Eugenius

Eugenius, the name of four popes, of whom the last is the most important. Gabriele Condolmiere was born in 1383 at Venice, and became pope as Eugenius IV. in 1431. The great event in his career was the schism created in the church by the proceedings of the Council of Basel, which had been convoked by his predecessor, Martin V., and showed a strong desire for ecclesiastical reform and a diminution of the papal power. Eugenius was compelled to flee from Rome in 1434 by an intrigue of the Colonna faction, whereupon he opened a new council, which met first at Ferrara, next at Florence, and issued a bull of excommunication against the bishops assembled at Basel, whom he pronounced to be 'a satanic conclave, which was spreading the abomination of desolation into the bosom of the church.' The Council of Basel formally deposed him from his pontifical office in 1439, and elected in his stead Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, under the title of Felix V. The conduct of France and Germany seemed to warrant this bold step, for Charles VII. had introduced into the former country the decrees of the Council of Basel, with some modifications, through the Pragmatic Sanction (1438), and the same thing happened in Germany by means of the Deed of Acceptance (1439). At the Council of Ferrara, John Paleologus II., emperor of Constantinople, and upwards of twenty Greek bishops, presented themselves, and a union between the two great divisions of Christendom—the Greek and Latin Church—was thus for a moment effected in July 1439. In 1444 Eugenius was able again to enter Rome, and three years later he died, just after signing a treaty of pacification by which Germany declared against the antipope. His pontificate was stormy and unhappy, and in his old age he regretted that he ever left his monastery. See BASEL (COUNCIL OF).