THE COUNCIL of FLORENCE (1438–45) was a continuation of the Council at Basel (1431), which Pope Eugenius IV transferred first to Ferrara in 1438, to Florence in 1439, and to Rome in 1443; the whole is reckoned by Roman Catholics as the 17th Ecumenical Council. The chief object of the Council of Florence was reunion with the Greek Church, which sought support from the W. against the Turks, who were nearing Constantinople. After a majority of the members assembled at Basle had refused to move to a place more convenient to the Greeks, Eugenius IV transferred the Council to Ferrara, where it opened on 8 Jan. 1438. Among its most distinguished members were the Greek Emperor, John VIII Palaeologus, and Joseph, Patr. of Constantinople. Its leading theologians included, on the Latin side, Card. J. Cesarini and the Dominican, John of Montenero; on the Greek the unionist Bessarion, Metropolitan of Nicaea and later cardinal, and the anti-unionist Mark, Metropolitan of Ephesus. The Council was formally inaugurated on 9 April, but delay caused by the Emperor led to the formation of a commission of 10 Latins and 10 Greeks to decide which were the principal points of controversy. These were the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit, the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist, the doctrine of purgatory and the primacy of the Pope. The next two months were spent in informal discussion on purgatory. The first public session (on 8 Oct. 1438) debated, on the choice of the Greeks, the Filioque clause as an addition to the Creed. The Greeks asserted that any addition to the Nicene Creed, even of a single word, whether it was doctrinally correct or not, was, according to the prohibition enacted at the Council of Ephesus, illegal, and its perpetrators excommunicated. The Latins claimed that the prohibition referred to meaning, not words. Discussion, without agreement, continued in 13 sessions until 13 Dec., by which time the Papal exchequer was empty.

On 10 Jan. 1439 the Council was transferred to Florence, the city having agreed, against future repayment, to finance it. From 2 to 24 Mar. in eight sessions it debated the Filioque clause as doctrine—whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, acc. to the Greeks, or from the Father and the Son, acc. to the Latins—without agreement. Public sessions having thus failed, various expedients were tried to lead to union, in the course of which Bessarion addressed to the Greek synod his ‘Oratio Dogmatica’, urging that the Double Procession was taught more or less explicitly by both Greek and Latin Fathers. The Latins gave the Greeks a precisely worded statement of doctrine, which the Greeks modified, and then would not clarify the resulting ambiguities. In the prevailing atmosphere of defeat, as a last resort, on 27 May the Pope addressed the Greeks. Thereupon the unionists among the Greeks urged with renewed energy what to all Greeks was axiomatic, that saints cannot err in faith, so that, though Latin saints and Greek saints expressed their faith differently, substantially they were in agreement. The argument prevailed. By 8 June the Greeks had accepted the Latin statement of doctrine. On 10 June Patriarch Joseph died. Statements on the Eucharist and on Papal primacy, which caused some difficulty, on purgatory and on the legitimacy of the Filioque clause were presented to the Greeks and eventually accepted. These were incorporated into the Decree of Union, beginning with the words ‘Laetentur Coeli’, which was eventually signed on 5 July 1439 and solemnly promulgated the following day. Mark of Ephesus was the only Greek bishop to refuse his signature.

After the departure of the Greeks the Council remained in session to deal with the continuing Council of Basle and the union with other E. Churches. All members of the Council of Basle were declared heretics and excommunicated, and the superiority of the Pope over the Councils was affirmed in the bull ‘Etsi non dubitemus’ of 20 Apr. 1441. Union was established with the Armenians in 1439 and with the Copts of Egypt in 1442. In 1443 the Council was transferred to Rome. Little is known of its further activities, except that unions were effected with several other E. Churches, such as the Syrians (1444) and certain Chaldeans and Maronites of Cyprus. There is no record of any official closing of the Council.

The union of the Greeks was challenged by popular sentiment in Constantinople, and many of the older bishops recanted. Mark of Ephesus throughout remained against the union, though Bessarion and other of the younger prelates continued in favour. Constantinople was captured by the Turks in 1453 and the union ceased. That with Armenia lasted until the fall of Caffa to the Turks in 1475. Exact information about the other unions is lacking.

The importance of the Council of Florence lies in its definition of doctrine and in the principle it established for Church union—unity of faith with diversity of rite—a principle followed in several subsequent unions and still valid.

Hardouin, 9, cols. 1–1080; Mansi, 31 (1798), cols. 459–1120, and in suppl. to vol. 31 (1801), cols. 1121–998. Crit. edn. of relevant material in Concilium Florentinum: Documenta et Scriptores. Editum consilio et impensis Pontificii Instituti Orientalium Studiorum (11 vols., Rome, 1940–77, esp. vol. 5, the Acta Graeca, ed. with Lat. tr. by J. Gill, SJ (1953), and vol. 6, the Acta Latina, ed. G. Hofmann, SJ (1955)). Text of decrees, with Eng. tr., in Tanner, Decrees (1990), pp. 513–91, with introd., pp. 453 f. Eng. tr. of various primary docs. in C. M. D. Crowder, Unity, Heresy and Reform 1378–1460: The Conciliar Response to the Great Schism (1977), pp. 165–81. E. Cecconi, Studi storici sul concilio di Firenze (Naples, 1869, with docs.). Hefele and Leclercq, 7 (pt. 2; 1916), pp. 951–1106. G. Hofmann, SJ, Papato, con iliarismo, patriarcato, 1438–1439: Teologi e deliberazioni del Concilio di Firenze (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae edita a Facultate Historiae Ecclesiasticae in Pontificia Universitate Gregoriana, 2 (pt. 1; Collectionis totius n. 2; 1940)). J. Gill, SJ, The Council of Florence (Cambridge, 1959); id., Personalities of the Council of Florence (Oxford, 1964). J. Décarreaux, Les Grecs au Concile de I’Union, Ferrare-Florence 1438–1439 [1970]. J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford History of the Christian Church, 1986), pp. 267–86. G. Alberigo (ed.), Christian Unity: The Council of Ferrara—Florence 1438/39–1989 (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 97; 1991). P. De Vooght, OSB, in DHGE 17 (1971), cols. 561–8, s.v. J. Gill, SJ, in TRE 5 (1980), pp. 289–96, s.v. ‘Basel-Ferrara-Florenz, Konzil von. II. Das Konzil von Florenz’, both with bibl. See also bibl. to basle, council of and eugenius iv

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