Papal legate

The East–West Schism, also known as the Great Schism or the Schism of 1054, is the break of communion between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church since 1054. A series of ecclesiastical differences, theological disputes and geopolitical tensions between the Greek East and Latin West preceded the formal split that occurred in 1054. Prominent among these were the procession of the Holy Spirit (Filioque), whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in the Eucharist, iconoclasm, the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor of the Romans in 800, the pope's claim to universal jurisdiction, and the place of the See of Constantinople in relation to the pentarchy.

The first action that led to a formal schism occurred in 1053 when Patriarch Michael I Cerularius of Constantinople ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople. In 1054, the papal legate sent by Leo IX travelled to Constantinople in order, among other things, to deny Cerularius the title of "ecumenical patriarch" and insist that he recognize the pope's claim to be the head of all of the churches. The main purposes of the papal legation were to seek help from the Byzantine emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos, in view of the Norman conquest of southern Italy, and to respond to Leo of Ohrid's attacks on the use of unleavened bread and other Western customs, attacks that had the support of Cerularius. The historian Axel Bayer says that the legation was sent in response to two letters, one from the emperor seeking help to organize a joint military campaign by the eastern and western empires against the Normans, and the other from Cerularius. When the leader of the legation, Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida, O.S.B., learned that Cerularius had refused to accept the demand, he excommunicated him, and in response Cerularius excommunicated Humbert and the other legates. According to Kallistos Ware, "Even after 1054 friendly relations between East and West continued. The two parts of Christendom were not yet conscious of a great gulf of separation between them ... The dispute remained something of which ordinary Christians in East and West were largely unaware".

A canonical coronation (Latin: Coronatio Canonica) is a pious institutional act of the pope, duly expressed in a formal decree of a papal bull, in which the pope bestows the pontifical right to impose an ornamental crown, a diadem or an aureole to an image of Christ, Mary or Joseph that is widely venerated in a particular diocese or locality. The act was later regulated to Marian images only, through the De coronatione imaginum B.V. Mariae that was issued on 25 March 1973.

The formal act is generally carried out by a representing proxy of the pope, via the designated apostolic nuncio to a country or kingdom, or at times a lesser papal legate, or on rare occasions by the pope himself, by ceremonially attaching a crown, tiara, or stellar halo to the devotional image or statue.

The Fifth Crusade (September 1217 – August 29, 1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al-Adil, brother of Saladin.

After the failure of the Fourth Crusade, Innocent III again called for a crusade, and began organizing Crusading armies led by Andrew II of Hungary and Leopold VI of Austria, soon to be joined by John of Brienne, titular King of Jerusalem. An initial campaign in late 1217 in Syria was inconclusive, and Andrew departed. A German army led by cleric Oliver of Paderborn, and a mixed army of Dutch, Flemish and Frisian soldiers led by William I of Holland, then joined the Crusade in Acre, with a goal of first conquering Egypt, viewed as the key to Jerusalem. There, cardinal Pelagius Galvani arrived as papal legate and de facto leader of the Crusade, supported by John of Brienne and the masters of the Templars, Hospitallers and Teutonic Knights. Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, who had taken the cross in 1215, did not participate as promised.

The Elector of Mainz was one of the seven Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. As both the Archbishop of Mainz and the ruling prince of the Electorate of Mainz, the Elector of Mainz held a powerful position during the Middle Ages. The Archbishop-Elector was president of the electoral college, archchancellor of the empire, and the Primate of Germany as the papal legate north of the Alps, until the dissolution of the empire in 1806.

The origin of the title dates back to 747, when the city of Mainz was made the seat of an archbishop, and a succession of able and ambitious prelates made the district under their rule a strong and vigorous state. Among these men were important figures in the history of Germany such as Hatto I, Adalbert of Mainz, Siegfried III, Peter of Aspelt and Albert of Brandenburg. There were several violent contests between rivals for the archbishopric, and their power struggles occasionally moved the citizens of Mainz to revolt. The lands of the elector lay around the city of Mainz on both banks of the Rhine; their area reached 3200 sq. miles by the end of the Empire. The last elector was Karl Theodor von Dalberg, who lost his temporal power when the archbishopric was secularized in 1803.

Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora de Fátima, pronounced [ˈnɔsɐ sɨˈɲɔɾɐ ðɨ ˈfatimɐ]; formally known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Fátima) is a Catholic title of Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. José Alves Correia da Silva, Bishop of Leiria, declared the events worthy of belief on 13 October 1930.

Pope Pius XII granted a pontifical decree of canonical coronation via the papal bull Celeberrima solemnia towards the venerated image on 25 April 1946. The designated papal legate, Cardinal Benedetto Aloisi Masella, carried out the coronation on 13 May 1946, now permanently enshrined at the Chapel of the Apparitions of Fátima. The same Roman Pontiff also raised the Sanctuary of Fátima to the status of a minor basilica by the apostolic letter Luce superna on 11 November 1954.

Thomas Wolsey (/ˈwʊlzi/ WUUL-zee; c. March 1473 – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic cardinal. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishop of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.

The highest political position Wolsey attained was Lord Chancellor, the king's chief adviser (formally, as his successor and disciple Thomas Cromwell was not). In that position, he enjoyed great freedom and was often depicted as the alter rex ("other king"). After failing to negotiate an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Wolsey fell out of favour and was stripped of his government titles. He retreated to York to fulfil his ecclesiastical duties as archbishop, a position he nominally held but had neglected during his years in government. He was recalled to London to answer to charges of treason—charges Henry commonly used against ministers who fell out of his favour—but died from natural causes on the way.

The Duchy of Urbino (Italian: Ducato di Urbino) was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1631.

It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Republic of Florence in the west and the Papal States in the south. In 1523 the capital was moved from Urbino to Pesaro. After the short rule by Cesare Borgia in 1502–08, the dukedom went to the della Rovere papal family, who held it until 1625, when Pope Urban VIII annexed it to the Papal States as Legazione del Ducato di Urbino (later Legazione di Urbino).