Friday, July 10, 2020

Denys Hay on the Ecclesiology of the Council of Constance (1414-1418)

The Council of Constance (1414-1418) is problematic to Roman Catholicism, as (1) it thought the supremacy of General Ecumenical Councils over the papacy and (2) its 1415 decree, Haec Sancta, would be later condemned as heretical by the Catholic Church. On this and related issues, see, for e.g.:


Excerpts from Cardinal Guillaume Fillastre's Diary of the Council of Constance 


 Roberto de Mattei (Catholic), Haec Sancta (1415): A conciliar document condemned by the Church

 

"Orthodoxidation" (Eastern Orthodox), Haec Sancta: The Forgotten Hypocrisy

 

Historian Denys Hay, in a volume published as part of “A General History of Europe,” wrote the following about the ecclesiology of Constance:

 

Conciliar supremacy over a pope was implied by the cardinals’ proceedings at Pisa. A Constance it was stated in as many words, in the exciting days after John XXIII’s flight. There was much anxious and indeed stormy debate, but in the fifth session, in 6 April 1415, five decrees dealing with the crisis were duly passed, of which the first, Sacrosancta, ran: ‘The Council of Constance, an oecumenical council, derives its power direct from God and all men, including the people, are bound to obey it in matters of faith, of ending the Schism and of reforming the Church in head and members.’ This was completed at the thirty-ninth session in October 1417 by the decree Frequens which laid down that general councils were to be held more often, the next in five years, then another seven years later, and thereafter every ten years. The pope and cardinals together could shorten these intervals, but not lengthen them. (Denys Hay, Europe in the Fourteen and Fifteenth Centuries [London: Longman, 1966], 287-88)

 

Elsewhere, when discussing Huss (who was condemned by Constance), Hay notes the following irony:

 

There is no doubt that Wycliffe by disputing the doctrine of transubstantiation was in conflict with the teaching of the Church. Huss consistently in his writing and preaching disowned this side of Wycliffe’s doctrine and his whole practice was to exalt communion and emphasize its effects. Was Huss a heretic? The Benedictine scholar Dom Paul De Vooght has recently tried to answer that question in his warm and generous book. There is no doubt that Huss erred in his denial of papacy supremacy, yet, as Dom De Vooght points out, the Council that condemned him had itself declared popes subject to councils. (Ibid., 325; the book referenced is Paul De Vooght, L'Hérésie de Jean Huss)