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A.D. 1438 - Council of Florence

The council, which met in Ferrara, January 8, 1438, and, on account of the pestilence there, was transferred to Florence at the beginning of the next year, had for its great object the union of the Greeks and Latins. Between 1438 and 1445, the different phases of the so-called Council of Florence took place in Ferrara, Florence and Rome. In the Tuscan city in particular, between 1439 and 1443, the synodal works, which achieved the union of the Greeks and the Armenians with the Latin, took place in the presence of Pope Eugene IV and the Eastern Emperor John VIII Palaeologus. It was attended by the Greek emperor, by the patriarch of Constantinople, by the legates of the Greek patriarchs of Antioch, of Alexandria, and of Jerusalem, and by other principal theologians and bishops of the Greek church, also by the Italian bishops and by two bishops from the duke of Burgundy's dominions.

The theological issues on which the Greek Church and the Roman one had divergent positions (the procession of the Holy Ghost, the term Filioque of the Symbol, the Eucharistic tenet, the novissimi, the papal supremacy), were almost resolved after the first months of the debate, also thanks to the erudite expositions of prestigious Latin Fathers (among which there was Cardinal Bessarione). So at the end of June 1439, Cardinal Cesarini could inform the council assembly that an agreement had been reached between the Latins and the Greeks, on all the issues discussed. The only thing left to do was to draft the decree or "bull" of union and the task was entrusted to a mixed Latin and Greek commission that worked on the text from the 28th June to the 4th July.

An act of reconciliation between the Greek and Latin churches was signed by 141 bishops, the article in respect to the pope's supremacy declaring that " the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world, and is the successor of the blessed Peter the prince of the apostles, and the true vicar of Christ, and the head of the whole church, and the father and teacher of all Christians, and has in the blessed Peter full authority from our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, rule, and govern the whole church in the manner contained both in the acts of the ecumenical councils and iu the sacred canons."

Then 5 or 6 exemplars of the established text were prepared and they were read on the 6th July in the Florentine cathedral, after the mass celebrated by the pope: "This text - record the Practica of the Council - was read in Latin by Cardinal Giuliano of Santa Sabina [Cesarini], in Greek by Bessarione, Archbishop of Nicaea. We [the Latins] embraced and kissed the knees and the right hand of the pope; dressed in the holy paraments, we greeted and embraced each other. Our cantors intoned the Laetentur coeli and the Gloria".

The first exemplars of the union decree (in Latin and in Greek) were subscribed and the relevant seal was affixed by the pope and by the emperor; they also had the signatures of many of the Synodal Fathers who took part in the Council (one of these precious documents, one of the most complete we have, is in the Laurentian Library in Florence). Immediately after the publication and the solemn reading of the union decree, many other exemplars were prepared, to be sent to the Greek and Roman Churches in order to spread the news of the union reached; some of these documents were subscribed and sealed again by the pope and by the emperor, as well as the prelates still present in Florence.

This article was differently understood by the two parties, as the Greeks recognized only the first 7 general councils, and entirely rejected the forgeries and later canons which were current in Rome ; and besides, the Greeks, on their return to Constantinople, reported that every thing at Florence was done by artifice and fraud. So the nominal union was of little account. There followed also at Florence, in 1440, what Gieseler calls "the empty show of a renewed union with the Armenians;" and subsequently a succession of ambassadors came from all the other oriental churches to seek a reconciliation with the church of Rome by papal decrees. The council of Florence came to an end, April 26, 1442.