Latin Church Research Articles

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The medieval Latin Church had a very clear and elaborate theory of human sin and the punishment that was necessarily associated with it. This complex thought can be summarised in two main theories: theological theory and canon law, which can be particularly well illustrated by means of case law, i.e. the activity of the ecclesiastical courts. In the following overview, I will present the legal basis and purpose of punishment, as well as the types of punishment, based on the theological views of Thomas Aquinas on the one hand, and on the sources of medieval canon law on the other, illustrated with examples from canonical jurisdiction.

The Filioque Controversy: Analysing Theological Differences between the Western and Eastern Churches

The Filioque is a theological issue that has caused a divide in the Christian Churches, with the Western Churches (Latin Church) and Eastern Churches having different understandings of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Western Churches believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, while the Eastern Churches believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. The Western Churches have a strong emphasis on the one divine nature, while the Eastern Churches have a strong focus on the monarchy of the Father. This difference in theological perspective has created complications in the theological dialogue between the two regions. Despite these differences, the two theological traditions share the same faith perspective and can bear valuable fruit in theological thinking. The Filioque debate has been a longstanding issue in the Christian Churches, and despite efforts to regain unity, the problem remains unresolved.

The evolution of the latinization of the Uniate Church and its causes

The object of the study is the Uniate church, founded by the Brest Union in 1596. Then the Orthodox bishops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth decided to unite with the Pope, provided that Eastern traditions were preserved. However, after the Brest Union, the practice of the Latin Church quickly began to blur the Eastern traditions of the Uniate Church, and the phenomenon of latinization appeared. The subject of the study is the processes and causes of latinization and Delatinization of the Uniate Church. The founding and development of the Uniate Church had strong political factors, since the article also considered its latinization from both religious and political aspects. The author pays special attention to the motives of the delatinization of the Uniate Church over the past 100 years, associated with the spread of the Catholic faith among Orthodox peoples. At the methodological level, the author combines the historical and political background to analyze the materials related to the research topic. The main conclusion of the study is that due to the contradiction between Roman Catholic teaching and Eastern traditions, the union with Rome is doomed to lead to the latinizaition of the Uniate Church. In addition, the latinization of the Uniate Church has a strong political influence. The author's special research contribution to the topic is that he noticed a contradiction in the Uniate Church. Russian Uniate Church is a tool used by the West to spread Catholicism in the Russian land and separate the people from the Russian Orthodox tradition. Latinization lead to the fact that the Uniate church lose its appeal to Orthodox people and affected its spread. However, without latinization, the Uniate Church would not be able to separate its believers from Orthodoxy and the Russian tradition, and would not be able to perform its political functions.

Traditionis custodes : Ecclesiological Difficulties

abstract: The motu proprio Traditionis custodes reordered the law on celebrating the pre-conciliar Roman liturgical rites. This legislative change, seemingly intended to lead to a "single and identical prayer" or unique liturgical expression of the Roman Rite, relies on an ecclesiological justification concerning the unity and communion of the Church. Analyzing the motu proprio and its elaborations in light of a "three-tier" ecclesiological model rooted in the documents of the Second Vatican Council shows that the unity and communion of no Church in this model is tied to the existence of a unique liturgical expression. Rather, the legislation's justification relies on a pre-conciliar ecclesiological outlook that posits the existence of Churches defined by rites such as a "Church of the Roman Rite." Due to this reliance, the norms have far-reaching negative consequences for the Roman Rite and the wider Church. Legislative actions on liturgical issues within the Latin Church must have a broader ecclesiological context, and the past and present experiences of the other Churches in the Catholic communion show that a vast liturgical diversity already exists in the Church and does so without harm to Catholic unity.

„To czyńcie na moją pamiątkę!” Wschodnie a zachodnie rozumienie anamnezy eucharystycznej

The concept of liturgical anamnesis refers to the remembering of God's acts, which makes them present and actualised in every celebration. Both Latin and Orthodox theology emphasise the anamnetic dimension of liturgical celebration. However, there are important differences between individual liturgical practices and their theological understanding. This article attempts to explore the nature and extent of these differences. Are these merely different formulations due to distinct liturgical traditions and practices, or do the differences concern the essence of the understanding of the Eucharist as a memorial? In order to answer this question, the first part of this article will discuss the biblical understanding of the concept of anamnesis, which is common to both Latin and Eastern theology. This will be done using the historical-genetic method. In the second part, the understanding of anamnesis in the Latin Church will be presented as it results from an analysis of the Eucharistic Prayers used by that Church. For this purpose, the author will employ the method of analysis and interpretation of liturgical texts. The third part will attempt to characterise the Orthodox theology of anamnesis.

The Fall of Constantinople: A Critical Analysis of Its Bearing on Islamophobia Discourse

This essay examines the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as a critical juncture for the playing out of Chrisitan-Muslim relations. Particularly, this historical moment demonstrates the significant theological schism between Orthodox and Latin Christianity that overshadowed the external threat posed by the Ottomans. The fall marked the end of the Eastern Roman Empire and highlighted the deep-rooted theological tensions within Christianity, tensions that were so profound that many Orthodox Christians preferred Ottoman rule over submission to the Latin Church. This preference stemmed from a desire to maintain theological autonomy and avoid the doctrinal compromises required by the Latin Church. The essay critically assesses the contemporary scholarship on Christian Islamophobia, arguing that it often overlooks the internal Christian divisions and portrays Christianity as a monolithic entity united against Islam. By focusing on the diverse Christian attitudes towards the Ottomans, particularly the Orthodox perspective, the essay demonstrates that the fear of theological compromise with the Latins was considered a worse fate than Muslim conquest. This analysis challenges the prevailing narratives in Islamophobia literature by highlighting the necessity of acknowledging intra-Christian tensions to fully understand the historical dynamics of Christianity and Islamophobia. Through an exploration of various Christian responses to the Ottoman threat and the subsequent establishment of the millet system, the essay advocates for a more nuanced portrayal of Christianity’s internal divisions and their impact on the construction of Christian identity and attitudes towards Islam.

The Principles of the Reform of the Marriage Nullity Process Proposed by the Roman Pontiff Francis

One of the great concerns of Pope Francis' ministry is to promote a Church on the way out, in which people separated from the Church are effectively welcomed from a synodal perspective. Within this perspective, Pope Francis promulgated on August 15, 2015, the Motu proprio on the reform of the process for declaring marriage null and void, the Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus for the Latin Church, and came into force on December 8, 2015, as per the can. 8, § 1. This article, whose theme is: the principles of reform of the marriage nullity process proposed by the Roman Pontiff Francis, indicates the origin of the fundamental legal principles that determined the changes promoted by the Pope and their possible applicability in diocesan Tribunals and Dioceses. Thus, the methodological itinerary was based on studies, analyzes of the motu proprio Dominus and Iesus, other documents and articles related to the topic, which are available in the bibliography of this article. The purpose of this article is to present the foundations of the changes implemented by Pope Francis and motivate Canonical Tribunals and Dioceses to implement these new developments with the primary objective of salus animarum, can. 1752.

Życie religijne katolików obrządku łacińskiego na Ukrainie sowieckiej w latach 1953–1964

This article is an attempt to present the religious life of Latin-rite Catholics in Ukraine in the years 1953–1964 as well as to present the policy of the Soviet authorities towards the Roman Catholic Church. The structure of the publication consists of five chapters. The first chapter presents the situation of the Latin Church in Ukraine against the background of the socio-political changes in the Soviet state that followed the death of Joseph Stalin. The second chapter presents the specificity of pastoral work in Soviet Ukraine. The third chapter presents the participation of the faithful in the sacramental life. The fourth chapter is devoted to one of the most important forms of the prayer life of Catholics in the USSR, which was „liturgies without a priest”. The last, fifth chapter presents the activities of secular associations, which in turn, despite numerous restrictions by the state authorities, have had a significant impact on the preservation of identity and religious practices and the transfer of the link of faith to younger generations.

THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH’S CUM SANCTISSIMA AND QUO MAGIS DECREES OF FEBRUARY 22, 2020: A CANONICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DOCUMENTS CONCERNING THE NEW FORMULARIES OF THE SAINTS AND PREFACES IN THE LITURGY OF 1962

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two documents concerning the liturgy of the Latin Church on February 22, 2020. These are general decrees about the liturgy of 1962, previously known as the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, approved in forma communi by Pope Francis on December 5, 2019. It was the end of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei’s work which had been erected in 1988. According to these decrees, during liturgical celebrations, it is possible to use seven new prefaces ad libitum and to honor the Saints who have been introduced into the current Calendarium Romanum. The issued decrees are part of the process of mutual enrich­ment between the earlier liturgical tradition and the liturgy introduced after the Second Vatican Council.

Krótki opis parafii diecezji latyczowskiej przyłączonych do archidiecezji mohylewskiej, sporządzony w 1799 r. Edycja źródła

Formally erected around 1405, the Latin Catholic diocese of Kiev existed until the end of the 18th century (for church authorities until 1798, although Catherine II abolished it on 27 September 1795). The history of the diocese was extremely turbulent. Constant Tartar invasions, the Chmielnicki uprising, the Polish-Russian wars and the 17th and 18th century Cossack rebellions not only did not favour the development of the diocese and led to a reduction in its area, but on several occasions led to the destruction of its administrative structure. Renewed after the Cossack and Russian wars, the diocese had 10–11 churches by the end of the 17th century. After the further ravages that affected its territory in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, there were at least 25 churches before 1748. Cossack rebellions halted its development for some time. Nevertheless, by the end of the 18th century, there were 53 churches on the territory of the diocese, of which at least 42 had the status of parish churches. Despite the medieval origins of the diocese and its apparent development in the 18th century, there are not many entries in the bibliography on it. The same is true of the historiography of the Braclaw region (Lithuanian Podolia), which belonged to the Luck and Brest dioceses in the pre-partition period. The unsatisfactory state of conducted research is related to the small known source base. Recent queries have revealed several new sources for the history of the Latin Church in the south-eastern periphery of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the Ukrainian lands. One of them is a short description of 20 parishes functioning in this area at the end of the 18th century. The description was prepared for the needs of Mogilev consistory officials, after these parishes were annexed to the Mogilev archdiocese in 1798. It was compiled a year later, based on parish priests› accounts and dean’s visitation records. On the basis of this description and other newly discovered sources from that time, it is possible to find out essential information about the parishes described, the time of their foundation, their founders, benefices, churches, clergy, number of believers and the towns where parish schools and hospitals were functioning at that time.

Dante's Sacramental Poetics: Confession in the Commedia

Abstract: This article seeks to investigate Dante's intertwining of two confessional models, the sacramental and the Augustinian, throughout the first two cantiche of the Commedia . It shows how the poem repeatedly stages confessions that are either ineffective or unorthodox, in a bid to redefine the forms of truthfulness and authority that accompany the first person, allowing the poet to engage in confessional and prophetic forms of discourse. To do so, the article considers contemporary developments in theology and ecclesiastical practice so as to understand how Dante positions both his poem and himself as author vis-à-vis the important changes that occurred in the Latin Church in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.

Joel D. Anderson, Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland’s Bishops into the Roman Church, 1200–1350. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023, viii, 240 pp.

Two presences meet here. First is Iceland, with its black cliffs and bleak vistas; second, the Latin Church, with its rituals and law. In conjunction, they bring about a unique and stimulating monograph.

Historical Development of the Times of Ordinations: A Proposal to Revitalize Ember Saturday Ordinations

ABSTRACT: Although canon 1010 of the 1983 CIC states the Church's preference to conduct ordinations on Sundays and holy days of obligation, ordinations are mostly conferred on Saturdays in the United States. In fact, the Church historically restricted ordinations to six designated Saturdays. Four of these six days were ember Saturdays, which were mandatory days of fasting in the Latin Church before Vatican II. This article explains the reasons behind ember Saturday ordinations, particularly the inherent connection between fasting and ordinations. It also delineates the historical development regarding the times of ordinations from the Acts of the Apostles until the 1983 CIC . The recent revival of ember days in various US dioceses provides an impetus for re-associating ember Saturdays with ordinations. This article suggests ways for priests, diocesan bishops, and conferences of bishops to promote ember Saturday ordinations as a way to foster vocations.

Brokers of Salvation: Merchants and Missionaries in the Europeanization of the North, 800–1300

Abstract: The conventional narrative of the conversion of Scandinavia to Christianity depicts a top-down, mass conversion carried out by the monarchs of Scandinavian kingdoms. This paper adds to these analyses the preexisting economic relationship between trade towns of Latin Christendom with Scandinavia and the Baltic and credits this trade for carrying ideas and cultural norms to the region, as well as for establishing trade routes along which missionaries would follow in the footsteps of these merchants. It traces the establishment of official bishoprics and sees of the Latin Church in Scandinavian and Baltic trade towns as well as the adoption of distinctly European forms of social organization. It also lends agency to the people of Scandinavia themselves, adding to the narrative their understudied role in the process by crediting their chieftains with willfully and strategically importing Christianity for their own gain rather than depicting them as passive agents with change foisted upon them from the outside. The primary sources bear out not an immediate change, but a gradual one, carried out not by armies and kings, but by merchants and trades-men, clergy and chieftains in their daily interactions, which built up social networks, compiled social trust, and contagiously spread cultural norms.

In the service of the clergy and the world: St. Benno in the history of Saxony

Until recently, historiography has lacked major comparative studies on the phenomen of Holy in Central Europe. Meanwhile, there were very vast regions in which there were no local saints until the end of the Middle Ages. One of these historical regions was Upper Saxony. What was the way of formation of the sacral cult here? What political or socio-cultural factors played a decisive role in the emergence of the cult of saints? And what were the functions of the saints in a changing society? The problems are studied on the example of St. Benno, Bishop of Meißen, who was canonized in 1523. He became the last saint of the medieval Latin Church and the first saint for the Wettin dynasty. The article shows the instrumentalization of his memory at various stages. From the 13th century he acted in the service of the bishops of Meißen, who aspired to become imperial princes. From the 15th century the princely dynasty of the Wettins (Albertine House) was busy about the canonization of Benno in order to strengthen their own authority in the Holy Roman Empire. The decisive contribution in this direction was made by Duke George the Bearded. Two events marked the efforts of the Saxon prince in the public space: the translation into German of the Life of St. Benno, made by Hieronymus Emser in 1517 and the transfer of Benno’s relics in the cathedral of Meißen in 1524. During the Reformation, the cult of St. Benno was called upon to oppose Protestantism. Paradoxically, however, he was able to play his role as a link between the dynasty and subjects only in Bavaria from the end of the 16th century.

Евгений Трубецкой как исследователь религиозно-философского наследия блаженного Августина

The article examines E.N. Trubetskoy’s reception of the religious and philosophical heritage of Aurelius Augustine, in the framework of his study of the formation of Western Christianity medieval religious and social ideal in the writings of the teachers Latin Church of the fifth century and Catholic authors of the eleventh century. The author determines the prin¬cipal problems that Trubetskoy wanted to highlight in his 1892 master's thesis on Saint Augustine. The philosopher intended to analyze the main life milestones of becoming Augustine as a great Christian apologist, to show the key mistakes of a dogmatic nature committed by foreign researchers of Augustine. Another original task of Trubetskoy was to show the continuity of special ideas of Augustine from the achieve¬ments of the Roman jurisprudence. Finally, with its explicit task, he was going to demon¬strate the significance of Au¬gustine's personality as the “father of medieval theocracy”. It is possible to conclude that the interest of the Russian philosopher in the legacy of the Bishop of Hippo was formed mainly under the influence of the figure of V.S. Solovyov and his project of “free theoc¬racy”. The paper also emphasizes contemporary assessments of the place of Trubetskoy's mono¬graph among domestic historical studies about the father of the Western Church. For the first time his correspondence of the 80-90s with Sergei N. Trubetskoy is revealed in the context of Evgeny Trubetskoy's work on the “Worldview of St. Augustine”. It refers to the new edition of the “Philosophical correspondence of the Trubetskoy brothers” prepared by K.B. Ermishina. This correspondence allows us not only to note important details about the goals and progress of Trubetskoy's re¬search, but also to find out his elder brother’s attitude towards him.

Porta clausa es, virgo. Exegeses on Ezekiel’s Porta clausa by some Latin Church Fathers and Theologians between the 6th and the 12th Centuries

This paper is limited to highlight a selection of exegetical comments through which, from the 6th century until the 12th, many Latin Church Fathers and theologians deciphered the eastern shut door of the temple (porta clausa) revealed by Yahweh to Ezekiel in a prophetic vision. This short study's select set of comments is complemented by a plentiful series of similar comments stated by other Greek-Eastern Church Fathers from the Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the last series not discussed here. This considerable corpus of Greek-Eastern and Latin exegeses constitutes a solid centuries-old dogmatic tradition, according to which this Ezekiel's porta clausa is unanimously interpreted by all those Christian authors as a double complementary Mariological and Christological metaphor.

Evolution of the Network of Religious Schools in Ung County in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

This study presents the situation in the parish schools of Ung County, Kingdom of Hungary, in the years 1721-1734, 1746-1747, 1774-1784, 1864 and 1916. After Francis II Rákóczi’s uprising (1703-1711) and the plague epidemic (1709-1710), Ung County was inhabited by new citizens. The parish network was disrupted for all confessions and, in the case of Roman Catholics, built anew. The Reformed Church partially kept the original network of parishes and schools that had been disrupted by re-Catholization. The Uniates and the Catholics did not have a functioning education system; this was built from scratch in the eighteenth century. The Latin Church created religious schools only gradually; up until the mid-eighteenth century, schools could only be found in the centre of the county. Many schools existed for only a limited time and were subsequently discontinued. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, it was possible to find a school in almost every parish. In the nineteenth century many of the larger parishes and, as a result, primary education was made available to a greater number of children. Schools operated by the Uniates, and later by the Greek Catholics, evolved differently. Based on decrees from that period, it appears there were many schools before the Rákóczi uprising; by the time it had finished, in 1711, the school network had been disrupted. Some schools were partially renewed but many ceased to exist. The biggest problem of the Uniate school system was funding, since the Catholic Church demanded that land owners take on patronage rights and create foundations to pay for a teacher and the parish school. At the end of the eighteenth century, the number of schools was still low but slowly growing. The fastest growth was noted in the nineteenth century; by the second half of the century there were more Greek Catholic schools than any other confession. Reformed Church schools were the only ones that maintained their continuity with the period before 1711. Various decrees passed in Hungary caused development to stagnate, although this changed again following the Patent of Toleration. One key issue when considering schools is the teachers. In this paper, we focus particularly on teachers and their language identity, exploring how this changed throughout the study period. We also briefly examine the subjects taught by teachers and the construction of dedicated school buildings at the end of the period in question.

Word as Bond in an Age of Division: John Eugenikos as Orator, Partisan, and Poet

This article undertakes a fresh examination of John Eugenikos (c. 1400–55), a leading intellectual, theologian, and polemicist in fifteenth-century Byzantium. Long known as a strident opponent of the union of the Orthodox and Latin churches and the emperors who supported it, Eugenikos emerges here as a more complex figure: an ambitious bureaucrat who blended pragmatism and idealism in politics and authorship as he pursued his interests across the Byzantine world, from the Morea to Constantinople and even Trebizond. His swift ascent from provincial notary to imperial panegyrist, his later career as an anti-union agitator, and his innovative exploitation of both highly visible and covert forms of literary borrowing, illustrate the enduring tensions between his opportunist and uncompromising instincts. Eugenikos’s idiosyncratic pursuit of influence in the fragmented political landscape of the fifteenth century—using expedient praise, literary experiment, and moral posturing—make him one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures of the empire’s final decades. A full critical edition and English translation of Eugenikos’s panegyric book epigram to John VIII are presented in the appendix.

Sharing the Eucharist? Critical Comments from a Canonical Perspective on the Statement “Together at the Lord’s Table” (2019) of the Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians

The following article analyses the statement of the Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians entitled “Together at the Lord’s Table” (2019) from the perspective of canon law of the Latin Church. First, it briefly presents the content of the statement, then it summarises the opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The article shows that the alternate participation in the Protestant and Catholic service of celebrating the Lord’s Supper / Eucharist by virtue of baptism alone is problematic from the perspective of Catholic canon law. Canon law builds on Catholic ecclesiology and sacramentology, based on the connection between baptism and the Church as well as the Church, the ministerial priesthood, and the celebration of the Eucharist. The article, then, shows the instruments of canon law for the protection of the Catholic faith regarding the apostolic succession as the only valid condition for presiding over the Eucharistic community and the Eucharist as the substantial presence of Christ. In the final chapter, the implications of participation in ecumenical worship for the Catholic faithful will be summarised. The participation of Protestants in Catholic worship, as proposed by the Statement, is not explicitly regulated by canon law. The CIC, in Canon 844 § 4, lays down only the conditions under which Protestants may licitly receive selected sacraments (the Eucharist, the anointing of the sick and the sacrament of penance), while for a valid reception of the Eucharist their baptism alone enables them.