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Lesson 77

THE CATHOLIC HIERARCHY DURING THE DARK AGES

With the organization of the Papacy after the year 440, the great schism between the Latin and the Greek parts of the Roman world began to develop. The Greek part of the original Catholic realm refused to recognize the pope of Rome as the "holy papa" or universal sovereign of the church. The Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox religious organizations are continuations of the original Constantinopolitan, Antiochian and Alexandrian sees. The Russo-Greek Church, as originally organized in the eleventh century, branched from the patriarchate of Constantinople partially in the sixteenth, and fully in the eighteenth century. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 resulted in the disestablishment of the Orthodox Church in Russia. However, on September 4, 1943, a formal reconciliation was effected by Stalin, and the patriarch of Moscow again enjoys state favor.

From the inception of the Papacy the Roman Catholic organization has striven to exert her supremacy over the entire "Christian" realm. Her insatiable desire for domination as the universal church has been responsible through intrigue for most of the wars among the nations for the past 1,500 years. The Greek Catholic realm has stubbornly resisted encroachments and direct assaults to bring about its subjugation. Likewise the original "Christian" churches in Asia and Africa have resisted and refused to recognize Roman Catholic domination.

Following 440, the Church of Rome set upon a program of expansion and domination over all of central and west-

ern Europe. Thence forward the "golden" era of the Roman Hierarchy set in, and it continued dominant until the Reformation in the early sixteenth century. This period is termed the Middle Ages (cir. 475-1550), and the first 700 years of that time was more specifically designated the Dark Ages, but the entire period was one of great superstition, tyranny, corruption, oppression, ignorance, violence and crime of every nature under priest rule. Indeed Babylonish Devil religion reached new heights of blasphemy, binding the people in great ignorance and fear. Surely Satan appeared to be succeeding in gaining the issue of universal domination by using the very name of the Son of God as the means of strengthening his masterpiece of demon religion, the "Christian religion".

In the course of time the pope became a powerful factor with which to contend. Not only was he not satisfied to be a "spiritual" ruler, but now he desired secular power as well. With the old Roman empire now having disintegrated in the West in the eighth century, the popes desired to organize and set up a new Roman empire, to be called the "Holy Roman Empire". Their opportunity came in the year 800, when Pope Leo III enticed Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, then ruler over what is now France, Germany and northern Italy, to Rome, where he crowned him, much to his indignation, Charles I, emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire". Charlemagne journeyed to Rome to make donations to the church rather than to receive a crown from the pope which would bind him to recognize the "Holy Father" as a superior secular ruler. Note the following historical record of this papal intrigue for secular power:

"In proportion as the Byzantine emperors lost their hold of Italy, and especially the city of Rome, the actual power in the latter passed over into the hands of the pope as the head of an aristocratic municipal government. . . . Charlemagne confirmed and enlarged the donation which his father had made, and on Dec. 25, 800, laid the deed of the

enlarged donation on the tomb of St. Peter. Thus the popes became secular princes, though at first vassals of the Carlovingian emperors; and they were led to conceive the plan of restoring the old world-empire of the Romans by the rule of the pope over the entire world ... In order to efface the recollection that the secular power of the popes was the gift of the German princes, the story was started that Constantine the Great had given Rome and Italy to pope Sylvester, and that this was the reason why the imperial capital had been removed to Constantinople." —McClintock and Strong, Volume VII, page 630.

In the march of the centuries during the millennial reign of the Roman Hierarchy human philosophies and heathenish rites further replaced the many simple doctrines. In the sixth century clergy-worship was taught as the order of the day. The eighth century became noted for its gross image-worship. This wave of idolatry fixed itself securely in the traditions of the church for the future generations, even as did the false doctrine of "purgatory" fasten itself to church dogma in the seventh century. In the ninth century a flood of fresh superstitious follies and degrading teachings rushed in from the barbarians of the north lands.

The tenth century was specially noted for the honoring and creation of "saints" which were practically worshiped. There was a great searching for and preserving of "sacred relics", and the heaping of great riches and political control upon priests and monks. During the next century the priesthood became very corrupt and base. The clergy were destitute of Scriptural knowledge and void of virtue. People at large were mired deep in superstition. In the twelfth century the Roman pontiffs would have nothing taught that militated against their arrogated supremacy; therefore they required apostate Christianity to be so explained and modified to support the authority of the Papacy. Those refusing to submit were destroyed with fire and sword.