The Council of Constance heals the schism
One pope again
The Council of Constance runs from 1414 to 1418 AD and accomplishes three things: it burns Jan Hus, it ends the Great Western Schism, and it establishes — briefly — the principle that councils have authority over popes.
The healing of the schism is accomplished through the election of Martin V in November 1417. The three existing claimants are disposed of by various means: John XXIII is deposed and imprisoned, Gregory XII resigns with some dignity and is given an honorable position, Benedict XIII clings to his claim until his death in 1423 and is simply ignored.
Martin V is elected by the council — a procedure of mixed cardinals and representatives from the five nations of the council — and is universally recognized as the legitimate pope. The forty-year chaos is over.
The church breathes. The institutional crisis that had dominated the fourteenth century is resolved, at least formally.
But the damage is done. The papacy that emerges from the conciliar period is institutionally intact but spiritually diminished. It has been seen, for forty years, as a political prize fought over by rival factions. The mystique of Innocent III — the sun to the moon of earthly kings — is gone.
What follows is the Renaissance papacy: popes who are patrons of art and literature, who commission Michelangelo and Raphael, who pursue Italian political ambitions with armies, who are — several of them — men of significant personal corruption.
The swan is already forming in Germany. The institution does not know it yet.
“The unity of the church is not destroyed by the failure of its institutions. It is preserved by the one who is its head.”
— Martin V, paraphrase of his inaugural address, 1417 AD
“I also tell you, that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This is the promise — not that the institution will be uncorrupted, not that the leaders will be wise, not that the councils will be just.
The promise is that the church itself will survive — that what Christ builds will not be destroyed by what human beings do to it.
The Great Western Schism lasted forty years and produced three simultaneous popes and the burning of Jan Hus and some of the most institutionally corrupt leadership in the church's history.
The church survived it. Not because the institution was resilient but because the promise was reliable.
What current crisis in the church around you feels like it might be the end? And what does the pattern of the whole two-thousand-year story suggest about whether it is?