The Catholic Church and Absolutism of 17th and 18th Century

Abstract

In the 16th century after successful Protestant Reformation the new map of division of the Christian world into Catholics and members of various protestant denominations was formed. Although rights of the Catholics were primarily restricted in protestant lands, Catholicism was losing its strong position of the previous centuries also in the Catholic states. Right in these states the theories of supreme absolutist power of monarch were increasingly enforced that did not accept restriction of his rights even on the part of the religious representatives, not excluding Pope. Along with them the ideas of state ecclesiasticism based on the premise that sovereign is above religion and may freely interfere with the matters of “his” particular church were formed. These processes found its reflection also in the Catholic Church that had to resign and retreat to the secular sovereigns, looking for new modi vivendi with them. The main goal of the article is to point out the development and implementing of the absolutism in the states of Modern era, introduce the main theories of state ecclesiasticism manifesting in various impacts to the internal church matters and to present the reaction of the Catholic Church to it.