Eugene IV
Gabriele Condulmer · 1431 – 1447
Fought the conciliarist movement, briefly reunited the Eastern and Western Churches, and was driven from Rome by a mob.
Gabriele Condulmer, a Venetian, became pope in 1431 and immediately clashed with the Council of Basel, which claimed authority over the pope. Eugene dissolved the council; the council refused to disperse and eventually elected an antipope, Felix V. Eugene convened his own council, first at Ferrara, then at Florence. The Council of Florence in 1439 achieved something remarkable: a decree of union with the Greek Orthodox Church. Emperor John VIII Palaeologus personally attended, desperate for Western military aid against the Ottomans. The union was genuine on paper but collapsed within years because the Greek clergy and laity at home rejected it. Eugene was also chased out of Rome by a republican uprising in 1434 and had to disguise himself as a monk to escape down the Tiber. He returned years later and died in 1447.
The Fight Against Conciliarism
The Council of Basel believed that a general council outranked the pope. Eugene believed the opposite. The fight got ugly, with rival councils, an antipope, and years of chaos. Eugene eventually won, and the principle that the pope is supreme in the Church was reaffirmed. But it was a close-run thing.
A Reunion That Didn't Last
Florence looked like a triumph. East and West signed a decree of union. But the Greek emperor needed soldiers more than theology, and the Orthodox faithful back in Constantinople wanted nothing to do with it. The reunion evaporated, and Constantinople fell to the Ottomans fourteen years later.