EUGENIUS, fi-jrni-iis, the name of four popes. The first, Saint Eugenius, was elected 654; d. 657. EUGENIUS II occupied the Roman See from 824 to 827. His election was contested by a powerful faction in the city who favored Cincinnus (Zinzinnus) ; and Lothaire, son of Louis le Debonnaire, who shared the empire with his father, came to Rome to quell the dis turbance. On this occasion the people and clergy of Rome took the oath of fidelity to the two emperors and promised that thereafter when ever a new pope succeeded he should, before his consecration, take oath in presence of the people and the emperor's representative to honor the emperor as the protector of the Church. The Pope was the first to take this oath; its terms were complied with at the two papal elections next following, for example, of Valentius who filled the see three months and of Gregory IV. EUGENIUS III: b. Pisa; d. Tivoli, 7 June 1153. He was a Cistercian abbot and a close friend of Saint Bernard of Clair vaux and was elected 1145. Before his conse cration the populace of Rome, led by Arnold of Brescia, effected a revolution and over turned the papal government; during a reign of a little more than eight years Eugenius was most of the time in exile, living at Viterbo, Siena and other places in Italy and in France. Emeritus IV: b. Venice 1383; d. Rome, 23 Feb. 1447. He was a Celestine monk, cardinal and bishop of Siena when he was elected successor to Martin V 1431. On 23 July 1431 was opened the Council of Basel, convoked by his predeces sor; but not one bishop was present for the opening, only theologians, abbots and canons.
On 12 November the Pope ordered the council to be dissolved and convoked another council to be held in 1433 at Bologna; but the fathers of the council of Basel continued to hold their ses sions; throughout his reign the Pope was in conflict with the council. From first to last the council sought primarily and almost exclusively to curb the authority of the Roman See, and in consequence there passed between Rome and Basel a succession of bulls ordering the disso lution of the council, annulling its acts, anathe matizing its members; and from the other side decrees of the council declaring that general assembly of the Church to be superior in au thority to the Pope, and finally a decree pro claiming Eugenius deposed and setting up as Pope, Amedeo, Duke of Savoy, who assumed the style Felix V. This was the act of the council in its 35th session held 8 July 1439. At the same date there was assembled at Florence, at the call of Eugenius, a council attended by 160 Latin and some 20 Greek bishops, with the Emperor John Palwologus; at this council a reconciliation was effected between the Eastern and Western churches; but it stood only till its terms and conditions became known in the East, when it was repudiated by the Greek Church. The cause of the rival Pope Felix was at this time fatally weakened by the withdrawal by the emperor Sigismund of his support and by his declaring for Eugenius.