Pope Eugene IV Our 207th Pope

Born in 1383, Gabriele Condulmer, the child of rich Venetian merchants, went on to be our 207th pope. The handsome young man was the nephew of Pope Gregory XII and the bishop of Castello, Angelo Correr. Gabriele gave away his inheritance and joined the Augustinians before he was twenty.

When he was twenty-four, his uncle the pope appointed him Bishop of Siena. He was underage for a consecration and a dispensation a day later gave him possession of the see. The leaders of Siena rejected a young foreigner as bishop. So, within months, the new bishop resigned to become a cleric of the Vatican treasury and a protonotary apostolic. Months later he was named a cardinal priest of San Clemente.

Over the next twenty years, the young cardinal priest served as a papal legate, a bishop of Bologna and a cardinal in Rome.

When Pope Martin V died, the fourteen cardinals gathered for a conclave. A document went around with a promise to distribute half the Vatican revenue to the cardinals and to consult with them on all questions of importance, spiritual or temporal. This was a promise in exchange for election. Cardinal Condulmer was elected on March 11, 1431. The agreement was ratified the next day. He chose the name of Eugene. At his first conclave, he chose two new cardinals, his nephew and his close friend.

The Colonna family, a warring, controlling factor in Rome, Pope Martin’s family, supported interests against the Papacy. Pope Eugene took them in hand and arranged a truce. He got back some of the land and castles that Pope Martin had given to his family.

Eugene’s first major problem was the Council of Basel which had been reluctantly set up by Pope Martin.  He did not trust the council’s purposes, and due to the small attendance, Eugene wrote a bull dissolving the council. He called for a new one in Bologna. The attendees resisted, declared the council superior to a pope and ordered Eugene to appear. Emperor Sigismund came to Rome to be crowned in May 1433, and convinced Eugene to compromise. He called the council ecumenical, did not accept the council’s superiority and withdrew the council’s dissolution,

The Colonna family, reactivated, called for Rome to become an insurrectionary republic. Eugene had to escape in June 1434, in disguise, while being pelted by rocks from both sides of the Tiber. He reached Florence by October.  A peace treaty was not signed for a year. But he stayed in Florence. A delegation of Colonna Romans came to beg him to return, promising obedience. But he did not return.

Meanwhile, the Ottomans were edging closer to Constantinople and the Byzantine emperor was begging for help. Eugene wanted the council to discuss helping. He invited the emperor and the patriarch to the council and officially moved the council to Ferrara, then to Florence. They brought 700 people with them.  The discussion was about ending the schism. Eventually, an agreement was reached in which the Greeks agreed to accept Purgatory and the Filoque in the Nicene Creed. In exchange, the pope would produce an army for a new Crusade against the Muslims.

The army was formed and fought valiantly for a year before suffering a major loss at Varna. The Greeks went home and refused to accept the theological changes. But Eugene was able to negotiate with the Armenians, the Jacobites and the Nestorians over the next few years to win them over.

The remnant of the Basel Council went into schism, suspended Eugene and elected the Duke of Savoy as the new pope. He took the name Felix. No one accepted him and after a few years, he retired to his castle.

One of Eugene’s later successes was a treaty with Alfonso of Aragon, who became King of Naples. In September 1443, he triumphantly returned to Rome after ten years. He spent his last years repairing Rome and consolidating his spiritual authority in Europe. He had no luck with France but did have limited success with Germany just before his death.

Unfortunately, Pope Eugene was the one who ordered the beginning of Jewish ghettos and identifying symbols they had to wear.