Bridgettines
The Order of the Most Holy Savior, abbreviated as O. Ss. S. and informally known as the Brigittine or Bridgettine Order is a monastic religious order of Augustinian nuns, Religious Sisters, monks founded by Saint Bridget of Sweden in 1344, approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. There are today several different branches of Bridgettines; the original Bridgettine Order was open to both men and women, was dedicated to devotion to the Passion of Jesus Christ. It was a “double order” each monastery having attached to it a small community of monks to act as chaplains, but under the government of the abbess. St Bridget's Rule stipulated: the number of choir nuns shall not exceed sixty, with four lay sisters; the nuns were enclosed, emphasizing scholarship and study, but the monks were preachers and itinerant missionaries. The individual monasteries were each subject to the local bishop, and, in honor of the Virgin Mary, they were ruled by an abbess; the distinctive part of the Brigittine habit for the women of the Order is the metal crown which they wear called the "Crown of the Five Holy Wounds".
It has one at each joint, to remember the Five Wounds of Christ on the Cross. The monks wear a red cross with a Eucharistic host at the center on the right breast of their cloak; the Order has its own proper Rite for the Canonical Hours, called the Office of Our Lady. St. Bridget's granddaughter, Lady Ingegerd Knutsdotter, was Abbess of Vadstena from 1385 to 1403. Upon her death on 14 September 1412, direct descent from St. Bridget became extinct; this opened the medieval concept of "Bridget's spiritual children", members of the Order founded by her, to be her true heirs. The Order spread in Sweden and Norway, played a remarkable part in promoting culture and literature in Scandinavia. By 1515, with significant royal patronage, there were 13 of them in Scandinavia. Bridgettine houses soon spread into other lands, reaching an eventual total of 80. In England, the Bridgettine monastery of Syon Abbey at Isleworth, was founded and royally endowed by King Henry V in 1415, became one of the richest, most fashionable, influential religious communities in the country until its Dissolution under King Henry VIII.
One of the monks of the community, Richard Reynolds, O. Ss. S. was among the first members of the English clergy to be executed as traitors for his refusal to accept the Oath of Supremacy. He was canonized as a martyr by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Syon Abbey was among the few religious houses restored during Queen Mary I’s reign, when nearly twenty members of the old community were re-established there in 1557. Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and the ensuing conflict between Catholics and the English Crown, the Bridgettine monastic community left England, first for the Low Countries after many vicissitudes, to Rouen in France, in 1594, to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal; the community remained in Lisbon, recruiting new members from England, until 1861, when they returned to England. Syon Abbey in Devon continued as the only English religious community that had existed without interruption since pre-Reformation times. In 2004 the surviving medieval books of the monastic library were entrusted for safekeeping to the University of Exeter.
Among the texts preserved was the Showing of Love by Julian of Norwich and The Orcherd of Syon, which translated Catherine of Siena's Dialogue. Syon Abbey's Tudor Gatepost in marble, on which parts of St Richard Reynolds' body were placed, was brought by the Sisters into their exile, returned with them to England; this was given to the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Exeter. All the Northern European Bridgettine monasteries were destroyed during the Reformation; the original medieval branch today consists of four independent monasteries: Maria Refugie Abbey in Uden, Netherlands Syon Abbey in Isleworth, England Birgittakloster in Altomünster Germany Pax Mariae Abbey in Vadstena, Sweden Marina de Escobar founded a Spanish branch in the 1630s, consisting only of nuns, following a modified version of the St Bridget's Rule. It consists of four independent monasteries in Spain, four in Mexico and one in Venezuela; the largest branch of the Bridgettines today is the one founded by Saint Elizabeth Hesselblad, a nurse, on 8 September 1911 of semi-contemplative Religious Sisters dedicated to providing hospitality for those in need of rest.
It was approved by the Holy See on 7 July 1940, consists of convents in Europe and North America. The motherhouse of the Order is located on the Piazza Farnese, close to the Campo de' Fiori, Italy, the house where Birgitta had once lived. On October 28, 2016, Fabia Kattakayam was selected as the order's new Abbess General, she is the first person of Indian descent to serve in this position. As in all their houses, this c
Gustav I of Sweden
Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the Vasa noble family and known as Gustav Vasa, was King of Sweden from 1523 until his death in 1560 self-recognised Protector of the Realm from 1521, during the ongoing Swedish War of Liberation against King Christian II of Denmark and Sweden. Of low standing, Gustav rose to lead the rebel movement following the Stockholm Bloodbath, in which his father perished. Gustav's election as King on 6 June 1523 and his triumphant entry into Stockholm eleven days marked Sweden's final secession from the Kalmar Union; as king, Gustav proved an enigmatic administrator with a ruthless streak not inferior to his predecessor's, brutally suppressing subsequent uprisings. He worked to raise taxes and bring about a Reformation in Sweden, replacing the prerogatives of local landowners and clergy with centrally appointed governors and bishops, his 37-year rule, the longest of a mature Swedish king to that date saw a complete break with not only the Danish supremacy but the Roman Catholic Church, whose assets were nationalised, with the Lutheran Church of Sweden established under his personal control.
He became the first autocratic native Swedish sovereign and was a skilled bureaucrat and propagandist, with tales of his fictitious adventures during the liberation struggle still widespread to date. In 1544, he abolished Medieval Sweden's elective monarchy and replaced it with a hereditary monarchy under the House of Vasa and its successors, including the current House of Bernadotte. Due to a vibrant dynastic succession, three of his sons, Erik XIV, Johan III and Karl IX, all held the kingship at different points. Gustav I has subsequently been labelled the founder of modern Sweden, the "father of the nation". Gustav liked to compare himself to Moses, whom he believed to have liberated his people and established a sovereign state; as a person, Gustav was known for ruthless methods and a bad temper, but a fondness for music and had a certain sly wit and ability to outmaneuver and annihilate his opponents. He founded one of the now oldest orchestras of the Kungliga Hovkapellet. Royal housekeeping accounts from 1526 mention twelve musicians including wind players and a timpanist but no string players.
Today the Kungliga Hovkapellet is the orchestra of the Royal Swedish Opera. Gustav Eriksson, a son of Cecilia Månsdotter Eka and Erik Johansson Vasa, was born in 1496; the birth most took place in Rydboholm Castle, northeast of Stockholm, the manor house of the father, Erik. The newborn got his name, from Erik's grandfather Gustav Anundsson. Erik Johansson's parents were Johan Kristersson and Birgitta Gustafsdotter of the dynasties Vasa and Sture both dynasties of high nobility. Birgitta Gustafsdotter was regent of Sweden. Being a relative and ally of uncle Sten Sture, Erik inherited the regent's estates in Uppland and Södermanland when the latter died in 1503. Although a member of a family with considerable properties since childhood, Gustav Eriksson would be the holder of possessions of a much greater dimension. According to genealogical research, Birgitta Gustafsdotter and Sten Sture were descended from King Sverker II of Sweden, through King Sverker's granddaughter Benedikte Sunesdotter. One of King Gustav's great-grandmothers was a half-sister of King Charles VIII of Sweden.
Since the end of the 14th century, Sweden had been a part of the Kalmar Union with Denmark and Norway. The Danish dominance in this union led to uprisings in Sweden. During Gustav's childhood, parts of the Swedish nobility tried to make Sweden independent. Gustav and his father Erik supported the party of Sten Sture the Younger, regent of Sweden from 1512, its struggle against the Danish King Christian II. Following the battle of Brännkyrka in 1518, where Sten Sture's troops beat the Danish forces, it was decided that Sten Sture and King Christian would meet in Österhaninge for negotiations. To guarantee the safety of the king, the Swedish side sent six men as hostages to be kept by the Danes for as long as the negotiations lasted. However, Christian did not show up for the negotiations, violated the deal with the Swedish side and took the hostages aboard ships carrying them to Copenhagen; the six members of the kidnapped hostage were Hemming Gadh, Lars Siggesson, Jöran Siggesson, Olof Ryning, Bengt Nilsson – and Gustav Eriksson.
Gustav was held in Kalø Castle where he was treated well after promising he would not make attempts to escape. A reason for this gentle treatment was King Christian's hope to convince the six men to switch sides, turn against their leader Sten Sture; this strategy was successful regarding all men but Gustav. In 1519, Gustav Eriksson escaped from Kalø, he fled to the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. How he managed to escape is not certain, but according to a somewhat story, he disguised himself as a bullocky. For this, Gustav Eriksson got the nicknames "King Oxtail" and "Gustav Cow Butt", something he indeed disliked; when a swordsman drank to His Majesty "Gustav Cow Butt" in Kalmar in 1547, the swordsman was killed. While staying in Lübeck, Gustav could hear about developments in his native Sweden. While he was there, Christian II mobilised to attack Sweden in an effort to seize power from Sten Sture and his supporters. In 1
Strängnäs
Strängnäs is a locality and the seat of Strängnäs Municipality, Södermanland County, Sweden with 12,856 inhabitants in 2010. It is located by Lake Mälaren and is the episcopal see of the Diocese of Strängnäs, one of the thirteen dioceses of the Church of Sweden. Prominently located on a hilltop, Strängnäs Cathedral, built between 1291 and 1340, is an important landmark; the city's name is first encountered in reference to the Diocese. The name Strängnäs is derived from the fact that the city is located near a strait and on several hills on two major ones, the "Mill Hill" and the "Cathedral Hill". In Old Norse strengr indicates a "narrow channel of water" and nes refers to an "isthmus", "narrow peninsula", or " headland", a common toponymic in Scandinavia. A monastery was established around 1250, the cathedral inaugurated in 1291, with the town subsequently evolving around these two institutions; the oldest known city charter was granted in 1336 by King Magnus Eriksson. Strängnäs became a city of importance in the Södermanland province, as the location of the governing thing and of an annual market.
King Gustav Vasa was elected king in Strängnäs in 1523, delivered his first speech from a position adjacent to the cathedral. In the 15th and 16th centuries Strängnäs had an important place in the history of Sweden through the Reformation era. Strängnäs was the native city of prominent reformer Laurentius Andreae and the home city of both Andreae and Olaus Petri, it became a regional centre of education and scholarship, in 1626 the Thomas Gymnasium was established by King Gustavus Adolphus, is today Sweden's second oldest operating gymnasium. The urban and economic development of Strängnäs seems to have slowed after the Reformation, only flourishing temporarily with the arrival of energetic bishops; the city was slow to engage with the 19th century industrial development and investment found in other areas. A significant fire in 1871 led to large-scale reconstruction of the city, from which time its current appearance stems. Many of the inhabitants of Strängnäs commute to Stockholm, Södertälje and Eskilstuna.
European route E20 passes the city, there is a mainline railway station operated by the Swedish national railway company, with direct services to and from the capital Stockholm. Tourism is a significant element of the city's economy, with the brick gothic cathedral attracting many visitors, as well as the attraction of natural features the lake. Extreme metal band Merciless was formed in Strängnäs. Konjic, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Herzegovina Ribe, Municipality of Esbjerg, Denmark Tokyo, Nihon-koku, Japan Nordisk familjebok. Strängnäs - Official site https://www.panoramio.com/photo/24440240
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation; the Council issued condemnations of what it defined to be heresies committed by proponents of Protestantism, issued key statements and clarifications of the Church's doctrine and teachings, including scripture, the Biblical canon, sacred tradition, original sin, salvation, the sacraments, the Mass, the veneration of saints. The Council met for twenty-five sessions between 13 December 1545 and 4 December 1563. Pope Paul III, who convoked the Council, oversaw the first eight sessions, while the twelfth to sixteenth sessions were overseen by Pope Julius III and the seventeenth to twenty-fifth sessions by Pope Pius IV; the consequences of the Council were significant in regards to the Church's liturgy and practices. During its deliberations, the Council made the Vulgate the official example of the Biblical canon and commissioned the creation of a standard version, although this was not achieved until the 1590s.
In 1565, a year after the Council finished its work, Pius IV issued the Tridentine Creed and his successor Pius V issued the Roman Catechism and revisions of the Breviary and Missal in 1566, 1568 and 1570. These, in turn, led to the codification of the Tridentine Mass, which remained the Church's primary form of the Mass for the next four hundred years. More than three hundred years passed until the next ecumenical council, the First Vatican Council, was convened in 1869. On 15 March 1517, the Fifth Council of the Lateran closed its activities with a number of reform proposals but not on the major problems that confronted the Church in Germany and other parts of Europe. A few months on 31 October 1517, Martin Luther issued his 95 Theses in Wittenberg. Luther's position on ecumenical councils shifted over time, but in 1520 he appealed to the German princes to oppose the papal Church, if necessary with a council in Germany and free of the Papacy. After the Pope condemned in Exsurge Domine fifty-two of Luther's theses as heresy, German opinion considered a council the best method to reconcile existing differences.
German Catholics, diminished in number, hoped for a council to clarify matters. It took a generation for the council to materialise because of papal reluctance, given that a Lutheran demand was the exclusion of the papacy from the Council, because of ongoing political rivalries between France and Germany and the Turkish dangers in the Mediterranean. Under Pope Clement VII, troops of the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked Papal Rome in 1527, "raping, burning, the like had not been seen since the Vandals". Saint Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel were used for horses. This, together with the Pontiff's ambivalence between Germany, led to his hesitation. Charles V favoured a council, but needed the support of King Francis I of France, who attacked him militarily. Francis I opposed a general council due to partial support of the Protestant cause within France. In 1532 he agreed to the Nuremberg Religious Peace granting religious liberty to the Protestants, in 1533 he further complicated matters when suggesting a general council to include both Catholic and Protestant rulers of Europe that would devise a compromise between the two theological systems.
This proposal met the opposition of the Pope for it gave recognition to Protestants and elevated the secular Princes of Europe above the clergy on church matters. Faced with a Turkish attack, Charles held the support of the Protestant German rulers, all of whom delayed the opening of the Council of Trent. In reply to the Papal bull Exsurge Domine of Pope Leo X, Martin Luther burned the document and appealed for a general council. In 1522 German diets joined in the appeal, with Charles V seconding and pressing for a council as a means of reunifying the Church and settling the Reformation controversies. Pope Clement VII was vehemently against the idea of a council, agreeing with Francis I of France, after Pope Pius II, in his bull Execrabilis and his reply to the University of Cologne, set aside the theory of the supremacy of general councils laid down by the Council of Constance. Pope Paul III, seeing that the Protestant Reformation was no longer confined to a few preachers, but had won over various princes in Germany, to its ideas, desired a council.
Yet when he proposed the idea to his cardinals, it was unanimously opposed. Nonetheless, he sent nuncios throughout Europe to propose the idea. Paul III issued a decree for a general council to be held in Mantua, Italy, to begin on 23 May 1537. Martin Luther wrote the Smalcald Articles in preparation for the general council; the Smalcald Articles were designed to define where the Lutherans could and could not compromise. The council was ordered by the Emperor and Pope Paul III to convene in Mantua on 23 May 1537, it failed to convene after another war broke out between France and Charles V, resulting in a non-attendance of French prelates. Protestants refused to attend as well. Financial difficulties in Mantua led the Pope in the autumn of 1537 to move the council to Vicenza, where participation was poor; the Council was postponed indefinitely on 21 May 1539. Pope Paul III initiated several internal Church reforms while Emperor Charles V convened with Protestants at an imperial diet in Regensburg, to reconcile differences.
Unity failed betw
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous constituent country of the Kingdom of Denmark between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for more than a millennium; the majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors began migrating from the Canadian mainland in the 13th century settling across the island. Greenland is the world's largest island. Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the only permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. With a population of about 56,480, it is the least densely populated territory in the world. About a third of the population live in the capital and largest city; the Arctic Umiaq Line ferry acts as a lifeline for western Greenland, connecting the various cities and settlements. Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by Arctic peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada.
Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century, having settled Iceland to escape persecution from the King of Norway and his central government. These Norsemen would set sail from Greenland and Iceland, with Leif Erikson becoming the first known European to reach North America nearly 500 years before Columbus reached the Caribbean islands. Inuit peoples arrived in the 13th century. Though under continuous influence of Norway and Norwegians, Greenland was not formally under the Norwegian crown until 1262; the Norse colonies disappeared in the late 15th century when Norway was hit by the Black Death and entered a severe decline. Soon after their demise, beginning in 1499, the Portuguese explored and claimed the island, naming it Terra do Lavrador. In the early 18th century, Danish explorers reached Greenland again. To strengthen trading and power, Denmark–Norway affirmed sovereignty over the island; because of Norway's weak status, it lost sovereignty over Greenland in 1814 when the union was dissolved.
Greenland became Danish in 1814, was integrated in the Danish state in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark. In 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a majority of the population voted for Greenland to withdraw from the EEC, effected in 1985. Greenland contains the world's largest and most northerly national park, Northeast Greenland National Park. Established in 1974, expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,001 square kilometres of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland and is bigger than all but twenty-nine countries in the world. Greenland is divided into five municipalities – Sermersooq, Qeqertalik and Avannaata. Greenland does not have an independent seat at the United Nations. In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, in 2008, Greenlanders voted in favor of the Self-Government Act, which transferred more power from the Danish government to the local Greenlandic government. Under the new structure, in effect since 21 June 2009, Greenland can assume responsibility for policing, judicial system, company law and auditing.
It retains control of monetary policy, providing an initial annual subsidy of DKK 3.4 billion, planned to diminish over time. Greenland expects to grow its economy based on increased income from the extraction of natural resources; the capital, held the 2016 Arctic Winter Games. At 70%, Greenland has one of the highest shares of renewable energy in the world coming from hydropower; the early Norse settlers named the island as Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian-born Icelander Erik the Red was said to be exiled from Iceland for manslaughter. Along with his extended family and his thralls, he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers; the Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."The name of the country in the indigenous Greenlandic language is Kalaallit Nunaat.
The Kalaallit are the indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people. In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Eskimo cultures known today through archaeological finds; the earliest entry of the Paleo-Eskimo into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From around 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland were inhabited by the Saqqaq culture. Most finds of Saqqaq-period archaeological remains have been around Disko Bay, including the site of Saqqaq, after which the culture is named. From 2400 BC to 1300 BC, the Independence I culture existed in northern Greenland, it was a part of the Arctic small tool tradition. Towns, including Deltaterrassern
Saint Lambert's Cathedral, Liège
For the present cathedral of Liège see Liège Cathedral St. Lambert's Cathedral, Liège was the cathedral of Liège, until 1794, when its destruction began; this enormous Gothic cathedral, dedicated to Saint Lambert of Maastricht, occupied the site of the present Place Saint-Lambert in the centre of Liège. Saint Lambert, bishop of Maastricht, was assassinated in Liège about 705, was buried in Maastricht; the site of his martyrdom became a place of pilgrimage, his successor, Saint Hubert, returned the body and reburied it there. Shortly afterwards, the bishop's seat was transferred from Maastricht to Liège, Lambert's shrine became a cathedral. Several structures succeeded each other on the site; the first was a martyr's mausoleum, commissioned by Saint Hubert. Unusually, it was oriented to the west, which may account for the existence of a west choir in cathedral buildings. Two cathedrals followed; the first, built towards the end of the 8th century, was in Carolingian style. In 978 Bishop Notger installed a chapter of sixty canons.
He built a new church from around the year 1000, in Ottonian style, with a special crypt for the relics of the martyred saint. The architecture was that of the Holy Roman Empire; the new cathedral had a massive westwork, two choirs at opposite ends, two transepts, each with a tower over the crossing, adding to the monumentality of the structure, a cloister at the east end. It is noticeable from the groundplan that the entrances were in the north and south sides of the building, not along the east-west axis. Frederic of Lorriane Pope Stephen IX, was canon and archdeacon of this church before being raised to the cardinalate by Pope Victor II. Many alterations were made to it during the decades 1140-1180; the disgraced and excommunicated Emperor Henry IV, who died on 7 August 1106, was buried here by the Prince-Bishop Otbert, after the entrails and heart had been removed. The German bishops protested and declared that the cathedral would be considered contaminated as long as the body stayed there.
Emperor Henry V therefore had his father's remains disinterred and moved to Speyer Cathedral, on 15 August 1106. During the night of 28/29 April 1185 a violent fire broke out in one of the houses next to the cloisters, to which it spread, from there to the rest of the cathedral, destroyed. Reconstruction began the next day, in the Gothic style. Part of the cathedral had been restored by 1189, when the Archbishop of Cologne visited to reconsecrate the church. In 1197, the relics of Saint Lambert, in safe storage since the fire, were reinstalled in the new building; the reconstruction was far from complete, for lack of funds. Processions criss-crossed the diocese in an effort to raise the necessary money. In the middle of the 13th century Pope Innocent IV granted indulgences to anyone who helped with the rebuilding of the cathedral. From 1391, work started on a tower 135 metres high, west of the south arm of the eastern transept, whose belltower was as high as the hill of the citadel, for the rest of its existence was a landmark for all who approached the city.
Its completion in 1433 marked the end of the major works. St. Lambert's Cathedral was 96 metres long. With the side chapels it was 37 metres wide, it was some 30 meters high to the top of the ceiling vault. In style, if not in size, it was comparable to the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris; the sandstone towers that characterised the west front were related to those of the cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudula in Brussels, of the Grote Kerk in Breda, in the Netherlands, as well as of the Basilica of Our Lady in Tongeren. The Archéoforum of Liège, beneath Place Saint-Lambert, makes it possible to see the ruins of the cathedral, besides the traces of other occupations of the site from the prehistoric period up to the 18th century. In 1794, under the French régime, after the révolution liégeoise, the demolition of the cathedral, agreed the previous year, was put in hand; the Liège revolutionaries considered it a symbol of the power of the Prince-Bishop. Demolition began with the removal of the lead from the roof for use in the manufacture of arms and munitions, under the supervision of a "Commission destructive de la cathédrale".
Consideration of the destruction of the great tower began in 1795. In 1803 the western towers were demolished; the site was levelled in 1827, except for a section of masonry from the ancient passage between the cathedral and the bishop's palace, still standing in 1929. Once the revolutionary mood had passed, another church had to be chosen to replace the destroyed cathedral; the collegiate church of St. Paul was selected as being, of those suitable, the nearest to the centre of the city, this became the present Liège Cathedral. After it had been sensitively modernised, there were transferred to it the numerous treasures, saved from the old cathedral - works of gold, manuscripts and reliquaries - which can be seen displayed in the cloisters; the site is maintained today by the Institut du Patrimoine, the institute in charge of cultural heritage protection in Wallonia. Philippe, Joseph, La Cathédrale Saint-Lambert de Liège: gloire de l'Occident et de l'art mosan, Liège: édition Eugène Wahle ISBN 2-87011-049-9 Archéoforum de Liège Trésor de la cathédrale de Liège
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
