Delvestius
Banned
The earlier the better, bonus points if it's outside its by someone outside the catholic faith.
AHC: Have a pope burned as a heretic
- Thread starter Delvestius
- Start date
Delvestius
Banned
That'd have to be a pretty mighty Jihad if they wanted to divert their attention from Spain.
How about this: A Pope supports the Reformation, leading to the Cardinals and the King of Spain to depose him. A new Pope is elected, and the previous one is burned.
I was thinking an opposite scenario: Emperor unhappy with the Pope, supports reformation when it appears.
That could also work. Really though it would have to be one extreme or the other. Or what about having Clement VII be captured during the sack of Rome and the soldiers burn him? It wouldn't be an official trial for heresy but it kinds works.
Would it be too easy to have a pope develop some sort of insanity while still pope, and then say something so egregious that the Church has no choice but to publicly pronounce him a heretic and burn him at the stake?
I think the Church had ways to deal with the insane, and to depose someone afflicted by insanity without much fuss (nor much violence, other than imprisoning him in a monastery). That's how the Church deals nowadays with all heretic bishops!
Burning was mostly done for pedagogic reasons, when the heresy was popular. Also, and i might be wrong about it, but the Church herself never performed executions.
Definitely possible with some of the early Popes from the 600-700's. Apparently one of them was openly a Satanist and performed satanic rituals in church.
They must have performed executions in the Papal States or at the very least Rome.
I think the Church had ways to deal with the insane, and to depose someone afflicted by insanity without much fuss (nor much violence, other than imprisoning him in a monastery). That's how the Church deals nowadays with all heretic bishops!
Burning was mostly done for pedagogic reasons, when the heresy was popular. Also, and i might be wrong about it, but the Church herself never performed executions.
They must have performed executions in the Papal States or at the very least Rome.
tuareg109
Banned
The Reformation and 1600's are probably too late for anybody to consider burning a Pope. The PR nightmare it would cause is enough to give pause; couple this with the Renaissance ideals all over the Mediterranean and Western and Central Europe at this time, and only somebody truly and utterly insane would burn the Pope to death, dead or alive.
That was supposedly Pope Honorius III, who supposedly thought it was a test of faith to confront demons, and a victory for God to be able dominate them, and thus taught how to summon demons to control them.
scholar
Banned
Have the Pope have a larger amount of mobility in the older times of Europe and have him caught in the wrong place when a heresy violently breaks out. Perhaps he heads there in moral and spiritual support of a group of Catholic princes and kingdoms in the Holy Roman Empire in opposition to the growing Protestant movements of the north and west when one of those groups overpower whatever escort he had with him and burned him as a heretic (assuming Satan or the Antichrist is too extreme for them) after kidnapping him.
Said pope becomes a Martyr and is beatified, while said heresy becomes despised throughout Christendom.
Are you sure? It looks more to the usual bashing of IX/X centuries popes (or far-right evangelism) but I don't remember one definitive mention of a pope or antipope openly, practicing satanist rituals and didn't find mention in thE POPES AND ANTIPOPES LIST.
I would be doubtful of that for the VI/VIII centuries anyway : satanism as we consider it nowadays didn't had a real definition before the late Middle Ages (and was more a religious anti-definition, aka a set of denouciation from catholic authorities, than a real thing).
Without a source, I would consider this claim as suspicious, at best. Furthermore, seeing how much tensed were the relation between Constantinople and Rome in religious matter in these centuries, Byzantines would have likely argued of such thing. They didn't.
Now, for popes considered as heretics. While the term didn't existed, at least not in his theological sense, Honorius I was anathemized by Constantinople for keeping what was considered in Constantinople as amonothelisc stance. On the other hand, it was probably not and he was supported by italian clergy.
In the EMA, it's the best you could have : a pope being criticised by Constantinople, and being send in exile while a new pope is elected.
See, the execution for heresy didn't appeared as a punishment (that was really limited, maybe 10% of punishments was death and a good part of these were turned in harsh but not death penalty eventually) before the XIII and the reapparance of a non-customary roman law in western Europe. Eventually, heresy was considered as equivalent to crime against the state, or lese-majesty.
My two cents : the papal figure being really important, it would be hard to burn a pope as heretic outright. Not only his heresy would have been known earlier (elections weren't exactly randomly choosing a pope, at the very last, in the X, they tried to have a pope that would be quiet and superficial enough to not disturb the business), but Rome was as well about religion than politics, and it would have looked badly for its credibility.
Now, it's possible : let's have a dirtier Great Schism. No Avignon exile by exemple, and opposers fighting upon pontifical throne in Rome itself, with bands.
Of course the emperor would be pissed and intervene, a king (likely french) would host a para-council, etc.
But during the infighting itself, it wouldn't be that astonishing to have the body of a deceased pope being taken, judged (as they did to John VIII) and burnt for heresy.
Well, on one level, the Pope as heretic is like the King as traitor. Contradiction in terms, can't be done. But, there have been Anti-Popes at various periods. If an Anti-Pope gets hold of the Un-Anti-Pope, he might well charge the latter with heresy.
Could be a beginning for a VERY nasty war. Lots of crusades to clear out the unbelievers from each side, and retribution raids to follow.
Absolutely. The Church excommunicated heretics after a formal trial and handed them over to the secular government with a (however nominal) plea to be gentle with them. Of course, the government usually executed them.
(The Papal States, where the church was the government, were a special case. There might be other exceptions too, but this was the standard method.)
I heard about it in a documentary I was watching on the early Papacy. It was only mentioned in a list of some of the wackier things the early Popes did though so I could be misremembering although Emperor Julian says it was Honorious III and that he did it to prove god's superiority over demons. Still though, it seems like it wouldn't take much to twist that as heresy if you wanted to.
Urban VI seems to be Pope Most Likely To Have Another Pope Declared A Heretic And Burned At The Stake, but that's just my opinion.
Believe it or not, folks, but just about every situation you described actually took place. Church history records 50 Popes that didn't believe in God at all, the Machiavellis manipulated the elections of several Popes and at least one pope was placed on the throne by the prostitutes of Rome at the age of 12. That pope was so depraved that he openly engaged in orgies and committed several rapes before his own guards killed him. There was also the 'Great Schism' in which there were actually 3 popes at one time. These were actually situations that led to the Protestant Reformation and a return to the scriptures over church dogma.