingly secularised education, now begins to suppress the Orders entirely with the Associations Law (1901); diplomacy with Rome is ended (1904) and France becomes a ‘neutral’ state, apostate at last |
| AD 1908 | The Irish universities act establishes the National University of Ireland, with colleges at Dublin, Cork and Galway, with the potential for other colleges to be ‘recognised’ – such as S. Patrick’s College, Maynooth | |
| AD 1910 | The kingdom of Portugal comes to an end following the assassination of the king and crown prince; the Religious Orders are attacked and expelled and separation of church and state decreed (1914); diplomacy with Rome is entered (1918) | |
| AD 1917 | The Blessed Virgin appears to three little shepherd children, S. Jacinta and S. Francisco Marto and Lúcia dos Santos at the Cova da Iría, near Fátima, in Portugal, thus beginning the cult of Our Lady of Fátima | The Russian revolution assaults the Eastern Churches, when Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) enforces the separation between church and state, dispossessing the Church and attacking the devotion of the ordinary faithful, seeking to free them from ‘superstition’; anti-clericalism decimates the Orthodox priesthood; this submission is enforced also by Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) |
| post AD 1919 | German Catholics working with the social democrats are able to preserve Catholic claims in the constitution of the Weimar Republic (1919, the second reich) and concordats are reached with Bavaria (1924), Prussia (1929) and Baden (1932) | The Austro-Hungarian empire, successor of the Holy Roman Empire (now finally undone), is destroyed with the treaty of S. Germain; the new Austrian republic is established as a Catholic majority, but the anti-Catholic social democrats (Austrian marxists) and freethinkers target the Church; a new concordat restores freedom to the bishops (1933), including their matrimonial legislation and Catholic schools; the shadow of fascism arrives with Benito Mussolini and his ‘blackshirts’ marching upon Rome (1922) |
| AD 1929 | The fascist regime of Benito Mussolini (1922) brings parliamentary politics to an end; the Holy Father Pius XI (1922-1939) decides to come to an understanding with the Quirinal; the Lateran treaty is signed in February, establishing the tiny Città del Vaticano and the other isolated papal plots which together form the new city-state, and providing monetary compensation for the loss of the Papal States; the bishops are given complete freedom by the concordat, although in a fragile manner, and the Holy Father is forced to protest by encyclical (1931) | Fascism increasingly sees the Church as a home for weaklings, although it was sometimes able to see the value of maintaining good relations; liberalism conquers Spain, as the government of that country becomes a ‘free republic,’ disassociated from the Church (1931), with a great burning of churches and monasteries; a kulturcampf follows and the separation of church and state on the French model |
| AD 1933 | The national socialist revolution places Hitler as German premier and a new concordat with the Church is arranged by Mgr. Kaas, Franz von Papen and Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, to regulate the affairs of the German Church; the concordat is violated by the third reich (1937) and the Holy Father issues his protest in Mit brennender sorge, particularly with regard to Catholic education, but also condemning the new attacks on the Jewish communities | |
| AD 1936 | The Holy Father Pius XI condemns anti-semitic violence in Germany (1937); the Holy Father Pius XII (1939-1958) carries the Church through the turmoil of the Second World War, and begins the war between the Catholic Church and Soviet marxism afterwards; the Holy Father Pius XII permits the Chinese rites (1939) that had two centuries ago been banned to the Jesuits | General Franco begins his counter-revolution against the liberals in Spain |
X. The transition to post-Modernism (from AD 1950)
| Year | The Church | The secular power |
| AD 1941-1945 | The Holy Father John XXIII (1959-1960), only recently appointed, summons the second Council of the Vatican, the latest of the ecumenical councils of the Church | Emerging as victors after the War, the Soviet Union attempts to demonstrate on the international stage the glories of communism; Stalin requires the Orthodox hiearchy to strengthen morale in the war with Germany; metropolitan Sergius (1867-1944) becomes patriarch of Moscow; under Nikita Khrushchev (1955-1964) and Yuri Andropov (1982-1984) anti-religious persecution increases, and the Church and other Christian communities were forced to survive underground |
| AD 1960-1965 | The Holy Father John XXIII (1959-1960), only recently appointed, summons the second Council of the Vatican, the latest of the ecumenical councils of the Church in a desire to present the system of Roman Catholicism in an updated form for a new era; when he dies soon afterwards, his vision for the Council begins to be replaced with a ‘spirit of the Council’ that prescribes endless change to the most basic practice of the Faith, even to the point of reordering church buildings, eliminating traditional devotions and establishing novelties; meanwhile the Religious Orders, in a desire for renewal, are altered often beyond recognition, as thousands of men and women leave their vocations to the consecrated life; thousands of priests also leave their vocations and missions | In the confusion after the Council, liberation theology appears in Latin America; the enormous problem of poverty among the ordinary people leads to the victory of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara (1959), and the Peruvian Jesuit Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez preaches a Catholicism that could bring forth revolutionary change in this world, without necessarily waiting for the next; the more extreme Father Camilo Torres (d.1966) decides that Christ in Torres’ time would be a marxist guerrilla fighter, and himself becomes one; the Jesuit Order becomes enmeshed in liberation theology, with a strong affinity to marxism |
| AD 1968 | The Holy Father Paul VI (1963-1978) narrowly escapes an assassination attempt during a visit to Manila (1967); he releases his famously prophetic document Humanae vitae (1968), which affirms Catholic teaching about marriage and the procreation of children, directly addressing and condemning the use of artificial contraception, immediately receiving opposition, outright rejection and even ridicule from Western society in general, and shockingly from bishops, priests and Religious, who have convinced themselves that the use of contraception is a matter of personal conscience | |
| AD 1969 | The Holy Father Paul VI, professing to act according to the desire of the Council, replaces the ancient Roman Rite with a reformed Mass, with associated rite and ritual being also replaced either immediately or in due course; the new Mass of Paul VI is standardised across the Latin Church in multiple languages, and the resulting situation becomes a focus of division in the ongoing struggle between progressivists and traditionalists; the French bishop, Mgr. Marcel Lefebvre, leads a movement to retain the old rites and ritual of the Roman Rite; meanwhile, new churches are built to respect the new liturgical requirements, and older churches are dramatically altered (and often catastrophically ruined) for the same reason; the Holy Father John Paul I (d.1978) dies mysteriously a month after his election, while locked in a battle with marxism within the Church | Soviet marxism spreads across the Western world, with particular impact in central and South America, through the agency of Cuba; among the countries affected are Nicaragua (1979), and the revolutions are organised with the active collusion of priests and members of Religious Orders, working to establish lay movements called ‘popular churches’ to support revolution, in defiance of Rome and their local bishops |
| AD 1978 | The longest-reigning of all popes, the Holy Father John Paul II (1978-2005) is elected; a Polish survivor of nazism and communism, a prayerful and charismatic bishop, he becomes the face of Catholicism of the late twentieth century, while retaining the opposition of the popes to communism and social progressivism; he begins the new tradition of frequent papal visits to countries around the world, and furthers the new ecumenism that had guided the Council | |
| AD 1981 | The Holy Father John Paul II narrowly escapes assassination in Rome, at the hands of the Turkish mercenary Agča | |
| AD 1984 | Death of the German Jesuit Fr. Karl Rahner (1984), one of the powers behind the revolution after the Council; the Holy Shroud of Turin is gifted by the house of Savoy to the Holy Father John Paul II | |
| AD 1989 | The Holy Father John Paul II, with much assistance from Cardinal Ratzinger as doctrinal chief, promulgates the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), to serve the Church after the confusion of the decades after the Council | The collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of her empire finally brings religious freedom to the Christian East; a great part in this demise is played by the repeated visits to Poland of the Holy Father John Paul II (1978-2005) to support the Solidarity movement; the new Russian president Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999) helps restore Orthodoxy |
| AD 2000 | The Holy Father John Paul II becomes the first of the popes to visit the Jewish nation state of Israel; there, he makes a heartfelt apology for the inability of the Church to better assist Jewish communities during the Holocaust | |
| AD 2000-2005 | Shocking revelations of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy, first revealed in the 1980s, now demonstrate the extent of this great evil, as criminal prosecutions and thorough investigations cause scandals to rock the local churches of the West, in Australia and elsewhere; enormous financial settlements are arranged by dioceses; following years of neglect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (soon to be elected to the papacy) begins to deal well with the anguish of the victims; as the Holy Father Benedict XVI (2005-2013), he works hard to meet victims groups, and express the shame and sorrow of the entire Church | |
| AD 2005 | The Holy Father Benedict XVI promulgates a compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in a short Q&A format, with references to the 1992 Catechism | |
| AD 2007 | The Holy Father Benedict XVI surprisingly permits the liberal use of the ancient Roman Rite and ritual according to the books of 1960-1962, to end the so-called ‘liturgical wars’ that date from 1970 | |
| AD 2013 | In a shocking and historic abdication, the Holy Father Benedict XVI retreats from the papacy, emptying the seat of the Bishop of Rome and prompting the calling of a conclave to elect a new Pope; within a few short weeks, the Holy Father Francis (2013-2025) is elected | |
| AD 2025 | Following a prolonged illness and the death of the Holy Father Francis, the election of the Holy Father Leo XIV |
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 