The Second Council of Lyon

Gregory X opened the council in the cathedral of Lyon in May 1274 and named three matters: help for the Holy Land, the union of the Greeks and the reform of morals (Second Council of Lyon, Brief Record (Brevis nota) cols 61–63). Before the second session he obtained from the bishops, province by province, a tenth of church revenues for six years (Second Council of Lyon, Brief Record (Brevis nota) cols 63–64).

On 24 June envoys of the Greek emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos, arrived with letters under a golden seal and declared that they came to full obedience to the Roman church and to acknowledge its faith and primacy. On the feast of Peter and Paul the pope sang mass, Bonaventure preached, and the creed was sung in Latin and in Greek, the words “who proceeds from the Father and the Son” three times (Second Council of Lyon, Brief Record (Brevis nota) cols 64–65). At the fourth session, on 6 July, the letters of the emperor, his son and the Greek bishops were read, and an envoy, the logothete, swore on the emperor’s soul to hold the faith of the Roman church. The pope intoned the Te Deum in tears (Second Council of Lyon, Brief Record (Brevis nota) cols 65–66).

The emperor’s letter repeats a confession that the pope’s envoys had brought him. It confesses the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son (Michael VIII, Profession of Faith (1274) cols 69–72), and the Roman church as holding the supreme and full primacy over the whole church, with the right to define questions of faith (Michael VIII, Profession of Faith (1274) cols 71–72). It ends with a request that the Greek church may say the creed as it did before the schism and keep its rites (Michael VIII, Profession of Faith (1274) cols 73–74).

Of the council’s constitutions, the first professes that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, as from one principle and by one spiration, and condemns those who deny it or who say that the Spirit proceeds as from two principles (Second Council of Lyon, constitution 1 (Fideli ac devota)). The second orders that ten days after a pope’s death the cardinals be shut in one room; if they have not chosen within three days they are to have one dish at each meal, and after five more only bread, wine and water. It leaves in force what Alexander III had laid down for papal elections (Third Lateran Council) (Second Council of Lyon, constitution 2 (Ubi periculum)). Bonaventure died at Lyon on 15 July, two days before the council closed (Second Council of Lyon, Brief Record (Brevis nota) cols 67–68).

The Greek historian Pachymeres tells how the union was made at home. The emperor argued to his clergy that it came to three things, the pope’s primacy, appeal to him and his commemoration in the liturgy, each empty in practice; some answered that the third could not be granted to men who had tampered with the creed (Pachymeres, History, Michael 5.18, pp. 386–390). He swore in a sealed document that no one would be made to add an iota to the creed, and exiled those who would not sign (Pachymeres, History, Michael 5.20, p. 395). When the envoys returned the bishops declared the patriarch’s see vacant, since he had sworn never to accept the peace, and the pope was named in the liturgy (Pachymeres, History, Michael 5.21–22, pp. 398–399). After Michael’s death his son Andronikos asked pardon of the union’s opponents, and they had the great church purified and the unionist clergy punished (Pachymeres, History, Andronikos 1.2–7, pp. 14–22). A statement of faith issued under the patriarch Gregory of Cyprus rejected the peace lately made, as having brought enmity with God and, under the pretence of accommodation, torn the church apart (Tomos of 1285 cols 235–236). It taught that the Father is the only source and only cause of the Godhead and that the Spirit has existence from the Father; “through the Son”, where saints say it, means the Spirit’s eternal manifestation, not its coming into being (Tomos of 1285 cols 241–242).

The First Vatican Council quoted the profession’s words on the Roman primacy as what the Greeks professed “with the approval of the Second Council of Lyons” (First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus chapter 4). A joint Orthodox and Catholic statement of 2003 says that the union was never received by the clergy and faithful of the East, and recommends that the Catholic Church declare the condemnation of 1274 no longer applicable (Orthodox–Catholic Consultation, The Filioque (2003) II. Historical Considerations; IV. Recommendations).