Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapter V

 

Chapter V 

The dispute over suburban provinces and their contribution to the development of Ecclesiastical Geography

The controversy over the suburban provinces

                The controversy between Protestants and Catholics in the suburban provinces broke out in the years 1618-1621 and concerned the antiquity of the Church, the apostolic succession and especially the authority and jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome that the pope. The Protestants were challenging the universal jurisdiction of the pope. Based on the ancient translations of Canon 6 of the Council of Nicaea (especially that of Rufinus of Aquileia) of 325 they believed the power of the bishop of Rome was limited to the city itself and suburban regions that embraced the central and southern Italy. The text of Ruffino of Aquileia said that the bishop of Rome was authorized suburbia carium ecclesiarum solicitudinem gerere - govern the suburban churches. Hence Protestants believed that the Pope's authority was limited to the city of Rome and the surrounding area in all other places in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was appropriate to the age-old boundaries and subjected to other bishops, instead of the suburban frontier provinces was the ancient frontier of Rome headquarters. According to the Protestants at Nicaea, he had only established the primacy of honour of the bishop of Rome and not the true power and jurisdiction. The controversy over the suburban provinces emerged when ecclesiastical historiography was already sharply divided in controversy between the confessions and the relationship between Catholics and Protestants was very tense (beginning of the Thirty Years War).

            The Catholic Church responded to the complaints of the Protestants with their studies and publications, increasing studies on ancient and modern ecclesiastical geography. Already Cesare Baronio in his Annales rejected the Protestant theories and their interpretation of Canon 6 in Ruffino's translation. Baronio argued that Ruffino clearly was referring to the pope's supremacy and that included suburban churches throughout the West and especially the patriarch of the Pope.

            In 1618 Jacques Godefroy Geneva (1587-1652), Jurist, Patrologist and specialist in classical languages published the anonymous work Conjectura the Nature of Suburban Provinces which exhibits and summarizes the thesis of the Protestant authority and jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome.

The Catholic response came mainly from two authors: Jacques Sirmond and Girolamo Aleandro the Younger.

Argument of Sirmond: Imperial Italy was divided into 17 provinces of which 10 were in the suburban Center and South of the peninsula, they were ruled by vicarious urbis. The vicarious Italiae instead administered the other 7 provinces in Northern Italy called Ration. The pope has two dioceses: the first special universal embraces all Christianity and the second borders the city of Rome. According to Sirmond is wrong to make an absolute parallelism between the Roman Empire and the civil administration of the ecclesiastical district. The definition of Ruffino "suburban" referred not Empire civilian administration of then but to the West. In addition, the Latin translation of Canon 6 found in the Vatican Library confirmed the supremacy of Rome and the patriarchal authority of the pope in the West.

Argument by Girolamo Aleandro: similar to Sirmond denied that the Church's structure was based strictly on the Roman Empire structure. The First Church actually came away from the ancient borders of the Roman Empire (in the first centuries in India and Persia). For the second there was a clear correlation between any office (office) of Imperial Rome and the office of the Christian bishops, and bishops were not just followers of the imperial office. Aleandro also applied a theological-spiritual-providential topic: the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire and outside it, despite numerous obstacles and persecution, without the use of weapons was the expression of the divine will.

                The controversy did not end, however, and continued for several decades, but its outcome was the great development of studies on the history and ecclesiastical geography.

                Another important element for the development of the ecclesiastical geography was the bull of Urban VIII It Processus of 1627. The document concerned primarily and directly processes and ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Church, but indirectly contributed to the progress of ecclesiastical geography. The note contained a questionnaire distributed with a dozen questions that were addressed to all the Catholic dioceses. They were asked about the government the structure of the diocese and the jurisdiction exercised by the bishops. The bishops were forced to postpone the answers to Rome. In this way, the Holy See picked up a database on the ecclesiastical geography of the time.

            In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is published numerous works on ecclesiastical geography, often the result of the controversy between Catholics and Protestants eg:

  

Samuel Bochart

    

 Samuel Bochart, biblical scholar, antiquarian and humanist protestant French. His two-volume work Geographia Sacra et seuphaleg Canaan (Caen 1646) had a profound influence on the Biblical exegesis of the seventeenth century.

Ferdinando Ughelli

Ferdinando Ughelli, Italy Sacra sive De EpiscopisItaliae et Insularumadiacentium, rebusque ab iis praeclare gestis, deducta series to nostram usque aetatem, 9 volumes published in Rome between 1644-1662. Ughelli (1595-1670) was a Cistercian abbot and Italian historian. He completed his studies at the Gregorian University. It was the first scholar who conceived the idea of giving several Italian bishops grouped by diocese, with news of each and churches from them straight with other unpublished documents.

              

During the eighteenth crystallizes the concept of a new discipline apart: the Ecclesiastical Geography and sacred Geography

                In 1757 the French encyclopedists published the division of geography into specialized disciplines, among them, we find sacred geography and ecclesiastical geography:

1. Natural Geography - studies the natural division of the earth's surface

2. Historical geography - describes territorial changes (geographical) and their circumstances in a state or city throughout history

3. Civil or political geography - track the policies of governments and the United maps

4. Sacred Geography - is the history of the Church in several countries

5. Ecclesiastical Geography - traces the ecclesiastical territories and jurisdictions according to patriarchates, archdioceses, dioceses etc.

6. Physical Geography - basically the discipline we now call geology

            In the nineteenth century when it reaffirmed the history of the Church (Church history) as an autonomous scientific discipline it is an ecclesiastical geography recognised as its auxiliary science. So ecclesiastical geography is of the highest importance for the study of Church history. What do we mean by this? Only some special geographical observations intended to compensate for the inevitable gaps of civil geography, or a simple nomenclature of bishoprics at a time? No, certainly: for ecclesiastical geography we mean a geography full, which forms a distinct science and all its own among the ecclesiastical sciences. As a result of these various considerations There, we are determined to encompass all the geographical parts in a special work of our course, not wanting to reduce it to incomplete and isolated concepts, but more to fortify their superficial spirits in a dangerous practice, which remove the drawbacks are severe speeches from us: what then if the church ought Geography diviner a distinct science, as we do not doubt, it will not be certain that the day when we can study it in special works, and intended peculiarly to his studio.

                Gaetano Moroni, Dictionary of historical and ecclesiastical scholarship from St. Peter to the present day, Venice 1844. The author distinguishes ecclesiastical geography as an autonomous science and divides it into ancient and modern ecclesiastical geography: The ancient and modern ecclesiastical geography for basic ecclesiastical hierarchy: the works and maps give names, divisions and subdivisions, according to which countries are distributed, formerly in the diocese, exarchates, vicariates, ecclesiastical provinces, at present in patriarchates, archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbeys nullius dioecesis, and also in patriarchates, archbishoprics and bishoprics holders.

                Currently, the ecclesiastical geography is an autonomous science. This can generally be divided into the historical one that studies the structure and organization of the Church in different historical eras and another branch that collects data on the present situation of the Church: the distribution of Christians in the world, the ecclesiastical territories and jurisdictions. 

                Among the studies on the current ecclesiastical geography of the Catholic Church at the global level of the Church are the two most famous and well-known works:

        Pontifical Yearbook (Annuario Pontificio)- is an information book published every year in Italian by the Holy See. It has been published since 1912. All the popes of the past and all the members of the Roman congregations. Also reviews the cardinals and bishops from around the world, dioceses, with statistics news, the diplomatic missions of the Holy See, the embassies accredited to the Holy See and the heads of religious groups, with statistical information on each. The work includes and also a list of prelates of the Honor of His Holiness, who enjoy the title of Monsignor.

            Atlas Hierarchicus. Descriptio geographica et statistical insuper notae historical Ecclesiae Catholicae (hanc novam sextam editionem elaboravit Joannes Carolus Girardi SVD), UrbanianaUniversity Press, Civitas Vaticana 2010.

        These works are still entitled sacred geography but sometimes ecclesiastical geography. (To be Continued)

Reference:

Charles Vielart (Saint Paul), Geographia Antiqua Sacred sivenotitia episco patuum Ecclesiae universae, Paris 1641.

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

9698453101

nicholasocd@yahoo.com

nicholasocd.blogspot.com/