Also known as “Papal Reform ” or “Papal Revolution ”, the Gregorian Reform was a series of measures initiated by the Papacy in the 11th century to rid the Church of secular interference within the Church, resolving the tension between State and Church, while seeking to moralize the clergy themselves.
This struggle between temporal power and spiritual power lasted about two centuries, until the victory of monarchical power over Papal power.
Historical Context:Summary
Indeed, this was an institutional response taken by the Church, given the political and economic needs arising from the commercial and urban renaissance.
Nevertheless, the nobility, especially the Holy Roman Empire, had enormous influence over the Holy See, where some nobles, kings and emperors exercised authority over the clergy, actively interfering in the appointment of ecclesiastical positions, including prelates. who would hold the most important ecclesiastical positions.
In the same vein, the Byzantine Empire had a political structure that favored the union between secular and spiritual power, materialized in the figure of the emperor, in what became known as “cesaropapism”.
Thus, to affirm the Catholic faith, as well as the autonomy of the clergy, Pope Gregory the Great I (590-604) would have presented the first formulations that established papal infallibility, as well as the supremacy of the Catholic Church.
Subsequently, Pope Leo IX (1049-1054), continues his work and his successor, Pope Gregory VII (1073 and 1085), takes a decisive step by erecting the Dictatus Daddy (1074-1075), an epistle that established a series of rules and determinations that sought to consolidate a papal theocracy. For this reason, this movement has been identified as the Gregorian Reform .
From the outset, this further intensifies the Investiture Quarrel (that struggle for the affirmation of papal power in the face of feudal power), as well as the Great Eastern Schism (1054), when the Churches of the West and East mutually excommunicate each other.
The Gregorian Reformation will be consolidated by the ecclesiastics of the Abbey of Cluny, who will condemn and combat the heretical practices of lay investiture, as well as the influences of barbaric paganism in Christianity.
However, this process will last for many years and will be resolved by holding four councils in the Lateran, a district of Rome - Lateran I (1123); Lateran II (1139); Lateran III (1179) and Lateran IV (1215) - as well as by the First Council of Lyons (1245).
Key Features
Among the main measures taken by the Catholic Church in the Gregorian Reform, the following stand out:
- Papal infallibility in matters of morals and faith;
- Papal authority to excommunicate the emperor and thus depose him;
- The exclusivity of the Church in the appointment to ecclesiastical offices;
- The fight against simony (sale of ecclesiastical offices and “sacred” objects) and nicolaism (concubinage of Catholic priests).
- The “Ecclesia Primitivai Forma”, a set of measures to restore the Church to the primitive Christianity of the time of the Apostles;
- Imposition of celibacy (Code of Canon Law -1123).
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