Holy Land
The Holy Land is an area located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. Traditionally, it is synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine; the term "Holy Land" refers to a territory corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, parts of southern Lebanon and of southwestern Syria. Jews and Muslims all regard it as holy. Part of the significance of the land stems from the religious significance of Jerusalem, as the historical region of Jesus' ministry, as the site of the Isra and Mi'raj event of c. 621 CE in Islam. The holiness of the land as a destination of Christian pilgrimage contributed to launching the Crusades, as European Christians sought to win back the Holy Land from the Muslims, who had conquered it from the Christian Byzantine Empire in the 630s. In the 19th century the Holy Land became the subject of diplomatic wrangling as the Holy Places played a role in the Eastern Question which led to the Crimean War of 1853-1856.
Many sites in the Holy Land have long been pilgrimage destinations for adherents of the Abrahamic religions, including Jews, Christians and Bahá'ís. Pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, to confirm their beliefs in the holy context with collective excitation, to connect to the Holy Land. Jews do not refer to the Land of Israel as "Holy Land"; the Tanakh explicitly refers to it as "holy land" in only one passage. The term "holy land" is further used twice in the deuterocanonical books; the holiness of the Land of Israel is implied in the Tanakh by the Land being given to the Israelites by God, that is, it is the "promised land", an integral part of God's covenant. In the Torah many mitzvot commanded to the Israelites can only be performed in the Land of Israel, which serves to differentiate it from other lands. For example, in the Land of Israel, "no land shall be sold permanently". Shmita is only observed with respect to the land of Israel, the observance of many holy days is different, as an extra day is observed in the Jewish diaspora.
According to Eliezer Schweid: The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is...'geo-theological' and not climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, that sphere of existence that lies beyond the physical world known to us through our senses; this is the key to the land's unique status with regard to prophecy and prayer, with regard to the commandments From the perspective of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, the holiness of Israel had been concentrated since the sixteenth century for burial, in the "Four Holy Cities": Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias - as Judaism's holiest cities. Jerusalem, as the site of the Temple, is considered significant. Sacred burials are still undertaken for diaspora Jews who wish to lie buried in the holy soil of Israel. According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is the location of the binding of Isaac; the Hebrew Bible mentions the name "Jerusalem" 669 times because many mitzvot can only be performed within its environs. The name "Zion", which refers to Jerusalem, but sometimes the Land of Israel, appears in the Hebrew Bible 154 times.
The Talmud mentions the religious duty of colonising Israel. So significant in Judaism is the act of purchasing land in Israel, the Talmud allows for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of Sabbath observance to further its acquisition and settlement. Rabbi Johanan said that "Whoever walks four cubits in Eretz Yisrael is guaranteed entrance to the World to Come". A story says. Shammua' and R. Johanan HaSandlar left Israel to study from R. Judah ben Bathyra, they only managed to reach Sidon when "the thought of the sanctity of Palestine overcame their resolution, they shed tears, rent their garments, turned back". Due to the Jewish population being concentrated in Israel, emigration was prevented, which resulted in a limiting of the amount of space available for Jewish learning. However, after suffering persecutions in Israel for centuries after the destruction of the Temple, Rabbis who had found it difficult to retain their position moved to Babylon, which offered them better protection.
Many Jews wanted Israel to be the place in order to be buried there. The sage Rabbi Anan said "To be buried in Israel is like being buried under the altar." The saying "His land will absolve His people" implies that burial in Israel will cause one to be absolved of all one's sins. For Christians, the Land of Israel is considered holy because of its association with the birth, ministry and resurrection of Jesus, whom Christians regard as the Savior or Messiah, because it is the land of the Jewish people. Christian books, including editions of the Bible had maps of the Holy Land. For instance, the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae of Heinrich Bünting, a German Protestant pastor, featured such a map, his book was popular, it provided "the most complete available summary of biblical geography and described the geography of the Holy Land by tracing the travels of major figures from the Old and New testaments."As a geographic term, the description "Holy Land" loosely encompasses modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan and south-western Syria
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Middle East, located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine foresees it as its seat of power. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times and recaptured 44 times, attacked 52 times; the part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. Jerusalem was named as "Urusalim" on ancient Egyptian tablets meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the Canaanite period. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE, in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah.
In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters; the Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860 Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians. In 2011, the population numbered 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, Christians 14,000 and 9,000 were not classified by religion. According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous — and monotheistic — religion centered on El/Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities.
These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city was attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times; the holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Medina. In Islamic tradition, in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer, Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran; as a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres, the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the Supreme Court. While the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem. A city called Rušalim in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba.
The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation of the god Shalem". Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived; the name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "dwelling of peace", alternately "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors. The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city sat on two hills; the form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of "Yireh" and "Shalem" the two names were un
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr, better known by his regnal title al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh, was the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam. Al-Hakim is an important figure in a number of Shia Ismaili religions, such as the world's 15 million Nizaris, in addition to the 2 million Druze of the Levant whose eponymous founder ad-Darazi proclaimed him as the incarnation of God in 1018. Histories of al-Hakim can prove controversial, as diverse views of his legacy exist. Historian Paul Walker writes: "Ultimately, both views of him, the mad and despotic tyrant irrationally given to killing those around him on a whim, the ideal supreme ruler, divinely ordained and chosen, whose every action was just and righteous, were to persist, the one among his enemies and those who rebelled against him, the other in the hearts of true believers, while perplexed by events, nonetheless remained avidly loyal to him to the end." Born in 985 CE, Abu'Ali "Mansur" was the first Fatimid ruler to have been born in Egypt. Abu'Ali "Mansur" had been proclaimed as heir-apparent in 993 CE and succeeded his father Abū Mansūr Nizār al-Azīz at the age of eleven on 14 October 996 with the caliphal title of al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah.
Al-Ḥākim had blue eyes flecked with reddish gold. Al-Ḥākim was born on Thursday, 3 Rābi'u l-Awwal in 985, his father, Caliph Abū Mansūr al-‘Azīz bil-Lāh, had two consorts. One was an umm al-walad, only known by the title as-Sayyidah al-‘Azīziyyah or al-‘Azīzah, she was a Melkite Christian whose two brothers were appointed patriarchs of the Melkite Church by Caliph al-‘Azīz. Different sources say either one of her brothers or her father was sent by al-‘Azīz as an ambassador to Sicily. Al-‘Azīzah is considered to be the mother of Sitt al-Mulk, one of the most famous women in Islamic history, who had a stormy relationship with her half-brother al-Ḥākim and may have had him murdered. Some, such as the Crusader chronicler William of Tyre, claimed that al-‘Azīzah was the mother of Caliph al-Ḥākim, though most historians dismiss this. William of Tyre went so far as to claim that al-Ḥākim's destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 was due to his eagerness to disprove taunts that he was a Christian born of a Christian woman.
By contrast, the chronicler al-Musabbihi recounts that in 981, al-Ḥākim's Muslim mother sought the aid of an imprisoned Islamic sage named ibn al-Washa and asked him to pray for her son who had fallen ill. The sage wrote the entire Qur ` an in the inner surface of a bade her wash her son out of it; when al-Ḥākim recovered, she demanded the release of the sage in gratitude. Her request was granted and the sage and his associates were freed from prison. Druze sources claim that al-Ḥākim's mother was the daughter of'Abdu l-Lāh, one of al-Mu'īzz li Dīn al-Lāh's sons and therefore al-‘Azīz's niece. Historians such as Delia Cortese are critical of this claim:t is more that this woman was in fact a wife of al-Hakim, rather than his mother, it could be argued that the Druzes' emphasis on al-Hakim's descent from an endogamic union served the doctrinal purpose of reinforcing the charisma genealogically transmitted with the "holy family", thereby enhancing the political and doctrinal status they bestow upon al-Hakim.
In 996, al-Ḥākim's father Caliph al-‘Azīz began a trip to visit Syria. The Caliph lay in sickbed for several days, he suffered from "stone with pains in the bowels." When he felt that his end was nearing he charged Qadi Muhammad ibn an-Nu'man and General Abū Muhammad al-Hasan ibn'Ammar to take care of al-Ḥākim, only eleven. He spoke to his son. Al-Ḥākim recalled the event: "I found him with nothing on his body but rags and bandages. I kissed him, he pressed me to his bosom, exclaiming: "How I grieve for thee, beloved of my heart," and tears flowed from his eyes, he said: "Go, my master, play, for I am well." I obeyed and began to amuse myself with sports such as are usual with boys, soon after God took him to himself. Barjawan hastened to me, seeing me on the top of a sycamore tree, exclaimed: "Come down, my boy; when I descended he placed on my head the turban adorned with jewels, kissed the ground before me, said: "Hail to the Commander of the faithful, with the mercy of God and his blessing."
He led me out in that attire and showed me to all the people, who kissed the ground before me and saluted me with the title of Khalif." On the following day, he and his new court proceeded from Bilbays to Cairo, behind the camel bearing his father's body, with the dead Caliph's feet protruding from the litter. They arrived shortly before evening prayer and his father was buried the next evening next to the tomb of his predecessor al-Mu'īzz. Al-Ḥākim was sworn in by Barjawan, a "white eunuch whom al-‘Azīz had appointed as Ustad'tutor'."Because it had been unclear whether he would inherit his father's position, this successful transfer of power was a demonstration of the stability of the Fatimid dynasty. The Kutama Berbers seized the chance to recover their dominant position in the state, which had eroded under al-Aziz due to the influx of Turkish and Daylamite mercenaries from the Islamic East, they compelled the underage al-Hakim to dismiss the Christian vizier Ibn Nasturis and appoint their leader Ibn Ammar to head the government, with the title of wāsiṭa rather than full vizier.
Ibn Ammar's rule
Archbasilica of St. John Lateran
The Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in the Lateran, – known as the Papal Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, St. John Lateran, or the Lateran Basilica – is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Rome in the city of Rome and serves as the seat of the Roman Pontiff, it is the oldest and highest ranking of the four papal major basilicas, giving it the unique title of "archbasilica". Because it is the oldest public church in the city of Rome, it is the oldest and most important basilica of the Western world, houses the cathedra of the Roman bishop, it has the title of ecumenical mother church of the Catholic faithful; the current archpriest is Angelo De Donatis, Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome. The President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, is ex officio the "first and only honorary canon" of the archbasilica, a title that the heads of state of France have possessed since King Henry IV; the large Latin inscription on the façade reads: Clemens XII Pont Max Anno V Christo Salvatori In Hon SS Ioan Bapt et Evang.
This abbreviated inscription translates to: "Pope Clement XII, in the fifth year to Christ the Savior, in honor of Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist". The inscription indicates, with its full title, that the archbasilica was dedicated to Christ the Savior and, centuries co-dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist; as the Cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome, it ranks superior to all other churches of the Roman Catholic Church, including St. Peter's Basilica; the archbasilica is sited in the City of Rome. It is outside Vatican City, 4 kilometres to its northwest, although the archbasilica and its adjoining edifices have extraterritorial status from Italy as one of the properties of the Holy See, pursuant to the Lateran Treaty of 1929; the archbasilica's Latin name is Archibasilica Sanctissimi Salvatoris ac Sancti Ioannis Baptistae et Ioannis Evangelistae ad Lateranum, which in English is the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist at the Lateran, in Italian Arcibasilica del Santissimo Salvatore e Santi Giovanni Battista ed Evangelista in Laterano.
The archbasilica stands over the remains of the Castra Nova equitum singularium, the "New Fort of the Roman imperial cavalry bodyguards". The fort was established by Septimius Severus in AD 193. Following the victory of Emperor Constantine I over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, the guard was abolished and the fort demolished. Substantial remains of the fort lie directly beneath the nave; the remainder of the site was occupied during the early Roman Empire by the palace of the gens Laterani. Sextius Lateranus was the first plebeian to attain the rank of consul, the Laterani served as administrators for several emperors. One of the Laterani, Consul-designate Plautius Lateranus, became famous for being accused by Nero of conspiracy against the Emperor; the accusation resulted in the redistribution of his properties. The Lateran Palace fell into the hands of the Emperor when Constantine I married his second wife Fausta, sister of Maxentius. Known by that time as the "Domus Faustae" or "House of Fausta," the Lateran Palace was given to the Bishop of Rome by Constantine I.
The actual date of the donation is unknown, but scholars speculate that it was during the pontificate of Pope Miltiades, in time to host a synod of bishops in 313, convened to challenge the Donatist schism, declaring Donatism to be heresy. The palace basilica was converted and extended, becoming the residence of Pope St. Silvester I becoming the Cathedral of Rome, the seat of the Popes as the Bishops of Rome. Pope Sylvester I presided over the official dedication of the archbasilica and the adjacent Lateran Palace in 324, changing the name from "Domus Fausta" to "Domus Dei" with a dedication to Christ the Savior; when a cathedra became a symbol of episcopal authority, the papal cathedra was placed in its interior, rendering it the cathedral of the Pope as Bishop of Rome. When Gregory the Great sent the Gregorian mission to England under Augustine of Canterbury, some original churches in Canterbury took the Roman plan as a model, dedicating a church both to Christ as well as one to St. Paul, outside the walls of the city.
The church name "Christ Church" so common for churches around the world today in Anglophone Anglican contexts came from this Roman church, central to pre-medieval Christian identity. On the archbasilica's front wall between the main portals is a plaque inscribed with the words "Sacrosancta Lateranensis ecclesia omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput", which translate to "Most Holy Lateran Church and head of all the churches in the city and the world"; the archbasilica and Lateran Palace were re-dedicated twice. Pope Sergius III dedicated them to St. John the Baptist in the 10th century in honor of the newly consecrated baptistry of the archbasilica. Pope Lucius II dedicated them to John the Evangelist in the 12th century. Thus, St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist became co-patrons of the archbasilica, while the primary Patron is still Christ the Savior, as the inscription in the entrance indicates and as is traditional for patriarchal cathedrals; the archbasilica remains dedicated to the Savior, its titular feast is the Feast of
Abdication
Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societies, abdication was a regular event, helped maintain stability during political succession. Abdications have either occurred by force or voluntarily; some rulers are ruled to have abdicated in absentia, vacating the physical throne and thus their position of power, although these judgments were pronounced by successors with vested interest in seeing the throne abdicated, without or despite the direct input of the abdicating monarch. Due to the ceremonial nature of the regnant in many constitutional monarchies, many monarchs have abdicated due to old age, such as the monarchs of Spain and the Netherlands; the word abdication is derived from the Latin abdicatio meaning to renounce. In its broadest sense abdication is the act of renouncing and resigning from any formal office, but it is applied to the supreme office of state.
In Roman law the term was applied to the disowning of a family member, such as the disinheriting of a son. Today the term applies to monarchs, or to those who have been formally crowned. An elected or appointed official is said to resign rather than to abdicate. A notable exception is the voluntary relinquishing of the office of Bishop of Rome by the Pope, called Papal resignation or Papal renunciation. In certain cultures, the abdication of a monarch was seen as a profound and shocking abandonment of royal duty; as a result, abdications only occurred in the most extreme circumstances of political turmoil or violence. For other cultures, abdication was a much more routine element of succession. Among the most notable abdications of antiquity are those of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, the Dictator, in 79 BC; the most notable abdication in recent history is that of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom and the Dominions. In 1936 Edward abdicated to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson, over the objections of the British establishment, the governments of the Commonwealth, the Royal Family and the Church of England.
It was the first time in history that the British or English crown was surrendered voluntarily. Richard II of England, for example, was forced to abdicate after power was seized by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, while Richard was abroad. During the Glorious Revolution in 1688, James II of England and VII of Scotland fled to France, dropping the Great Seal of the Realm into the Thames, the question was discussed in Parliament whether he had forfeited the throne or had abdicated; the latter designation was agreed upon in spite of James's protest, in a full assembly of the Lords and Commons it was resolved "that King James II having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original contract between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, having withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, has abdicated the government, that the throne is thereby vacant." The Scottish parliament pronounced a decree of deposition.
In Scotland, Queen of Scots, was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James VI. Today, because the title to the Crown depends upon statute the Act of Settlement 1701, a royal abdication can be effected only by an Act of Parliament. To give legal effect to the abdication of King Edward VIII, His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 was passed. In Japanese history, abdication was used often, in fact occurred more than death on the throne. In those days, most executive authority resided in the hands of regents, the Emperor's chief task was priestly, containing so many repetitive rituals that it was deemed the incumbent Emperor deserved pampered retirement as an honored retired emperor after a service of around ten years. A tradition developed that an Emperor should accede to the throne young; the high-priestly duties were deemed possible for a walking child. Thus, many Japanese Emperors have acceded as children, some only 8 years old. Childhood helped the monarch to endure tedious duties and to tolerate subjugation to political power-brokers, as well as sometimes to cloak the powerful members of the imperial dynasty.
All Japanese empresses and dozens of Emperors abdicated and lived the rest of their lives in pampered retirement, wielding influence behind the scenes with more power than they had had while on the throne. Several Emperors abdicated while still in their teens; these traditions show in Japanese folklore, theater and other forms of culture, where the Emperor is described or depicted as an adolescent. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan had eleven reigning empresses. Over half of Japanese empresses abdicated once a suitable male descendant was considered to be old enough to rule. Since the Meiji Restoration and the subsequent reorganization of imperial succession, no Emperor has abdicated and all have died o
Papal renunciation
A papal renunciation occurs when the reigning pope of the Catholic Church voluntarily steps down from his position. As the reign of the pope has conventionally been from election until death, papal renunciation is an uncommon event. Before the 21st century, only five popes unambiguously resigned with historical certainty, all between the 10th and 15th centuries. Additionally, there are disputed claims of four popes having resigned, dating from the 3rd to the 11th centuries. Additionally, a few popes during the saeculum obscurum were "deposed", meaning driven from office by force; the history and canonical question here is complicated. The development of canon law has been in favor of papal supremacy, leaving no recourse to the removal of a pope involuntarily; the most recent pope to resign was Benedict XVI, who vacated the Holy See on 28 February 2013 at 19:00 UTC. He was the first pope to do so since Gregory XII in 1415. Despite its common usage in discussion of papal renunciations, the term abdication is not used in the official documents of the church for renunciation by a pope.
In the Catholic Church, in the Latin Rite, the official laws on all matters are codified in the Latin edition of the 1983 Code of Canon Law which regulates papal renunciations in Canon 332 §2, where it states:Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet, ad validitatem requiritur ut renuntiatio libere fiat et rite manifestetur, non vero ut a quopiam acceptetur. Which in English, would be:If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone; this corresponds to Canon 221 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which in Latin is: Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex renuntiet, ad eiusdem renuntiationis validitatem non est necessaria Cardinalium aliorumve acceptatio. And in English, would be:If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is not required for validity that the resignation is accepted by the Cardinals or by anyone else. Both the 1983 Code and the 1917 Code make explicit that there is no particular individual or body of people to whom the pope must manifest his renunciation.
This addresses a concern raised in earlier centuries by 18th-century canonist Lucius Ferraris, who held that the College of Cardinals or at least its Dean must be informed, since the cardinals must be certain that the pope has renounced the dignity before they can validly proceed to elect a successor. In 1996, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici gregis, anticipated the possibility of resignation when he specified that the procedures he set out in that document should be observed "even if the vacancy of the Apostolic See should occur as a result of the resignation of the Supreme Pontiff"; the Catholic Encyclopedia notes the obscure renunciations of Pontian and Marcellinus, the postulated renunciation of Liberius, that one catalogue of popes lists John XVIII as resigning office in 1009 and finishing his life as a monk. During the saeculum obscurum several popes were "deposed" or coerced into renunciation by political and military force. John X is considered to have been deposed by some, but he seems to have died in prison before his successor Leo VI was elected anyway.
As another example, consider the story of John XII, Leo VIII, Benedict V. John XII had been invalidly deposed by the Emperor Otto in 963. Leo VIII was set up as an antipope by Otto at this time. However, John XII won back his rightful place in 964; when John XII died in 964, Benedict V was elected. However, Otto wanted Leo VIII put back on the papal throne and, using military might, forced Benedict to abdicate that same summer. Leo VIII is considered the legitimate pope until his death in 965, thus having been both an antipope and a valid pope. Benedict V never again attempted to claim the papacy, did not contest the election of John XIII after Leo VIII, so his abdication is considered valid though some treated him as the valid pope until his death; the first unquestionable papal renunciation is that of Benedict IX in 1045. Benedict had previously been deposed by Sylvester III in 1044, though he returned to take up the office again the next year, the Vatican considers Sylvester III to have been a legitimate pope in the intervening months.
In 1045, having regained the papacy for a few months, in order to rid the church of the scandalous Benedict, Gregory VI gave Benedict "valuable possessions" to resign the papacy in his favour. Gregory himself resigned in 1046 because the arrangement he had entered into with Benedict could have been considered simony. Gregory was followed by Clement II, when Clement died, Benedict IX returned to be elected to the papacy for a third time, only to resign yet again before dying in a monastery, he thus reigned as pope for three non-consecutive terms, resigned three separate times. A well-known renunciation of a pope is that of Celestine V, in 1294. After only five months of pontificate, he issued a solemn decree declaring it permissible for a pope to resign, did so himself, he lived two more years as a hermit and priso
Roman Catholic Suburbicarian Diocese of Albano
The Diocese of Albano is a suburbicarian see of the Roman Catholic Church in a diocese in Italy, comprising seven towns in the Province of Rome. Albano Laziale is situated some 15 kilometers on the Appian Way. Under current arrangements it has both a diocesan bishop. In the year of his consulate, Acilius Glabrio was compelled by Domitian to fight, unarmed, in the amphitheatre at Albano, a Numidian bear, according to Juvenal: an enormous lion, according to Dio Cassius; this same Acilius Glabrio is included in a Christian group of the Flavian family as a molitor rerum novarum. The Liber Pontificalis under the name Silvester says: fecit basilicam Augustus Constantinus in civitate Albanensis, videlicet S. Joannis Baptistae; this basilica of the time of Constantine was destroyed by fire toward the end of the 8th century or in the beginning of the ninth Ferdinando Franconi has established the identity of this basilica with the present Albano Cathedral, which still contains some remains of the edifice dedicated by Pope Leo III to Saint Pancras.
Under the basilica there was a crypt, or confessio, from which bodies were transferred to the cemetery nearby. The foundation of the episcopal see of Albano is probably contemporaneous with the erection of the Constantinian basilica. However, the first bishop of the see, it is more than a century that we meet with another Bishop of Albano, Romanus. To these is to be added Ursinus, whose name is found on an inscription in the Catacomb of Domitilla; the consular date is either 345 or 395. The importance of this early Christian community is apparent from its cemetery, discovered in 1720 by Marangoni, it little from the Christian cemeteries found in Rome. Its plan mapped out in the Epitome de locis ss. martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae, is considered by Giovanni Battista de Rossi as the synopsis of an ancient description of the cemeteries, written before the end of the 6th century: per eandem vere viam pervenitur ad Albanam civitatem et per eandem civitatem ad ecclesiam S. Senatoris ubi et Perpetua jacet corpore et innumeri sancti et magna mirabilia ibidem geruntur.
The saints here named are not known. Saint Senator of Albano is inserted without further explanation in the martyrology for 26 September. From this he passed to the Roman martyrology, but the first account of the martyrs of Albano is found in the Almanac of Philocalus on 8 August: VI Idus aug. Carpophori, Victorini et Severiani, Albano, et Ostense septimo ballistaria, Largi, Memmiae, Julianae, et Smaragdi; the cemetery has frescoes, painted at various times by unknown artists, which show the progress of Christian art from the fourth to the 9th century. Since 1966 functions are divided between the diocesan bishop. Diocesan bishops Raffaele Macario Gaetano Bonicelli Dante Bernini Agostino Vallini Marcello Semeraro Titular bishops Gregorio Pietro Agagianian Luigi Traglia Francesco Carpino Angelo Sodano Bräuer, Martin. Handbuch der Kardinäle: 1846-2012. Berlin: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-026947-5. Brixius, Johannes M. Die Mitglieder des Kardinalskollegiums von 1130-1181, Berlin 1912. De Rossi, Le catacombe di Albano, in Bull.
Di arch. Crist.. Cappelletti, Giuseppe. Le chiese. Volume primo. Venezia: Giuseppe Antonelli. Pp. 655–682. Gams, Pius Bonifatius. Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae: quotquot innotuerunt a beato Petro apostolo. Ratisbon: Typis et Sumptibus Georgii Josephi Manz. pp. xxii–xxiv. Gauchat, Patritius. Hierarchia catholica Volumen quartum Münster. Giorni, Francesco. Storia di Albano. Roma: Puccinelli. Hüls, Rudolf. Kardinäle, Klerus und Kirchen Roms: 1049–1130, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom 1977 Kehr, Paul Fridolin. Italia pontificia. Vol. II: Lativm. Berlin: Weidmann. Pp. 30–36. ISBN 978-5-88390-446-1. Klewitz, Hans-Walter. Reformpapsttum und Kardinalkolleg, Darmstadt 1957. Leclercq, Albano, in Dict. D'archeol. Chret. Et de lit.. Lentz, Harris M.. Popes and Cardinals of the 20th Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Jefferson NC USA: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-2155-5. Maleczek, Werner. Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216, Vienna 1984. Marucchi, Orazio "Di alcune inscrizioni recentement trovate e ricomposte nel cimitero di Domitilla," in Nuovo bull.
Di arch. Crist. P. 24. Marucchi, Orazio. Guida delle Catacombe di Albano. Roma: Desclee, Lefebvre. Riccy, Giovanni Antonio. Memorie storiche dell' antichissima citta di Alba-Longa e dell' Albano moderno...: divise in tre libri. Roma: Giovanni Zempel. Ritzler, Remigius. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi V. Patavii: Messagero di S. Antonio. Retrieved 2016-07-06. Ritzler, Remigius. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi VI. Patavii: Messagero di S. Antonio. Retrieved 2016-07-06. Ughelli, Ferdinando. Italia sacra sive insularum adjacentium. Tomus primus. Venice: apud Sebastianum Coleti. Pp. 247–278. Volpi, Latium Vetus, Profanum et Sacrum. Zenker, Barbara. Die Mitglieder des Kardinalkollegiums von 1130 bis 1159, Würzburg 1964. Suburbicarian Diocese of Albano Official Website This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Pope Sergius IV". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
